By Steve DiMiceli
Late night in Greentree thanks to a double OT victory for Derrick Colter's GNC. Because I'd like to go to bed sometime tonight, I'm going to be brief.
Game 1
I'm going to start by giving a lot of credit to a couple of Robert Morris players. Freshman SF Jeremiah Worthen impressed me tonight. He handles the ball well and has excellent body control. Anthony Myers-Pate has never really blown me away but I like what I've seen from him this summer. I think he has the potential to be a solid but not spectacular PG for them.
The Lairs' Duquesne players arrived a little late for their game and missed warm ups.
Ovie Soko - Ovie flirted with a 20-20 tonight going 20-18. He absolutely had his way on the glass against Worthen and Pitt's freshman Mike Young. Ovie just looked stronger than everyone else and if his play at the Pro Am is any indication, he can do it all offensively.
LG Gill - Gill played for SPK tonight and he was the only Duquesne player to shot well early hitting a long two right out of the gate. He showed off a little more of his interior game and tried a drive against Soko that came up short before getting his own put back. At this point he is still more of a catch and shoot player.
Inevitably, he's going to get compared to Quevyn Winters and here are my thoughts. Winters is better now, but Gill has more upside. I can't say this for sure, but I think Gill might be a better shooter already. Gill's career outcomes range from mediocre to great and where he falls in that range is probably contigient on developing the ability to take on defenders. If he does, he'll be an elite A-10 small forward. If he does not, he'll be a grittier Luke Fabrizius.
Jeremiah Jones - Really struggled in the first before coming on to start the second. Finished with 11 scoring in a variety of ways. Played strong defense for stretches in the second before he tired.
Desmond Ridenour - Super smooth and lighting quick, he makes handling the basketball look really easy. I don't think it's just the bad defense either. His head and upper body are steady when he dribbles and his back is always straight with the ball staying in tight. Again, it's hard to tell how good a guy is but from form alone, I think he should be good in that department and could be the extra late game ball handler they so desperately needed last year. The rest of his package looks raw. Finishing isn't there.
Game 2
This was my first look at GNC and the new bigs Darius Lewis and Jordan Robinson. In double OT they beat Talib Zanna and PGT team that looked like it would run away with the league.
Derrick Colter - I had Colter with 29 points and 6 assists. His summer shooting woes seem to have straightened themselves out as he went 5 of 8 from three and buried a couple of long twos. He also finished well on some strong drives. In the second, he got sloppier as the defense tightened. Ultimately, he was the key player for GNC when he tied the game with a made layup and a foul at the end of regulation. He missed the ensuing free throw to win the game, but atoned for it with at least 10 points in the overtime period. 6:3 assist to turnover ratio tonight.
Jordan Robinson - Holy Crap! A big man who can catch the ball!
Robinson created more for himself tonight than I would've expected him to while displaying decent footwork in the post. He went double - double and really could have had more than the 16 points he scored had one or two misses not fallen off. I don't think he took a single bad shot. He looks like a dark horse to start.
Jerry Jones - Started the game on fire, but disappeared in the second. He looked very sharp in warm ups. Not that that means a whole lot but I can really tell he's been working on his shooting. He handled the basketball more than I've ever seen him.
Darrius Lewis - I see a real diamond in the rough. I don't see a ton in his game right now, but compared to some other post players we've brought in recently there were some strengths in Lewis that others lacked:
1) He stayed where he was supposed to stay.
2) He kept his hands up when going for rebounds (even if he brought them down too quickly)
3) He was always in the play at both ends
4) He was willing to assert himself and didn't shy away from the play.
5) He has soft hands around the basket.
He was credited with 5 points officially, but I had him with 10. There was a questionable tip in that must have gone to Robinson. Can't account for the rest of discrepancy. All in all, he is extremely raw but there are some tools to work with. As has been discussed, I think he is a great candidate to redshirt and he has a chance to be a hand full in the post by the time he's a fourth year junior. Defensively, he contained Zanna for about 10-15 minutes until the Pitt senior figured out how to attack him.
So I guess it wasn't that brief. By the way, Wednesday night will be at Montour High School in case you were planning to attend.
