Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Beware the superstar

We always read about this phenom going here and that future Hall-of-Famer going there. Well, sometimes these kids turn out well and some aren't all they're blown up to be. Plus, there's also the element of just what a certain kid adds to a team, besides his stat sheet.

The proprietor of the NCAA Hoops Today site offered this nugget the other day -- an important point we often overlook or flat out fail to see.

NCAA Hoops Today
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Arizona at Houston


Every year this game promises to be an exciting up and down affair and every year it starts not so. This game was the crowning of Jerryd Bayless as an impact player, let alone an impact freshman.

Without Bayless Arizona looked like an NITish team, with Bayless in the line-up they looked like a good NCAA team. Bayless was a gift for Kevin O'Neill, because he has a player with similar mentality and toughness, which helps propagate and distribute the toughness throughout the team. And I'm not saying that just because he had a career high of 33 and "owned" the Houston defense for a good chunk of the game.

Unlike Bayless, Mayo does not have this type of an impact on his team, and that is perhaps the #1 lesson that OJ "Ooops, I'm not the next Michael Jordan" Mayo needs to learn.

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