Portsmouth Invitational Tournament: Day Two April 5, 2007 Neal broke out and showed his scoring prowess during his second game of the PIT. His shot from three point range didn’t fall with tremendous accuracy, but just about everything he put up looked good. Neal had a number of creative drives inside where he used a solid dribble and good lateral moves to get to where he wanted on the floor. Neal created his angles to the basket with good effect, not over-committing to a drive and putting himself in traffic or too far toward the baseline. He had several drives that displayed his ability to absorb some contact from larger opponents while maintaining the balance and finish needed to put his shot in up off the glass.
Neal’s jump shot was consistent in release and body form regardless of shot type. His set shots were fundamental and smooth, but his ability to move in any direction and still maintain control was impressive. He’s got good core strength which helps him to maintain control when moving and there is no wasted motion in his quick release.
Defensively Neal really needs to apply himself more because he’s got the body to be a physical and disruptive defender but hasn’t shown the desire to apply himself. There was one play when his bench was up and barking at him to pressure the ball handler and when Neal did this he was able to move his feet and use his hands to disrupt his opponents dribble. More of this type of effort and intensity will be vital for a shooting guard of his diminutive stature. [Read Full Article]
NCAA Weekly Performers, 1/30/07-- Part One January 31, 2007 Currently the 3rd leading scorer in the country at 26 points a game, Gary Neal is a player who is very much deserving of at least a mention on this site. Playing in a fairly strong conference as far as mid-majors go (the Colonial—which sent George Mason to the Final Four last year), his numbers are legit when looking at the way he scores them, on tape at least.
Neal has decent, but not great size for the NBA shooting guard position, standing right around 6-4 and with a pretty good build. He doesn’t have a great wingspan, but is athletic enough to play in the NBA. He is a very fluid player who moves effortlessly on the court, possessing a solid first step, good quickness, and the ability to create separation from defenders with the way he gets off the floor in the mid-range area. Not terribly explosive vertically, he seems to prefer pulling-up off the dribble rather than slashing all the way to the basket and finishing strong.
This is exactly Neal’s best attribute as far as the NBA is concerned -- his mid-range game. He is very much adept at finding spaces within his team’s half-court offense to get his shot off, and is excellent at pulling up sharply and creating quick separation from defenders for a variety of tough jumpers from 18-20 feet out, contorting his body thanks to his strength and sometimes using the glass to his advantage. Although his numbers from 3-point range aren’t fantastic-- 32.6% on the year-- he appears to be a very good shooter who will certainly be able to knock down shots at a good rate at the next level once he has the benefit or true spacing on the floor, not to mention man to man coverage rather than an entire team defense geared almost solely towards stopping him. Once Neal gets his feet set, he is extremely dangerous, possessing excellent shooting mechanics and range that extends well beyond the 3-point line. In the game against Delaware in particular, he hit a couple of open shots from 25-30 feet out, and looked extremely smooth and effortless doing so.
The reason Neal’s percentages suffer are two-fold. For one, he plays for a very average team (5-6 in the CAA, 11-11 overall) and therefore draws an excessive amount of attention from opposing defenses. Even more so, though, his shot-selection is pretty poor, having a tendency to rely too much on his perimeter jumper, forcing the issue excessively, and taking contested shots early in possessions with multiple hands in his face. He’s getting better in this area as the season moves along, as indicated by his rising assist totals (9 for example just last week against UNC-Wilmington), but this is still very much a concern as it often is with high-volume scorers at the mid-major level. His court vision seems to be pretty solid, particularly off the dribble (he even gets some minutes at the point on occasion), but his decision making is still lacking all too often.
The fact remains, though, that Neal is capable of hitting some really difficult off-balance shots, especially coming off screens where he has a second to get his feet set and release a clean look. One problem we noticed on tape is that he doesn’t have a particularly quick release, so there are question marks about his ability to get his shot off against bigger and more athletic defenders—the kind the NBA is known for at the 2-guard position. This is something he’ll have to show starting at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament (all-seniors camp held in April) and if he does well there, then at the Orlando pre-draft camp in June and in NBA workouts.
In terms of his ball-handling and slashing ability, we should note that he averages about 8 free throw attempts per game, but only had 6 free throws total in the two games we saw him participating in, meaning he’s likely better in this area than he looked in the games we saw on tape. It’s quite clear that he is much better going left than he is right, but we’re eager to see him in person to get a better read on just how advanced his slashing ability is.
Defensively, we can’t say that Neal is anything more than average. He doesn’t seem to put that much effort into this part of his game, letting less athletic players blow right by him apathetically all too often, especially following possessions where he wasn’t the one who ended up shooting the ball. His body language in particular can look very concerning at times, hanging his head a bit when things don’t go exactly his way, and visibly pouting when a teammate dares to look him off and deny him a touch. It’s possible that we just caught him in some bad moments compared with the way he usually plays, so this is another thing we’ll be looking at when we inevitably see him in early April in Portsmouth. [Read Full Article]
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