Mardy Collins and Temple are back on track behind two excellent offensive explosions; Terrell Everett dominates in front of a horde of scouts at just the right moment for him and OU; Brandon Rush becomes more assertive and continues to establish himself as one of the most gifted offensive players in the country regardless of age; Chris Quinn makes us wonder why he was playing the 2-guard spot for three years next to Chris Thomas at Notre Dame; Richard Hendrix capitalizes on Alabama's injuries to show why he was one of the most highly touted recruits in the nation; Michael Southall is looking for another chance to get his name back on the NBA radar; and Carl Krauser gets a well deserved mention for unexpectedly leading Pitt to the top of the Big East.
Mardy Collins, 6-6, point guard, senior, Temple
2 Games Combined: 53 points, 11 rebounds, 17 assists, 3 turnovers, 8 steals, 16-36 FG, 4-12 3P, 17-24 FT
Jonathan Givony
One of the more interesting developments this past week was the resurgence of Temple point guard Mardy Collins. Not only did Collins have by far his best statistical outbursts of the season this past week, he also helped his team to two huge home wins over Xavier and Maryland that put his team right back in the picture for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament.
What makes his performances this week even more intriguing was the fact that it came right after Temples worst game of the season last Saturday, an embarrassing 60-34 loss to conference rivals UMass, one of the most dismal offensive scoring outings weve seen from any major team in the NCAA this year. The biggest questions about Collins pro potential often revolved around the fact that he plays for possibly the worst system in college basketball for putting up numbers and displaying NBA caliber skills. Its difficult to project how a player will perform in an NBA system when his college team plays a style that couldnt possibly be any different from how NBA teams play.
John Chaneys Temple team has always been known as a grind it out team that plays an extremely active matchup zone that forces its rivals to wear down the entire shot-clock and then grind it out defensively just as much on the other end of the floor as well. Temple is consistently the team that averages the fewest amount of turnovers in Division 1 basketball (under 8 per game this season) and the paltry amount of offensive possessions his team accumulates, exaggerated ball-movement and lack of one on one shot-creating opportunities is the main reason for that. Collins is the one who is constantly forced to heave up low percentage shots at the end of possessions with the shot-clock running out, and therefore sees his field goal percentages suffer.
Since the loss to UMass, Temple appears to have made some interesting adjustments to their offense and have responded by putting up 172 points in the next two games. Temple can go through four games without accumulating that many points, which obviously limits the amount of assists and points that Collins can amass statistically. Put him on an up-tempo scoring team like Washington or Memphis and hed have at least 50% more offensive possessions to rack up stats. Temple averages for example half the assists Washington does and 25 less points .
All that changed against Xavier and Maryland, with Chaney tinkering with the system and allowing a lot more offensive freedom and Collins in turn responding by showing us the versatile player oozing with NBA potential that we envisioned when we wrote about him in his scouting report a year ago.
Collins is an extremely big point guard who is almost as pure a playmaker as youll find in this draft. He is a solid, but unspectacular athlete who gets by on the floor thanks to his terrific basketball instincts, ball-handling skills, fluid style of play, toughness, excellent footwork and aggressiveness. He runs a team with terrific poise, using his height to see the entire floor, being patient and extremely unselfish and showing an outstanding feel for the game. His defensive ability makes him an especially intriguing prospect since it looks like he should be able to hold his own in the NBA even guarding quicker point guards; as his footwork and lateral quickness are outstanding, and he is a true ball hawk with excellent hands and anticipation skills. Offensively, he gets into the lane creatively using his footwork, strong crossovers and plenty of savvy little tricks to get his man off-balance and blow right by him. In the Maryland game he was outstanding in transition and showed a nice back to the basket game when they decided to put a smaller guard on him, further expanding the theory that this is a player that will be a much better pro than he is a college player.
In terms of his NBA potential you would like to see him become a better shooter (his release is awfully slow) to really be a legit lottery prospect, but its hard not to think that there isnt going to be at least one NBA coach (maybe Phil Jackson?) who will absolutely fall in love with his potential as a tall point guard and will tell his GM to do what it takes to get him. From a pure tactical perspective there are just too many things you can do with his versatility on both ends of the floor to not take him seriously.
What makes his performances this week even more intriguing was the fact that it came right after Temples worst game of the season last Saturday, an embarrassing 60-34 loss to conference rivals UMass, one of the most dismal offensive scoring outings weve seen from any major team in the NCAA this year. The biggest questions about Collins pro potential often revolved around the fact that he plays for possibly the worst system in college basketball for putting up numbers and displaying NBA caliber skills. Its difficult to project how a player will perform in an NBA system when his college team plays a style that couldnt possibly be any different from how NBA teams play.
John Chaneys Temple team has always been known as a grind it out team that plays an extremely active matchup zone that forces its rivals to wear down the entire shot-clock and then grind it out defensively just as much on the other end of the floor as well. Temple is consistently the team that averages the fewest amount of turnovers in Division 1 basketball (under 8 per game this season) and the paltry amount of offensive possessions his team accumulates, exaggerated ball-movement and lack of one on one shot-creating opportunities is the main reason for that. Collins is the one who is constantly forced to heave up low percentage shots at the end of possessions with the shot-clock running out, and therefore sees his field goal percentages suffer.
Since the loss to UMass, Temple appears to have made some interesting adjustments to their offense and have responded by putting up 172 points in the next two games. Temple can go through four games without accumulating that many points, which obviously limits the amount of assists and points that Collins can amass statistically. Put him on an up-tempo scoring team like Washington or Memphis and hed have at least 50% more offensive possessions to rack up stats. Temple averages for example half the assists Washington does and 25 less points .
All that changed against Xavier and Maryland, with Chaney tinkering with the system and allowing a lot more offensive freedom and Collins in turn responding by showing us the versatile player oozing with NBA potential that we envisioned when we wrote about him in his scouting report a year ago.
Collins is an extremely big point guard who is almost as pure a playmaker as youll find in this draft. He is a solid, but unspectacular athlete who gets by on the floor thanks to his terrific basketball instincts, ball-handling skills, fluid style of play, toughness, excellent footwork and aggressiveness. He runs a team with terrific poise, using his height to see the entire floor, being patient and extremely unselfish and showing an outstanding feel for the game. His defensive ability makes him an especially intriguing prospect since it looks like he should be able to hold his own in the NBA even guarding quicker point guards; as his footwork and lateral quickness are outstanding, and he is a true ball hawk with excellent hands and anticipation skills. Offensively, he gets into the lane creatively using his footwork, strong crossovers and plenty of savvy little tricks to get his man off-balance and blow right by him. In the Maryland game he was outstanding in transition and showed a nice back to the basket game when they decided to put a smaller guard on him, further expanding the theory that this is a player that will be a much better pro than he is a college player.
In terms of his NBA potential you would like to see him become a better shooter (his release is awfully slow) to really be a legit lottery prospect, but its hard not to think that there isnt going to be at least one NBA coach (maybe Phil Jackson?) who will absolutely fall in love with his potential as a tall point guard and will tell his GM to do what it takes to get him. From a pure tactical perspective there are just too many things you can do with his versatility on both ends of the floor to not take him seriously.