Knight78
Well-Known Member
There’s no way to tell what he’ll do because he’s never played P5 talent on a big stage before. Playing on AAU and other all star teams, while impressive, isn’t the Real Deal Holyfield. I personally don’t think he’s going to be everything he’s cracked up to be. He’ll be a good player and best case scenario similar to Uthoff without the D. He’s not going to come in and be a shot stopper, he just doesn’t play that way. Dunking on outgunned 6’2” high school kids who won’t ever play college ball is one thing, shooting against the Bates-Diops of the world is a whole other deal altogether.
I've seen him play about a dozen games during his years as a starter here in Muscatine. He dunked over 6'2" athletes. He dunked over 6'8" athletes (both big guys from IC West). He shot the three with decent accuracy. He could dribble in a crowd as he was always double and often triple teamed by good athletes and managed to get to the rim. He caught passes I thought were surely out of bounds and he managed to bring the pass in and get a good shot off on the next hop.
DJ Carton has his hand at trying to stop him and I saw JW make him and the rest of the Bettendorf team look foolish on some of his moves both on offense and defense. I saw him play against IC West last year in the substate game and he pretty much took care of everyone IC West could throw at him including PM and CM. Not sure what you mean about not being a shot stopper as he played perimeter defense (from the zone most of the time as Muscatine was NOT a good team) and guys couldn't get shots off effectively against him; he also came from the weak side often to block shots by opposing teams' centers and forwards.
Yeah, it's a bit different in the Big 10 than in high school. But JW has the tools.