Adam on Rivals had an update on Hopkins- he almost notched a triple-double last Friday and, after a 41 point performance last night, has 75 in his last two games. Now if he could just improve on his 53% shooting from the line...
Unfortunately sound like he will fit right in on our team.
I have no clue how a coach who is so good at developing fundamentals in players and teams like Tad is cannot figure out how to get us at least decent from the line when it matters.
Hopkins did have 34pts last Friday(1/4/13). But he played not 1 but 3 games this past week (brutal) . He had 22 pts on Tuesday and was 50% from the line. He had 28 on Thursday. And the opponent coach's strategy was to foul Hopkins because of his free throw percentage. He missed two in the first half of the game. The game was tied with 2 minutes to go and Hopkins was fouled 4 times and hit all eight free throws straight to win the game by three. And in the game on Friday where he scored 41, he was 8 for 11 from the line. So in 1 weeks time, he scored 125 points.
What is up with ESPN? 6 months ago Jaron was ranked 46 in the top 100, now he is rated a 77 but is the number 1 player in AZ. I don't see the sense of it all. ESPN is sketchy at best.
I agree with Goose, I think the position change has a lot to do with it.
Had a chance to watch him some and his jumper has really improved. According to Maxpreps, he's shooting 40% from 3 point land and 55% from the field. In his last 5 or 6 games with the exception of 1 game, he shot 75% or better free throws. Should be a good fit.
Great info. Thanks.
My impression of J-Hop is that he's more of a Carlon Brown than a Cory Higgins. And that he's a much different player than Spencer.
After watching several highlight videos I was thinking Alec Burks. Alec was probably more explosive but Jaron's handles are more impressive.
Not a bad comparison. J-Hop rebounds well like Alec did too. I remember when Alec came in there was some confusion over where to play him. Bzdelik was thinking PG at first and then realized it was just better to play a 3-guard lineup and let Alec freewheel with a forward in no man's land trying to deal with him on the perimeter. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the same with J-Hop. A lot could be determined by whether J-Hop is above or below the magical 6'4" height measurement.
When he went down to UofA, there was article that came out that said Coach Miller took all of his measurements when they offered him and they measured him at a solid 6'5". That was last spring so he may have grown some since then.
Honestly, I'm wondering if it's the position "change". When he was ranked so highly, most of the places had him as a PG. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but big PG's tend to get a bit of a bump overall. Now that he's shifted to off-guard, I wonder if that got him slightly downgraded.
Must. Contain. Excitement. For. 2013-14.