soph slumps and frosh fire

F

Foval21

Well-Known Member
freshmen lately have come into ncaa and set it on fire with their ability and sophs then go through a slump. i think this could be what we see next year on our team.

frosh are coming in much more game and skill ready than in the past. this with the fact that there really is little scouting that can done on them allows them to really shine. now most still go through ups and downs but so do seniors so i am just putting that on growing pains.

many sophs have down years. this is due to the fact that after their good soph year they a) have more pressure on them (self inflicted or team/media/fan inflicted) and b) teams are more ready for them.

there are cases where this does and doesnt happen but i will go over that.

case 1) basabe - great frosh year and came in with huge expectations and fell flat. i feel he fits the above.

case 2) marble - doesnt seem to fit this. but i would say he didnt have a full breakout frosh year until late and then early soph yr continued it. to me that means next yr maybe a little down (hope not because he will be our most needed player).

case 3 & 4) may and gatens - both i believe had good frosh yrs and then didnt live up to soph billing.

case 5) mccabe - frosh yr was a struggle which allowed for a breakout this yr. more tape and understanding of his new role/game style from this yr could predict a less great jr yr (acting like his down soph yr).

predictions:
1) our frosh will come in and really play great and surprise a lot of people as they arent known in the college ranks outside of predicting ability.

2) white has a down yr next yr. i really enjoy his play but teams now have tape and will see what they have to do to neutralize him. he will have to add some things to his game to stop that from happening.

3) ogelsby has a solid yr. he hasnt been expected to do much and the attention put on marble and white along with the frosh will allow him to breakout like an unknown frosh. opening up the possibilty for a down jr yr.

this up frosh down soph yr has an easy way of being neutralized. have enough weapons that they cant focus on the main guy like they want to. i think we will be there in about 2 yrs. but for next yr i see it continuing. but because of it and the frosh coming in i feel that we see basabe back to his frosh form.
 
this is a posibility but May was hurt and set back, Basabe whether you want to believe it or not BUT he came in overweight which affected his conditioning, the press clipping played apart in this as i feel he felt like all he had to do was show up.
but in the end he really missed Cole in the middle as there was noone to help in the middle which made it easy for teams to dbl team him as well as game plan for him, Marble has his father to keep his head on straight and focused,
White came in with a personal trainer, he is too focused and is to much of a gym rat to go backward.
there will be more weapons on the floor for teams to concentrate on just one player
this will make this team better, as some of the past announcers have said there are 3 or more players on this team that can score 20 points or more in a game
 
herbyhawk said:
this is a posibility but May was hurt and set back, Basabe whether you want to believe it or not BUT he came in overweight which affected his conditioning, the press clipping played apart in this as i feel he felt like all he had to do was show up.
but in the end he really missed Cole in the middle as there was noone to help in the middle which made it easy for teams to dbl team him as well as game plan for him, Marble has his father to keep his head on straight and focused,
White came in with a personal trainer, he is too focused and is to much of a gym rat to go backward.
there will be more weapons on the floor for teams to concentrate on just one player
this will make this team better, as some of the past announcers have said there are 3 or more players on this team that can score 20 points or more in a game
Click to expand...

Basabe wasn't "overweight". He put on weight to get stronger, but it wasn't bad weight. His body fat % was as low, or lower than it ever had been before. He put on weight, but he was nowhere near out of shape.
 
lets put it this way the weight he put on was not the type of weight that his body could handle and it affected his play
 
So basically teenagers are unpredictable. Some have sophomore slumps, some don't. Some take a few years to break out, some shine early.
 
herbyhawk said:
this is a posibility but May was hurt and set back, Basabe whether you want to believe it or not BUT he came in overweight which affected his conditioning, the press clipping played apart in this as i feel he felt like all he had to do was show up.
but in the end he really missed Cole in the middle as there was noone to help in the middle which made it easy for teams to dbl team him as well as game plan for him, Marble has his father to keep his head on straight and focused,
White came in with a personal trainer, he is too focused and is to much of a gym rat to go backward.
there will be more weapons on the floor for teams to concentrate on just one player
this will make this team better, as some of the past announcers have said there are 3 or more players on this team that can score 20 points or more in a game
Click to expand...
muscle= wieght
 
this is about their soph yr. and it is not about who is or isnt a gym rat. gatens is a gym rat and he had a soph slump. the only one that didnt is marble. i dont think ogelsby will because i think next yr will be more like a frosh yr because of so little time this yr. white might pull a marble but i dont think he will. marble didnt have a soph slump because i dont think he was that good as a frosh so teams didnt look at him as the main guy. but he might have a jr slump instead. only the truly great dont have a slump yr. most of the time it happens in their soph yr. as has been shown by multiple hawkeye players.
 
Basabe had an up and down year last year, but when he was good, he was good enough to open people's eyes and raise their expectations for him. He may or may not be a consistent performer for us in the future, but luckily we are going to have enough weapons that we are not going to rely on him to carry the load.
 
I don't buy the line of logic where freshmen excel because the league hasn't seen them play and that sophomores slump because they are well known quantity. We live in the year 2012 and have DVRs. Every game is taped. Any Big Ten coach worth a grain of salt knew about White going into the BigTen season. They certainly knew about him after the Wisconsin game. I guarantee Penn State focused more on controlling White than Basabe. They aren't going to myopically focus more on Basabe just because he played well last season. In fact coaches are able adjust to good performances game by game. Defenses tightened up on McCabe after his back to back 20 point performance.

Nor does our own team produce any evidence of this phenomenon. McCabe and Marble have both improved as Sophomores. Gatens improved as well as a sophomore (points, rebounds, assists -- his shooting % went down but that was probably a result of having to force things more often). I don't think May can be classified as a sophomore slump as well because he is also having a junior slump. This seems to be a mixture of injury problems and confidence.

As for Basabe, Big Ten defenses should have started keying on him midway through the BigTen season last year but I don't remember a huge slowdown in production. Thus, something else is to the blame. Likely candidates: 1) the loss of Jarryd Cole 2) extra weight (even if it was muscle it could slow him down; there is a reason sprinters don't look like bodybuilders) 3) effort 4) confidence.

I think confidence is the most likely problem. Freshmen generally don't play with expectations. Sophomores are often required to carry more of the load. I think many people expected Basabe to carry our team. I think that combined with the fact that Basabe thought he needed to develop a jump shot to make it into the NBA messed up his game. Fran always focuses on how Basabe needs to play his own game.

As our team will be pretty deep and more veteran next year, I don't expect any of our Sophomores to get hit by the confidence bug. The most likely candidate would be Ogelsby as many posters here already expect him to replace Gatens production which is far too big a burden. In addition, confidence is especially problematic with three point shooters. I don't think White will have an off year as we are very deep at the 4 and he won't feel too much burden to carry the team.
 
Basabe was double figures in 12 of 18 regular season Big Ten games last year. 6 of those 12 were 19 or more points. 9 of 18 games he had 8 rebounds or more. So he can get it done.

Fran touted Mel's weight gain in the fall...so it wasn't something Mel added by eating potato chips. Fran has also said they had him shed some of that weight, because he felt it was not working for him.
 
though gatens scored more pts his soph yr he lost 5% pts on his fg % and 7% pts on his 3pt % from his frosh to soph yrs.

frosh - shot 42% from field and 40% from 3pt
soph - shot 37% from field and 33% from 3 pt

not to mention his free throw percentage went down.

mccabe struggled his frosh yr and is doing well this yr because last yr he was trying to play the same game he did in hs and it didnt work because he wasnt quick enough. he has revived his game by post, when he was a wing/post in hs.

marble as i have said before did something similar in not having an impressive frosh yr.

this is more about players that impress their frosh yr (gatens, basabe, may...white) and then struggling more the following yr. jucos a lot of times do well their jr and revert a little their sr yr.
 
Look, for every rule you can come up with (sophomores struggle unless they already struggled as freshmen unless that struggle was due to a lack of playing time unless...) there are going to be a hundred exceptions. The reality is that there is no such thing as a sophomore slump any more there is such a thing as a freshman slump, a junior slump, or a senior slump.

The reality is that it is very hard to play consistently well for four years. It's easy to expect it, as a fan, but there are hundreds of different reasons why guys could struggle for a season or a couple of months even when they were looking great the previous year. They might have a different role on the team or are being asked to do more. They might have a hard time playing starters minutes or coming off the bench if they weren't before. They might have broken up with their girlfriends or be struggling in school. They might have gotten into a weird shooting slump which then got into their heads and effected the rest of their games. This stuff happens-- it's going to happen to just about every college player at some point if they stay four years.

That said, it's silly to assume that a guy like Aaron White is destined to struggle next year just because he's playing well this year. Anything is possible, but if I had to guess I would think that his game is going to lend itself to consistency-- he is big but agile, plays hard, runs the floor, and really has an uncanny sense for how to score. I'm sure he'll go ice cold from 3 at some point (he's already only in the high 20s%), but I doubt he will go cold on putback dunks as long as he keeps playing hard. You compare that to a guy like Eric May, who did play well as a freshman on a horrible roster but didn't necessarily have a set of basketball skills he could bank on, and it isn't hard to imagine two very different career trajectories.
 
you play well when people dont expect much out of you (usually frosh yr). then struggle when more attention is put on them (usually soph yr) then you see how they adapt to it and that is when we see what they really are. white will get more attention next yr and i am sure putting a body on him and knocking him down a little will be a way that teams will try to stop the put backs. that was a big part of basabe's game and it has been slowed a little. slumps happen to most players and it usually happens their 2nd yr of major contribution.
 
btw i said they struggle because of more attention based off how well they played in the previous yr. to think he wont get more attention next yr and not expect them to have a harder time is ignorant.
 
Percentages or not, Foval, if Basabe's numbers were up as much as Gaten's sophomore numbers were up, we wouldn't even be having a conversation about sophomore slumps.
 
MisterLucky said:
Percentages or not, Foval, if Basabe's numbers were up as much as Gaten's sophomore numbers were up, we wouldn't even be having a conversation about sophomore slumps.
Click to expand...

he scored 2 more pts and had lower percentages in the 3 point scoring categories (fg%, 3pt%, ft%). bc is having a soph slump (2nd yr against this competition). may had one. basabe is having one. 4 seems like something that could be significant. we would know better if we hadnt had such mass defections during the lick yrs
 
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