Hugley and Davis..
- Thread starter CapelsCranberryz
- Start date
JRob was not average he was a four yr starter who needed to be surrounded by better players to truly
excel . He was a floor general and his shooting suffered from forcing up 3’s when the shot clock was
expiring . Average guys end up selling cars or insurance not playing overseas .
This. JRob was a really good point guard, just not a good scorer. You don't have to be a great scorer to be a great point guard.
lol you guys don't think K can recruit against UNC and Kentucky?
Players that have been offered by both Duke/UNC in the last 3 classes:
2020
Walker Kessler- UNC
DJ Steward- Duke
Jeremy Roach- Duke
2019
Wendell Moore- Duke
Matthew Hurt- Duke
Vernon Carey- Duke
2018
Zion Williamson- Duke
--------------------------------
Players that have been offered by both Duke/Kentucky in the last 3 classes:
2020
BJ Boston- Kentucky
Jalen Johnson- Duke
Jeremy Roach- Duke
2019:
Vernon Carey- Duke
Matthew Hurt- Duke
2018:
RJ Barrett- Duke
Zion Williamson- Duke
Cam Reddish- Duke
EJ Montgomery- Kentucky
---------------------------------------
I'll admit that I was surprised about Kessler. Did not see that coming. But it's not like Roy or Cal have been besting K on a consistent basis.
I never said that. Just saying it’s not easy for anyone, including Coach K.
JRob would have been an ideal 4 year back up on a good team.
As a starter he was minus defender, a minus shooter, a minus scorer.
He could effectively bring the ball up court and not take risks to avoid turnovers- that's about it.
He certainly wasn't an elite point guard but your characterization of him is way off. He was certainly better than what you are describing.
Completely disagree. He was better than you are giving him credit for. You can’t blame him for the recruiting failures of putting better players around him. He would have been very good in a role of as a floor general. Too much was needed from him in terms of creating points on his own.
K has offered 58 scholarships the past 4 seasons. That's a good 14-15 per season. Considering he's bringing in 4-6 recruits a year, I'd say that's an extraordinary yield. Certainly it's not as though he can just talk to a recruit a few times and expect a commitment. But K's clout is off the charts. The fact that he can zone in on just a few recruits each year and pickup about 1/3 of them is staggering.
Average.
Couldn't shoot
Couldn't score
Couldn't create offense or get guys open looks.
D was average.
He didn't turn it over and that's the only reason he is average and not below average.
Of course this is on paper. We won’t know how good any of these recruits actually are until they’re on campus. Automatically assuming RJ is gonna be better than a guy who led us to 3 NCAA tournaments seems dumb
I didn't say anything about other players on the team. Im talking exclusively about JRob's skillset and athleticism.
I use to predict a career night for the opposing PG if the that PG had above average athleticism- most of the time it was right.
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I think maybe J Rob was sort of our weird transition era point guard, between the old Pitt motion offense and the new typical pick and roll offense that requires a better finisher. He was a good point guard of the old school.
Gimme a break. Even on his best day JRob couldn’t wear Trey or X’s jockstrap. Totally a 6th man in a good program
No doubt those are solid aspects to JRob’s game but that being said only a pretend team would take him over X to start.
I never had a problem with Robinson, but X is turnover prone because he's been forced to try and do everything himself. You put X on a team with skilled scorers and he would even more outstanding. Point being, X is far superior to JRob in every way.
J Rob was Sean Miller, minus the 3 point shooting and plus better defense. Too bad he didn't get to play with the teammates Miller did.
I remember watching Pitt in person in the 2014 ACCT against UNC. I thought James Robinson looked really good in that game (Talib Zanna stood out as well). Was that game against UNC the best game of his career?
James was a pretty good player who was extraordinarily efficient, but was also only adequate at best as a creator. He could facilitate an offense very well, but simply could not get by anyone with the dribble.
So in the game you watched, the team was playing well, and James’ play made the whole team look even better (like Zanna that day).
But he simply was not the kind of player who had the explosiveness to get by almost anyone.
He was also an adequate but efficient shooter.
I should also add that he was a pretty clutch player too.
On a team with two or three explosive scorers, James’ style would have made that a great team.
I always thought that he could step into any great team and run their offense without them missing a beat . There are very few guys that have everything and since it is a team game you don’t need everyone on the court to be great at everything . I’d take a JRob type player on my team every year .
Why so? I believe @gary2 ’s assessment more or less acknowledges that Sean Miller was the superior player. The difference in shooting the three is significant. But both were were more “facilitator” types more than “creator” types.
And Sean got to throw entry passes to guys like Smith, Lane and Shorter posting up.
Sean Miller is one of the most overrated Panthers, and James Robinson is one of the most underrated.
I’d take James Robinson starting on my team as long as the right players were around him.
But as an example, I don’t think James would have been quite as successful last year as Xavier was. James just didn’t have X’s ability to make things happen.
But as a point guard, Xavier would also need to demonstrate that he could compliment and improve a good team. Perhaps he can indeed do that, but we don’t know this yet. But X’s erratic style leaves the question as to whether he could.
I love X, but this is still a fair criticism of him at this point in his career at Pitt.
I really hesitate to dive into the same James Robinson debates it seems like we’ve been having for almost a decade now...but that said, I think James’ value as a point guard can be summarized as this: a Pitt team with Robinson running the point would have made the NCAA tournament very comfortably in 2016-17 - and might have won a game or two in the tournament - even with Kevin Stallings coaching them.
X’s creativity makes him a much better fit for Panthers as currently constructed .
Could you even imagine X playing for Paul Evans !
If you could go back in time and exchange X or JRob for Sean Miller JRob would be the better choice .
Hopefully this years team will have more options than X and Trey driving to the hoop and if their inside game improves it will be interesting to see how X’s game evolves .
Making better on court decisions combined with a slightly better outside shot will make X go in first round next June .
What's crazy is he was 4th in the ACC in A/G with a bad surrounding caste and many poor decisions.
His ceiling is high with experience and surrounding talent.
The 2 shouldn't be mentioned on the same message board let alone the same post. Miller was a very good college PG and a great 3 point shooter in an era where the 3 ball wasnt even a big part of the game. He was an offensive weapon. Robinson was average if I'm being nice.
Sean was surrounded by the greatest collection of talent in Pitt basketball history . Who are you going to guard Sean Miller or Charles Smith , Jerome Lane , Demetrius Gore , Jason Mathews , Brain Shorter , Rod Brooken and Bobby Martin ? I’m not saying Sean wasn’t a very good player , but he was one of least talented offensive player on those teams . His shot from the top of the key , which he was deadly at , was almost always uncontested . He averaged 10 ppg in his career and a lot those were FT which he never missed . That’s not exactly an offensive weapon and Pitt didn’t need him to be one . Unfortunately for him he had to play in the Evans era .
There’s no way to really compare the two because they played with such different surrounding cast , had Sean had to play with JRobs teams I doubt he’d have a better career , but I’d bet you had JRod played with Sean’s teammates his Pitt career would’ve been far better .
James Robinson struggled to create when he was surrounded by weapons... could you imagine what he would’ve looked like on last year’s team?
And as far as X’s erratic play, I just think it is a byproduct of what the team needed from him last year. Sure there were times he had some really bad, inexcusable TOs... but many times it was just the case where he was trying to make things happen because nobody else could/wanted to.
I’d like to think I’d take X on any Pitt team... could you imagine if he had multiple shooters to kick to, or a big who put anything he got his hands on in the hoop?
Sure he might average an extra turnover or 2 more per game than James Robinson did, but he’d create so many more plays than JRob ever did.
And this post isn’t meant as an attack at JRob. He was a good college player who starred in his role at Pitt and was an example of what made Pitt basketball Pitt basketball for a while there.
But to me, X vs JRob isn’t even a comparison.
What average PG couldn't have done the same thing?
That's not much of an endorsement. Any PG with Artis at the 3 would have been better than Artis at the 1.
