Deveroes Summer League

[david aka the TYZ]

Went and checked out some of the action this past Saturday. Not quite as exciting as last year, but still enjoyable. Hopefully we'll see Stephenson playing in this thing in a few weeks. X's transfer, Jordan Crawford, has a nice, deep shot and some incredible hops. Didn't show a lot in creating or going to the basket, but he looks like a good solid addition to the Muskies. To which I say -- CRAP! UC's new recruit -- Kirkpatrick didn't show much. Seems he likes to shoot outside. Don't think we have enough 2-3's that like to shoot. Should fit right in. Seriously though I can't see him stealing away minutes from Dixon, Bishop and Davis with Vaughn and Cashmere taking up the guard spots. And if Stephenson does come into the mix it wouldn't be a bad idea to redshirt him. One interesting note. Eugene Land is playing on the team with Yancey Gates and he looks like he's done nothing but lift weights and eat the past five years or so. He's shorter than Gates but could definatey handle his own in a scrap. Also seems like he wasn't too happy with Gates dogging it out on the court. Hopefully he gets in his face some. Gates could use that.

[PokerDude]

Anyone packin' heat?

[david aka the TYZ]

UPDATE

I've been the past two weeks. The overall talent/excitement is down from last year. Partly because they're only really two new players worth checking out. Was hoping to see Stephenson play yesterday. He was supposed to, but never showed up. Pretty good crowd on hand, there was definately a buzz about him. Lot of bandwagoners might be coming back on board. Still haven't seen Parker (the backup freshman PG) or Thomas who's out with an injury. But I must take my comments back about Kilpatrick. The first week he didn't show me much. Last week he was impressive and yesterday he was really impressive. He put on a shooting clinic. You can tell he knows how to score. He went something like 6-7 from 3-point range. He kept working off a screen and just popping them. Very nice to see. Larry Davis just lost a lot of his minutes. Bishop some too, although he'll be in there on defense. The announcer kept calling him Killa. Hopefully that nickname sticks. Biggie actually played the entire game yesterday, faced up against Yancey. He still looks awkward, but its good to see him play all 30 minutes. Had a better awareness around the basket (granted this is summer league and not the Big East). Hopefully he might can contribute some this year. I missed Saturday, but apparently Yancey got ejected after taking some NKU kid to school and the kid getting in his face about it. Good to see him show some aggression, although I never condone fighting. I missed the story, either he waved the Mutumbo finger in his face or the kid from NKU waved it in Yanceys and that's what he took offense to. Kind of sorry I missed that. Toyloy has looked really good. Last weekend he and Gates were matched up against each other. That was fun to watch. Toyloy definately didn't give anything up. Just wish he had better offensive moves. Dixon has looked good as well, but I said the same thing last year about him. Just need to see if all this translates when it counts. He has done a good job of attacking the rim. Something the Bearcats have been missing for years. We got the semis next weekend and the finals the following. Hopefully I'll make it down to both. I'll report my opinions for the three people who might read this and care.

[bearcat428]

yeah, i heard killer was hitting 3's like crazy, 3 in a row in 3 possesions at one point.

and i heard toyloy is HUGE, and his new nickname is "muscles". only guy capable of guarding gates there

[david aka the TYZ]

Originally Posted by bearcat428

yeah, i heard killer was hitting 3's like crazy, 3 in a row in 3 possesions at one point.

and i heard toyloy is HUGE, and his new nickname is "muscles". only guy capable of guarding gates there

Stroked them all too. Toyloy has gotten bigger. Again, I just wished he had more offensive moves. But hopefully he can replace Williams on the defensive end at least. He was underrated for his defense last year. We will miss that.

[bearcat428]

Originally Posted by david aka the TYZ

Stroked them all too. Toyloy has gotten bigger. Again, I just wished he had more offensive moves. But hopefully he can replace Williams on the defensive end at least. He was underrated for his defense last year. We will miss that.

i'm actually getting excited about this season....been a long time since that's happened. i think we have a shot at having both football and basketball in the top 25 this year, as long as stephenson pans out.

[david aka the TYZ]

Originally Posted by bearcat428

i'm actually getting excited about this season....been a long time since that's happened. i think we have a shot at having both football and basketball in the top 25 this year, as long as stephenson pans out.

Football will be interesting. There's no telling what our defense will be this year. At least most teams with any good offensive weapons from last year lost those guys. Unless we start the year off in the top 25, we might not be ranked this year. Opening the year at Rutgers will be tough. Then going to Oregon State in week 3. I hate to say it but I would be surprised to see us start off 3-0 this year. Basketball is definately a possibility. Especially if we perform well in Maui. If Stephenson does pan out there is a possibility we see the top ten at some point this year. Other players will have to step up though. They won't do it as a one man show.

[david aka the TYZ]

Semifinal action:

Went down this past weekend. Two good games. Both teams that won were down by about 10 with four minutes remaining. In the first game that's about the time Yancey decided to start playing. He ended up hitting three three's down the stretch and two free throws. Killa had a really good first half. He scored somewhere between 25-30 in the first half. He was draining shots. He only scored a few in the second half. Good to see them win. Look forward to Saturday's final.

The team with all the X players ended up losing to Jamaul Warren and the Cincinnati State crew. Don't know how this happened. They did have two solid players added to this team from two weeks ago when they trailed the same team by almost 40. Still shouldn't have been able to win though. ESPN's favorite boy Jordan Crawford got a T down the stretch after Warren stripped him of the ball and he complained to the refs. That a a missed free throw with less than ten soconds by Crawford ended up being the difference. Lyons from X also got T'd up for complaing to refs earlier in the game. Incidently he got T'd up two weeks ago for trying to start a fight with some scrub off this same team with his team up by 30. Can't imagine how he got kicked off Xavier's team last year. Crawford is definately a prima donna. The LeBron buzz won't help that. Will be interesting to see how these two players fit into X's style. As much as I hate X, I can respect that they don't tolerate that kind of stuff. I'm glad this team lost because honestly they would've easily beaten the UC team. They play with such speed and aggressiveness. Definately a streetball-type team. They would've run circles around the slower UC team. Especially with Yancey never coming off the floor. Would've been interesting to see how Killa and Dixon would play in an up and down game though. I think they would've held their own.

The final should be a good game. This Saturday at 2:30. Also will have a dunk contest at halftime (at least I assume it's at halftime).

[david aka the TYZ]

We got a treat for the finals. Stephenson showed up in uniform and played. He definately has the skills. It seems to be more streetball skills than anything, but being the Deveroes League he didn't need to showcase fundamentals. He has some insane quickness and some nasty fake moves. He plays VERY aggressively, which could be good and could be bad. Based on what I saw Saturday he wil stay in foul trouble. Everytime he was defended and drove into a player he swatted the defender's hand away. On defense he smothered the ball handler and swiped alot for the ball. Anyone who watches Big East basketball knows you can't get away with that. That and moving screens are the only two things they like to call. He also didn't seem to want to share the ball very much. When he got the ball, he put his head down and went to the rim. The good news is he got there every time. He also has a temper. He got into a shoving match with Heath White out of Cincy State after a soft foul in the lane (very similar to the video except he didn't throw the ball in the guys face. He later got a technical again getting into it with White. He had his shot blocked cleanly by a player out of Columbia at the end of the half and a half hour later when play resumed he immediately went after the guy and was swatting at him. I find this very discouraging. He needs to get that under control quickly. The good news is he can definately play, he is a definate scorer, and he gave 100% the entire game. Offense and defense.

Kilpatrick had an off game. Never really got into the flow. Dixon had a very good game. He picked up some cheap fouls and stayed in foul trouble and ended up fouling out. Gates played well. He was matched up against John Williamson who got the better of the duel. Unfortunately they didn't have enough to beat SI Poolcare. They were a completely different team than a few weeks ago when they got blown out a couple of times. Four of their five best players weren't on this team until two weeks ago. Williamson was a beast. Heath White had a good game. Basically they played as a team and the Slats team went one-on-one the whole game. They were able to score pretty much at will. They ended up with 101 points. Really good game though.