we are assured that “the best players play.”
we hear incessantly from the professional “talent scouts” (sic) who “evaluate” players and then rank them, recruit them, and pay them.
if these things are true, and these so-called scouts know what they’re doing, why do they make so many mistakes in their evaluation process?
here are three quick, but notable, examples of obviously gifted basketball players who “somehow” the “experts” missed:
Marquette junior Tyler Kolek is the best point guard in the nation. period. the Big East conference Player of the Year and unanimously voted first-team all-conference junior leads the conference and ranks second in the nation in assists per game at 7.9, and his 3.37 assists-to-turnover ratio is fourth in the country. he also averages 12.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game.
and the dude is clutch. down the stretch of the conference season, the 6-foot-3 floor general carried his (otherwise all black) team on his back, finishing with three straight double-doubles, hit two game-clinching shots in the final minute against Creighton, and scoring 15 of his team’s last 16 points against DePaul.
he has led Marquette to their highest ranking in 45 years and their first-ever outright conference championship.
and he has done all this despite not receiving a single Power 5 or Big East scholarship offer coming out of high school. in fact, he wouldn’t even be playing for Marquette if his head coach at George Mason (where Kolek was conference Rookie of the Year as a freshman) hadn’t been fired. that’s what prompted Kolek to enter the transfer portal.
for “some reason” Kolek’s obvious abilities were missed. “weird,” huh?
similarly, 6-foot-11 North Dakota State junior Grant Nelson was “missed” by all the power programs. in fact, the unicorn (as his coach calls him) only had 2 Division One scholarship offers coming out of high school, but now he’s considered a potential draft pick in the NBA. interesting ...
a first-team and all-Defensive Summit League performer, Nelson led NDSU in points (19.9 ppg), rebounds (9.8 rpg), assists (2.4 apg), blocks (1.7 bpg) and steals (1.1 spg). he also led his team in field goal percentage (52.1%) and led the conference in both rebounds and double-doubles (8).
for “some reason” the “experts” missed on Nelson, too. “weird,” huh?
those same people claimed Branson Podziemski was a legitimate talent ... but “for some reason” the 4-star recruit who was the first-ever player in Wisconsin high school history to score over 2,000 points in just three varsity seasons never fit in with “the culture” at Illinois ... he couldn’t get off the bench no matter what he did, so he transferred.
now the 6-foot-5 sharp shooting sophomore is 1) the West Coast Conference Newcomer of the Year, 2) first-team all-conference, and 3) conference co-Player of the Year.
Podziemski is the first Bronco to win WCC Player of the Year honors since John Bryant captured the award in 2008-09. the Illinois transfer ranks third in the conference at an average of 19.9 points per game (and is second in league play with a mark of 21.4 ppg). and, despite his supposed “lack of athleticism,” he is the WCC leader in rebounding with 8.9 boards per game in conference play! in fact, he leads the WCC in double-doubles with 12, including 4 straight to end the regular season.
just imagine what he could do if he had some athletic ability ...
the left handed lead guard is not just a scorer; he is also averaging 3.4 assists and 1.7 steals while shooting an impressive 48.6 percent from the field and 44.5 percent from beyond the arc.
what kind of coach creates a culture that wouldn’t want a player like that?
what do all these athletes have in common that has caused them to be “overlooked” by the “experts?” if i could only find a pattern ...
www.espn.com
