Monday, August 15, 2011

Monday morning's WAC basketball news comin' at you

Jason Groves goes full length on the proposed APR uptick.

+++++

Dayton Morinaga reports that the Chinese basketball fans are embracing the UH hoops players.

+++++ 

Sportsbow is on a roll -- now he has the scoop of a Nebraska transfer heading Hawaii's way.

There are a lot of 'reports' out there on the newcomer -- here, here, here -- so make up your own mind.

In January 2008, Jonathan Givony/Draft Express offered this evaluation:

The best player the Germans had to offer, Standhardinger did a nice job showing off his value as a high-major collegiate prospect. Standhardinger is first and foremost a competitor, an extremely emotional player who feels the game and lives every moment of it. He’s a good athlete who is clearly most comfortable playing on the wing even though he’s 6-8, where he can knife his way through defenses creating his own shot with superb aggressiveness. Standhardinger wants the ball in his hands and will look to score every time down the floor if given the opportunity to do so: he has a good first step and an excellent understanding of angles to get the job done. He’s also extremely unorthodox, jumping off the wrong foot in typical European style, finishing craftily around the hoop, and knowing how to provoke the refs into making a call that favors his team (for example with a flop).

Standhardinger is a tough kid, not being afraid to hit the deck to go after a loose ball, and usually being in the middle of any scrum that goes on during the course of the game. He moves off the ball well and seems to have a nose for the rim. He clearly has nice size for the small forward position, even if he might lack the lateral quickness to guard that spot on the other end of the floor.

On the downside, Standhardinger has quite a few holes in his game that need to be polished up before he can reach anywhere near his full potential. For one, his left hand is non-existent, making him pretty predictable eventually with his slashing moves going right. His perimeter shot is not a weapon for him at all from what we saw, and he doesn’t seem to have a reliable pull-up jumper he can utilize to compensate for that. Defensively, his lateral quickness is pretty suspect as mentioned, so there is some concern that he might have to play the power forward position in college where he doesn’t quite fit either due to his underdeveloped post-up game. These are all correctable weaknesses, but it will take time and plenty of work until Standhardinger gets there. Still, his potential is pretty intriguing considering he manages to be so productive even despite his obvious limitations. His passion for the game should carry him pretty far in the meantime.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kevin,

Standhardinger only played in 6 games his sophomore year before quitting the team. Does he have to sit out the full year or just the first semester of games?

We had a similar case in Jace Tavita from Utah. He transferred out, but enrolled at Hawaii during the Spring Semester so he has to sit out games until January.

Thanks,
Kendall