Newkirk....

[thebadby2]

Highly recruited player....clearly (to most) has some talent, quickest guy we have.

Obviously after a promising rookie year, he struggled badly last season. Played with no confidence.

Does he become the player we need him to be next season? IMO, it's all mental for him. Everything else is there. If/when he plays with confidence, I think we'll like what we see. Jamie has to work on him with that.

For those advocating jettisoning him, consider this-he and Robinson are the only ball handlers on our roster. Wilson will hopefully be another one. Do you honestly think we'd be better off without Newk? Do you genuinely believe we can bring in better backcourt options at this point?

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Originally posted by thebadby2:
Highly recruited player....clearly (to most) has some talent, quickest guy we have.

Obviously after a promising rookie year, he struggled badly last season. Played with no confidence.

Does he become the player we need him to be next season? IMO, it's all mental for him. Everything else is there. If/when he plays with confidence, I think we'll like what we see. Jamie has to work on him with that.

For those advocating jettisoning him, consider this-he and Robinson are the only ball handlers on our roster. Wilson will hopefully be another one. Do you honestly think we'd be better off without Newk? Do you genuinely believe we can bring in better backcourt options at this point?

There's no possible way we can cut Newkirk now. We only have 10 scholarship players and there's not a lot of grad transfers out there better than Newkirk. We can't go into a season with only 10 players. You're a couple injuries and foul trouble away from playing with walk-ons. Jamie will bring in a couple bodies. Newkirk will not only have to stay, he'll play important minutes. And I dont believe he's as bad as what he showed at the end of last season. I dont think he's a real good player but he should be a capable ACC backup.

 

[vegasgreed]

how many acc offers did he have? went to high school spitting distance from unc, duke and nc state. if i'm not mistake none of those mentioned offered.

Originally posted by thebadby2:
Highly recruited player....clearly (to most) has some talent, quickest guy we have.

Obviously after a promising rookie year, he struggled badly last season. Played with no confidence.

Does he become the player we need him to be next season? IMO, it's all mental for him. Everything else is there. If/when he plays with confidence, I think we'll like what we see. Jamie has to work on him with that.

For those advocating jettisoning him, consider this-he and Robinson are the only ball handlers on our roster. Wilson will hopefully be another one. Do you honestly think we'd be better off without Newk? Do you genuinely believe we can bring in better backcourt options at this point?

 

[Scruffy the Panther]

You are mistaken. NC State offered.

I agree with OP for the most part. Has some talent, but clearly developed a mental block during ACC play this year. I missed it when his mental block was free-throws, and not everything else.

 

[mvk112]

http://247sports.com/Recruitment/Josh-Newkirk-11890/RecruitInterests

Ths lists offers from NC State and Georgia Tech from ACC teams. Also interest from UNC and Clemson but no offer. I think once Cat Barber accepted from NC State, they probably cooled on Newkirk.

Outside of the ACC, listed with offers are Memphis, Indiana, Xavier, Missouri, OK State, Arizona, and Tennessee. Not sure if these were committable offers from all of those schools, but there was heavy interest at least.

He was always a bit out of control, but played well and with confidence as a freshman. As a soph, he showed no confidence, and his game suffered accordingly. If he can regain the stroke he had as a freshman, he could see big minutes. Otherwise, Damon Wilson likely plays ahead of him.

 

[Jeffburgh]

He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

He just is not a strong enough shooter and not tall enough to be a non outside shooting 2G, but does not have point guard DNA.

IDK, the junior year seems to be when things come around for some of these guys, so you have to hope for the best.

Gotta hope Wilson is a baller and can be the back up PG for 10 minutes or so maybe Newkirk can find his game concentrating more on 2G.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

Originally posted by Jeffburgh:
He just is not a strong enough shooter and not tall enough to be a non outside shooting 2G, but does not have point guard DNA.

IDK, the junior year seems to be when things come around for some of these guys, so you have to hope for the best.

Gotta hope Wilson is a baller and can be the back up PG for 10 minutes or so maybe Newkirk can find his game concentrating more on 2G.

Before Johnson left, I really thought Newkirk was potentially the odd man out in the rotation. Wilson looks like more of a pure point to me than Newkirk, I think he's going to get the backup PG minutes unless Josh makes big strides.

 

[RoguePanther]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

For a guy with quicks, he sure looks lost on D a lot of the time. Why?

 

[Pittbaseball11]

He looks like a kid that wasn't coached particularly well in HS and could probably just overwhelm most of his opponents in HS with his athleticism defensively.

I don't know if either of those is true, but he's so poor with his positioning, rotations, and reads that I can't think of any other reason for him to be so bad.

 

[thebadby2]

He had plenty of good offers, including NCSU, Arizona, OKSU, Indiana, and Missouri. Duke and Carolina get the pick of the litter, it's no indictment of Newk that they didn't offer him. hell, when's the last time we had any player that either of those schools offered? The late 80s?

 

[thebadby2]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

He has PG DNA--he just needs to get his $hit together. Offensively, he lost his confidence. Defensively, he's lost--period, which is his real problem. I suspect that his defensive struggles have greatly affected his overall confidence level.

As a freshman, he had some moments where his offense really gave us a lift, especially down the end stretch of the season. Didn't he have a game where he made like 5 3s?

The tools are there. He needs to clean out the area between his ears.

 

[Scruffy the Panther]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

Yeah, he had 20 points and was 5/5 from three vs NC State at home. Of course, this was also the game where we let TJ Warren score 40 points against us.

 

[heybandguy]

I really want to see him succeed. He had a solid freshmen year, but looked so lost this past year.
I do agree with several of you about it being mental - the more things that went wrong he just couldn't seem to get past it. He was lost defensively in a number of situations - and if your quickest guy is lost on rotations and figuring out how to defend a screen...yikes...
BK is on the bench. As far as guards with some cache, gritt, and making the most of opportunities - he ranks right up there. I hope he can help Newkirk figure it out and turn it around in a big way.

 

[raleighpanther]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

He didn't play enough minutes to work his way out of the mental funk he was in.

Plenty of Pitt guards looked lost in their soph year, and became good players their last two years. Wannamaker and Woodall were two examples, so perhaps Josh turns the corner too next year.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

Re: He looks painfully like a 1 1/2

Originally posted by raleighpanther:
He didn't play enough minutes to work his way out of the mental funk he was in.

Plenty of Pitt guards looked lost in their soph year, and became good players their last two years. Wannamaker and Woodall were two examples, so perhaps Josh turns the corner too next year.

Completely disagree..

Josh was given probably the longest leash for an unproductive player I've EVER seen from Dixon.
He averaged nearly 21 MPG, which is comparable to Travon's second full year of PT.
Brad got about 19 MPG his sophmore year, which is pretty good since that was a much better team and he was much further down the list.

Newkirk is getting Gil Brown minutes as sophomore...he's just less effective

 

[Pghfan]

Are we sure he is even gonna be at Pitt next year?? Rumors swirling that pitt could have another open schollie..