1.)The Big East may have had more good teams in their league this year than any other year but none of those teams were dominant, only really good. To say it was the best conference in NCAA history is hyperbole at its best. Just think back to some of the ACC years over the last 15 years or some of the Big East's back in the 80's or the SEC's recently. They were easily better than this year's Big East. As a whole NCAA basketball competition isn't nearly as tough as it used to be because no one stays four years any longer.
I might give you some of the ACC leagues at the turn of the millenia. I would argue that the talent pool is wider than it was in the 80's, and so it becomes a similar argument to the "Was the NBA harder to win in the 50's or today" type of argument.
2.)There was zero chance of Matthews winning Big East Player of the Year this year with Thabeet in Connecticut having the year he did.
Not true, once Blair dominated Thabeet in the middle of the season it became a wide open race. Had Marquette not lost Dominic James (When he went out it was in the first half of a narrow loss to UCONN and they were a top-10 team) Matthews could easily have been Big East player of the year.
3.)Tony Allen played four years of college ball, same as Matthews, he just so happened to play two of those years in JUCO so he was just as experienced coming out of college.
There is a huge difference between playing two years of JuCo and two years in the Big 12, to playing 4 years in the Big East.
4.) I only mentioned Allen bringing his team to the Final Four because you mentioned he and West didn't play good competition. Well going to the Final Four or Elite Eight means you had to beat good competition to get there. Oklahoma State played and beat 9 out of the 10 ranked teams they played that year. I never said that NCAA Tournament success equaled NBA success. You misinterpreted my meaning and did all that research for nothing because that wasn't my intention.
Right, I didn't mean to say that their teams didn't play any good teams ever. What I meant was, that they never played a schedule as grueling as the Big East's. You mention 9-10 for Tony's Cowboys. I'd be interested to see how many aside from St.Joes and Pitt were ranked or were ranked as high when the regular season ended.
And "research", c'mon Nick. Wikipedia cut-and-paste.
5.) You say college accolades mean nothing when judging NBA talent and yet make most of your argument for Matthews by pointing out his college accolades and possible accolades if he wasn't injured.
I meant tournament accolades mean nothing. Also, accolades in a weak conference ( ala Tony and Delonte) don't guarantee success. Tony was player of the year in the Big 12 averaging 16 points per game. 16!
6.)Fact is you have not discussed what scouts and what coaches truly scrutinize and that is his game. And I'm sorry but his game is not to the point and probably will never be to the point of being good enough to impress Doc Rivers to give him meaningful minutes next year. He is an average to slightly below average ball handler, he doesn't have a good explosive first step on his drive to the basket, is an okay passer at best, is too small and doesn't have enough ups to be a SF and except for the latter 3/4s of his senior year was never a good outside shooter. His defense is college good but probably too slow to expect great NBA success on that end though he will be better than most SG's coming out of college defensively.
I understand all the negatives scouts have ascribed to him. But I think he drops for two reasons, in a weak draft people go for athleticism rather than brains, and two because I think he's a huge sleeper. I've watched him play for four years and he has never stopped making huge improvements.
C'mon Nicjk, everyone's allowed their binky.
Topic: More reasons to draft Wesley Matthews. (Read 9974 times)