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New Joe Toussaint video: "Meet the Freshman"

JBo and JoeT were ESPN 4* PGs. Not trying to say that means anything. But name the last 4* PG named by any recruiting rating service and signed by Iowa that didn’t start as a frosh.

Connor as mentioned above, but he took a medshirt and was behind (ESPN 4-star) Bohannon, who was an established starter. Also he's a 2-sport athlete. We'll see how big his role becomes this year.

How about this: When was the last time Iowa had this much talent and depth at the PG position?

2019: Toussaint, Connor, Evelyn
2020: Toussaint, Connor, Bohannon, Ulis

If Toussaint is the real deal, the sky's the limit. If he can just defend opposing PGs and be an effective distributor on offense, we're in good shape. But if he's a legit scoring threat on top of that... watch out.
 
Connor as mentioned above, but he took a medshirt and was behind (ESPN 4-star) Bohannon, who was an established starter. Also he's a 2-sport athlete. We'll see how big his role becomes this year.

How about this: When was the last time Iowa had this much talent and depth at the PG position?

2019: Toussaint, Connor, Evelyn
2020: Toussaint, Connor, Bohannon, Ulis

If Toussaint is the real deal, the sky's the limit. If he can just defend opposing PGs and be an effective distributor on offense, we're in good shape. But if he's a legit scoring threat on top of that... watch out.

Excellent post. I have made this point as well. Last year, we had one guy that could get by his man off the dribble, Wieskamp. It was pretty infrequent also. Now we have Toussaint, Evelyn and CJ Fredrick. Our offense will be MUCH more dynamic this year with those guys breaking down defenders and either (1) kicking out to shooters, (2) dumping off to bigs or (3) going to the rack. I am really excited about the upcoming season. I especially like the fact that we will be completely under the radar.
 
Excellent post. I have made this point as well. Last year, we had one guy that could get by his man off the dribble, Wieskamp. It was pretty infrequent also. Now we have Toussaint, Evelyn and CJ Fredrick. Our offense will be MUCH more dynamic this year with those guys breaking down defenders and either (1) kicking out to shooters, (2) dumping off to bigs or (3) going to the rack. I am really excited about the upcoming season. I especially like the fact that we will be completely under the radar.

Yep--We'll be more dynamic on offense and hopefully tougher on defense, too.

BTW, if you or anyone else has any info on how CJF is performing I'd love to hear it.
 
Yep--We'll be more dynamic on offense and hopefully tougher on defense, too.

BTW, if you or anyone else has any info on how CJF is performing I'd love to hear it.

While I cannot provide links to actual threads, another poster shared some comments a few months ago who had been to several practices. He said CJF is the real deal, quick off the dribble, good mid range game, can finish at the rim and has a quick trigger on 3's, good shooter. His weight is up from 170 to 190 so he should be strong too.
 
I always get a kick out of the red herrings and ad hominem attacks that result from those who refuse to comment honestly on my statement.

The onus isn’t on me. It’s on everyone else who thinks Toussaint will stay in IC for 4 years.
An honest rebuttal is that Joe knew what Iowa was when he committed. Is Iowa more white than Bronx? Of course it is and he still committed to Iowa. From all accounts both on this site and my friend who's son played with Joe this past year, Joe is a really good kid.
 
Honesty means our last three verbals are black.
.


If we can land the 3 more that we are in their top schools list, we will be headed to the promised land!

I really like our talent overall right now, and what we will have coming back in the next 2-3 years. Very solid base to build off of for the future... I think Fran has us set for the upper third of the B1G for years to come... Should be one heck of a good ride! Love it!

Go Hawks!
 
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I always get a kick out of the red herrings and ad hominem attacks that result from those who refuse to comment honestly on my statement.

The onus isn’t on me. It’s on everyone else who thinks Toussaint will stay in IC for 4 years.


Make wild claim without basis; tell everyone else they need to debunk it. Cite a bunch of backups, a grad transfer and a guy who just went pro after his junior year as evidence.
 
If all of the new guys at least meet expectations, we'll be fine. But there are a lot of question marks between Evelyn, Joe T., CJF, Patrick, Nunge and Cordell after a year off.... A lot of potential, but I can just as easily see things going very wrong. Let's say I'm cautiously optimistic.

Can the new guys hang in the Big Ten? Will Joe T. rise to the occasion, or will he struggle with turnovers? Will Patrick's size be a problem? How effective will Nunge be at the 4? Can CJF step in as consistent 3-point threat to complement Wieskamp? Is Evelyn fully healthy, and will he play more like he did his sophomore year?

Basically, we're looking at a brand-new team this coming season. Chemistry will be a big factor, especially on defense. Who will step up as team leaders? Will they have the mental toughness to respond to adversity?

Wieskamp and Garza will be the key pieces of this offense. But Garza struggled with his outside shot after his injury last season, and fouls were a problem. Plus he won't have an athletic freak of nature like Cook drawing the attention of the defense. Pemsl and Nunge are good players but they can't score at will in the post like Cook could.

And obviously there's the issue of the schedule, which will be tough. In the noncon we get Cincinnati in Chicago, Creighton and TTech/SDSU in Las Vegas, at Syracuse, at Iowa State... We're gonna see what this squad is made of pretty damn quick.
Not sure we know yet just what Nunge is capable of. He was misused as a freshman, and it effected his confidence. After sitting last year, and now playing where he should be as a stretch 4, and some in the post, all reports are that he has looked very good, and ready. We'll see, but I think he'll be the comeback surprise of the year for the Hawks....
 
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Since 2011, Iowa's lost to early departure Ingram, Dickerson, Dale Jones, Christian Williams, Wagner, Hutton, Moss, Dailey, and Cook.

That's about one a year, and you can take the public exit interviews for what they are--a PR dick dance, imo--and I'll read between the lines and assume this is likely systemic. Especially for a program that often runs 10-deep any given game.
So you have one guy who left early for the NBA, a couple of guys who had injury issues, and some guys who just weren't very good and weren't going to play much, OK??????
 
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During my semester at Iowa, why did all the black kids hang out together in virtually every circumstance? Don’t be naive.

Alan looks like a great player and I hope he sticks around, but the Bronx is the home of
hip hop and people who talk and look like him. I wonder why Vivian Stringer and George Raveling left.

George left 33 years ago. George was kind of a unique situation. George was specifically looking to remarry and even more specifically to a black woman in his age range. So the pickings were pretty thin in Johnson County. Obviously Roy Marble, Ed Horton, Kent Hill, Gerry Wright, Bill Jones, BJ Armstrong, Mike Morgan and Kevin Gamble didn't feel the need to follow George.

There have probably been ten times the number of black boys basketball players that have been recruited and played out their career at Iowa than transferred. Of those that transferred out the primary reason has obviously been playing time since Peterson, Moss and Fuller are the rare transfers that went to a comparable or better program than Iowa. In Isaiah's situation he's going to a graduate program that Iowa doesn't offer, which might have something to do with the transfer, or maybe just looking for a change of place for graduate school. You haven't spent much time in Lawrence if you think KU is more urban, by which I assume you really mean black, than Iowa City. Most have transferred down to lesser caliber leagues (Tony Freeman to SIU, Sommerville to Bradley, etc....) The idea that Joey T wouldn't know the ethnic composition the team and the campus, which is about as PC as it gets, when he committed really isn't giving the kid much credit as a person.

Vivian left because she was suing the U of I hospitals for malpractice relating to what I recall was a missed cancer diagnosis on her husband. The number of transfers out for the girls basketball team is probably even smaller than the boys.
 
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Anyone who knows me understands I can be a little pessimistic when it comes to Iowa hoops, but my intentions are good: I want everyone to stay all four years and win. I write in good faith.

The losses of some very good black players over the years, starting with Pierre Pierce (for very good reason) and ending with Moss (for irritating reasons), tend to stay with me. Like a lover spurned, you know. There was a somewhat prominent article posted by a young black woman explaining her difficult experiences at Iowa trying to assimilate socially, and I really felt for her. Then, recalling how segregated the campus seemed to me in 2001, I start to project, though my skepticism is certainly not based on nothing.
 
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Joe T. does not lack confidence in his abilities.

Do Not Like how he always "sets" the ball at/below his belt when receiving the pass before shooting. That extra 0.5s means a shot gets blocked.

Watch the good shooters (like Peter Jok) who catch it and get or keep the ball high for a much quicker release.

He's reinforcing a really really bad habit here. That's the difference between a "good" player and a "great" player in D1.

They should be working with him on keeping the ball higher and eliminating that pre-shooting motion glitch.
 
Anyone who knows me understands I can be a little pessimistic when it comes to Iowa hoops, but my intentions are good: I want everyone to stay all four years and win. I write in good faith.

The losses of some very good black players over the years, starting with Pierre Pierce (for very good reason) and ending with Moss (for irritating reasons), tend to stay with me. Like a lover spurned, you know. There was a somewhat prominent article posted by a young black woman explaining her difficult experiences at Iowa trying to assimilate socially, and I really felt for her. Then, recalling how segregated the campus seemed to me in 2001, I start to project, though my skepticism is certainly not based on nothing.

I think you're just reflecting the post modern racialization of nearly everything, particularly in the current climate of a truly infinite regression of grievance as the core of political thought.

Its hard not to because the racist screams have become incessant. Fight the urge to believe in that destructive belief structure. Think about two things.

First, why have the black kids that have transferred transferred? Other than the three I named can you think of anyone that left that didn't either transfer down or in cases like David Palmer out of major college ball. If everyone transferred down is there any rational reason to believe that whatever reasons the transfers give, or their twitter friends and family give, to believe that the issue is anything other than playing time? Its just self interest, which is the oldest and most common human motivation-and its not ethnically specific but universal.

Second, reflect on the actual kids. Pierre Pierce. Didn't feel racially comfortable because, strangely enough, the people in Iowa weren't down with his violent sexual assaults? Is there a place where violent sexual assaults are acceptable? Is sexual assault somehow acceptable because the assailant is black? Pierce's lawyer said stupid shit like "people don't understand the pressure's of being a black varsity basketball player"? Think through the monumental stupidity of that statement. Thousands of black varsity athletes spent four years at Iowa and weren't rapists so is "race" a reasonable explanation for Pierce's inability to function in Iowa City or his personal crimes? Yet PPs people were very quick to inject his race into the conversation.

For once I'm not trying to be a dick. I fear people your age, and much worse among the next generation behind yours, have racialism ingrained in your thought process by drilling a racial explanation into virtually every discussion of everything until people accept it as an actual factor in everything. One goal is to prevent people from thinking through the kind of utter bullshit PP's people were saying at the time of his arrests-plural. Hence, a normal guy in Iowa is thinking that there's some kind of racial implication in the relatively few black athletes that leave Iowa City before their eligibility expires. It may be playing time, and it may be academics but some sense of racial isolation is rarely, if ever, the actual explanation for a transfer.

"There was a somewhat prominent article posted by a young black woman explaining her difficult experiences at Iowa trying to assimilate socially, and I really felt for her." I don't know the article but again, think through the premise before you feel for her. Isn't she saying that she felt she couldn't assimilate socially, not the society into she could not assimilate telling her she couldn't belong. If that article is anything like the thousands of others written of a similar nature the goal is specifically to make you feel and not think because thinking is the existential threat to post modernism.
 
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Do Not Like how he always "sets" the ball at/below his belt when receiving the pass before shooting. That extra 0.5s means a shot gets blocked.

Watch the good shooters (like Peter Jok) who catch it and get or keep the ball high for a much quicker release.

He's reinforcing a really really bad habit here. That's the difference between a "good" player and a "great" player in D1.

They should be working with him on keeping the ball higher and eliminating that pre-shooting motion glitch.

Incorrect. Many great shooters (including Steph Curry, Kyle Korver, and Ray Allen) “dip” the ball on catch and shoot shots, and many shooting coaches today teach this type of movement. It’s not a big deal at all.
 
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Yep, go to the 3:10 mark of the vid.

Now go compare videos, and notice that Curry often barely brings the ball below his waist/navel. Toussaint is regularly pulling the ball down near his knees. His motion on the shot prep is exaggerated, and means a much longer time (0.5s or more) to get the shot off.
 
That is great, so if he watches this video he will play and make shots just like Steph Curry??? We should have all the players do this??? Luka has been doing it all wrong.... Wow, we are going to be unstoppable.
https://www.basketballworkouttips.com/stephen-curry-shooting-form-secret/

When Shooting off the pass, Curry dips the ball, dropping it a few inches below from where he caught it.

Again, compare videos. Curry's dip motion is much less than what Toussaint does. That extra dip means a lot slower shot. Toussaint is dipping the ball nearly a foot below the catch point, not "a few inches".
 
Now go compare videos, and notice that Curry often barely brings the ball below his waist/navel. Toussaint is regularly pulling the ball down near his knees. His motion on the shot prep is exaggerated, and means a much longer time (0.5s or more) to get the shot off.

The first two shots he catches at shoulder height and drops to thigh height. Even on me, I'm 5'7, that's a drop of at least a foot.
 
That is great, so if he watches this video he will play and make shots just like Steph Curry??? We should have all the players do this??? Luka has been doing it all wrong.... Wow, we are going to be unstoppable.

Was that the point I was trying to make? No, and that was pretty obvious.
 
Now go compare videos, and notice that Curry often barely brings the ball below his waist/navel. Toussaint is regularly pulling the ball down near his knees. His motion on the shot prep is exaggerated, and means a much longer time (0.5s or more) to get the shot off.
If you look at the angle of his arm bend, it doesn't go beyond 90 degrees. That is what the Curry video talks about. The motion is in the shoulders and helps to create the extension needed for the shot.

One other thing is that the kid is an incoming freshman. His shot will get better and more consistent now that he will be practicing a lot more than he was able to in HS. And he will have help from the coaching staff to make it more consistent, too.
 
Watch how high Curry keeps the ball in some of the shoot-arounds in this video, off a pass catch. Not every time, but when ever the pass comes in chest-high, he never lets it fall below his waist. The shooting action is much much quicker.



If you want to be a 'next level' shooter, you eliminate that unnecessary motion from your catch and shoot.

It's literally the same with watching Megan Gustafson shoot in the post when catching passes - she goes straight up w/o dipping the ball down or dribbling, which gives the defense 0.5-1s less time to react to her - compare that to most of the Iowa big men, who catch and bring the ball down to pivot or prepare for a move. Get rid of those unnecessary bad habits, and you get shots off before the defense can react. That's true for shooting guards or for big men.

Here's a queued up example in that vid:
 
Connor as mentioned above, but he took a medshirt and was behind (ESPN 4-star) Bohannon, who was an established starter. Also he's a 2-sport athlete. We'll see how big his role becomes this year.

How about this: When was the last time Iowa had this much talent and depth at the PG position?

2019: Toussaint, Connor, Evelyn
2020: Toussaint, Connor, Bohannon, Ulis

If Toussaint is the real deal, the sky's the limit. If he can just defend opposing PGs and be an effective distributor on offense, we're in good shape. But if he's a legit scoring threat on top of that... watch out.

If JT ends up being as good as some are now suggesting that means JoBo gets a lot of time at the 2 in 2020 and I for one think that is a good thing. JT being able to break down and collapse the D off the bounce and kicking out to a spot up JoBo or JW...oh baby!
 
Both sides of this shooting form argument are right. While there are some great shooters that dip the ball, mostly to gain strength, most great shooters don't. They get the ball high and release it high. A soft high arcing shot has the greatest chance to drop.

In most athletic endeavors the better the form the better the performance. Ken Anderson looked like a guy that could complete 70% of his throws under the old NFL rules...and he did. Pete Sampras was going to win a lot of grand slams. Tiger Woods was going to win a lot of majors.

So there are some guys with odd to lousy form that still produce a high percentage of jumpers. Ogles had a little hitch in his shot when he came in. Shot worse the next couple of years after fixing that hitch. To quote the great Charles Barkley, if it ain't broke, don't break it.
 
Why the hell would anyone speculate about whether an incoming freshman, who hasn't played a solitary second of basketball at Iowa, will transfer? And why make it about race? Brady Ellingson left early. Was that about race? Have any former players said "I left because there were too many white kids"? I don't think the players care what race their teammates happen to be.

Why make it about race? Because as we're learning with the deluge of local and national reports on the football program, race is a pretty big deal for many young Black men who attend Iowa.

I've been fairly consistent about this in my messaging for the past couple decades, but always get the same head-in-sand responses like "Why make it about race?"
 
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Why make it about race? Because as we're learning with the deluge of local and national reports on the football program, race is a pretty big deal for many young Black men who attend Iowa.

I've been fairly consistent about this in my messaging for the past couple decades, but always get the same head-in-sand responses like "Why make it about race?"
The issue with the football team has absolutely nothing to do with the basketball team. Nada. Zilch.
Joe T loves it here. End of story.
 
Why make it about race? Because as we're learning with the deluge of local and national reports on the football program, race is a pretty big deal for many young Black men who attend Iowa.

I've been fairly consistent about this in my messaging for the past couple decades, but always get the same head-in-sand responses like "Why make it about race?"

Oh, hi there. It seems you’ve decided to dig up an old thread out of... boredom, I guess? Okay. Fine.

And just to get this out of the way, don’t mistake me for one of those frothing-at-the-mouth Iowa fans who think the accusations against the football team are some kind of witch hunt. I firmly support the players and want to see real change in the program to root out racial bias and discrimination.

If your point is merely that “Iowa City is a hard place to be a young black man” then I can’t argue with that. There are few places in this country where that isn’t true. But to assume that Joe would seek to transfer, before the kid even got to campus, just because he’s black, is ludicrous. To my knowledge Fran and his staff have never been accused of racial bias or mistreatment by black players.

Several black players have left the program over the years. So have several white players. I don’t see the point of making it a racial issue unless players come forward with stories we haven’t heard yet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Joe T and this team can accomplish, assuming we have a basketball season at all.
 
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