ACC Basketball News: NBA’s view of Hickson, Taylor King to Villanova, and Miami picks up PG from Villanova

07-08 Basketball General85

There are many State fans who have issues with Dave Glenn, however there isn’t any member of the media who has his resources and access in covering ACC sports. With several ACC players considering declaring for the NBA draft, he gathered some opinions from NBA officials on Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and JJ Hickson.

An NBA official on condition of anonymity had this to say about JJ Hickson:

This isn’t complicated at all. If you’re 6-9 and you can put the ball in the basket on a consistent basis against people your size, you’re on our radar. Does he have a long way to go? Yes. Does he have a lot to learn? Yes. Is he ready to play in the NBA today? No. But it’s no secret that a lot of teams in this league will take a chance on big guys with scoring ability, even if they have to wait a year or two for the payoff.

In other words, JJ Hickson is not coming back and he will make the 4th former NC State player currently in the NBA along with Damien Wilkins, Josh Powell, and Cedric Simmons. Interestingly enough, each of these players left NC State in their first two years on campus and only two (Simmons and now JJ) went/are going directly to the NBA. Of course, Wilkins transfered to Georgia to become a sixth man for his final two years and Josh Powell’s career led him to Europe. Both are having successful NBA careers at this point.

There are a couple of newsworthy items today regarding ACC hoops. It is transfer season and there is news today of Taylor King selecting Villanova as his destination after marginal success at Duke:

It took Taylor King a season to decide Duke wasn’t the right fit for him. It took him less than 72 hours to figure out what did fit.

King, who had planned to visit Gonzaga and Southern Cal at the end of the month, committed on Sunday to transfer to Villanova after a weekend visit. He will enroll in June…

“It just couldn’t be a better fit for me,” King said. “It wasn’t about getting it over with. I wanted it. This gives me the best opportunity to start right away.”

Additionally, Miami landed a point guard transfering from Villanova.

The last time the Miami Hurricanes accepted a backcourt transfer it worked out rather nicely. Jack McClinton went from Siena to All-ACC for Frank Haith’s Hurricanes. Now the staff is hoping to have hit pay dirt again. Malcolm Grant, a freshman for the Villanova Wildcats, announced his intentions to transfer. He’ll sit next year and have three seasons to play. A high-level recruit, Grant was certainly talented enough to play a role at Villanova but was simply victim to a numbers game in the backcourt.

As a freshman for the Wildcats, Grant logged 13 minutes a game. He scored 5.8 points a contest to go with 1.8 assists.

Grant was a 3-star PG ranked #23 at his position by www.scout.com.

07-08 Basketball General

85 Responses to ACC Basketball News: NBA’s view of Hickson, Taylor King to Villanova, and Miami picks up PG from Villanova

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 04/14/2008 at 10:48 AM #

    Hs it gotten so bad that other than LF topics all we have to talk about is blue devil basketball? What will it come to next?

    — signed Awaiting the Red and White game

  2. CStanley 04/14/2008 at 11:09 AM #

    Did not know that McClinton transferred to Miami from Siena.

    Jesus, how good would they have been this past year. Made the 2nd round of the NCAA’s without him.

  3. Rochester 04/14/2008 at 11:37 AM #

    So Miami picks up transfers like Jack McClinton and Malcolm Grant and we get Marques Johnson and Farnold Degand. What’s wrong with this picture?

  4. StateFans 04/14/2008 at 11:50 AM #

    ^ I don’t think it is fair to group Degand with Johnson. We were on the road to an NCAA Tournament berth when Degand got injured despite his inexperience and the length of time since he had last played competitive basketball.

  5. Rochester 04/14/2008 at 11:58 AM #

    I don’t mean to bash on Farnold, but we went 7-3 with him, including heinous losses to New Orleans and EZU. In our first 12 games after he went down we were 8-4. We were on the brink of an NCAA Tournament berth Feb. 5 (more than a month after Degand’s injury), following our win over Va. Tech, 4-4 in conference and 15-7 overall. 0-9 the rest of the way.

    Degand may prove to be decent yet, but he’s no Jack McClinton.

  6. blackdom 04/14/2008 at 12:02 PM #

    ^ “on the brink of an NCCA berth”

  7. Wulfpack 04/14/2008 at 12:21 PM #

    “We were on the road to an NCAA Tournament berth when Degand got injured”

    Riiiight.

  8. packbackr04 04/14/2008 at 12:25 PM #

    Degand is not, i repeat, NOT the answer at PG.

    will we be having any transfers this yr?? anyone know? i havent seen shootinguard around in a while.

  9. SMD 04/14/2008 at 12:39 PM #

    At the risk of asking a silly question, can anyone elaborate on issues that State fans may have with Dave Glenn?

    I listen to the guy regularly, and for a UNC-CH grad, I think he goes out of his way to call things like he sees them. But I am willing to be enlightened. 😉

  10. RickJ 04/14/2008 at 12:43 PM #

    Degand was playing pretty well considering he had not played in an organized game of basketball in over 2 years. Nobody knows how he would have played or what our record would have been if he had not been injured. We do know for sure he was the best PG on our team with the biggest difference being on the defensive end.

    A 7 -3 record isn’t that great with him but I am pretty sure we could not have beaten South Carolina, Villanova or Davidson without Degand. Go look at the box scores of those games and see what kind of games Downey, Reynolds & Richards had with Degand guarding them. With Degand & Fells, our perimeter defense was actually decent at the beginning of the year. It was horrible thereafter.

  11. Big Worm 04/14/2008 at 12:49 PM #

    “At the risk of asking a silly question, can anyone elaborate on issues that State fans may have with Dave Glenn?”

    I’ll elaborate. Glenn doesn’t put State players on a pedestal and kiss our asses constantly so some State fans bash him. I don’t know how you can listen to Dave Glenn and come away thinking he is anything other than a very informed, analytical observer of ACC sports.

    As a lifelong State fan, I am sensitive to media bias with regard to NC State, but thoroughly enjoy listening to Glenn. Like Mr. O, I think Glenn is extremely well-connected and comes off as being as thoroughly prepared to discuss ACC sports as anyone I’ve ever heard, local or national, in the print or broadcast media.

  12. Noah 04/14/2008 at 12:49 PM #

    Degand is a decent backup point guard. He’s not a starter, talent-wise.

  13. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 12:57 PM #

    SMD: There are two things NC State fans generally hold against Dave Glenn.

    1. The infamous “where there is smoke there is fire” comment he supposedly made on the radio about the signing day surprise of AJ Davis signing with NC State. NC State people took this as Glenn suggesting that Amato broke NCAA rules to get AJ Davis. He wrote a big article detailing the recruitment, UNC fans(not Glenn) claimed we were going on probation, nothing ever happened, and to this day State fans will never forget or forgive him for that comment.

    2. His expose on Tramain Hall. He detailed exactly what went wrong, how NC State screwed the kid over and cost him a year of eligibility, and why T. Hall picked NC State even though we completely dropped the ball on his admissions process.

    With regards to #1, NC State fans might be justified. With regards to #2, there were so many bogus rumors put out(back injury, he really passed the Florida HS test but the score was thrown out because there was cheating at his testing center by other kids, etc….) that Glenn was the only person to ever put in print exactly what happened. It was one of the more intriguing recruiting situations in NC State history and I personally was glad that Glenn unraveled the mystery.

    Not liking Glenn for covering the story had much more to do with not liking the truth of the situation.

  14. choppack1 04/14/2008 at 1:05 PM #

    Mr O – Did Glenn do any work on the Forte situation w/ his mother and the agent? Also, was he working for the Poop Sheet when Mack Brown and Dean Smith were allowing so many academically marginal kids into UNC that they decided to eliminate the term “academic exception”?

  15. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 1:17 PM #

    Choppack: He was there during the Forte situation. I don’t remember any deep articles on the situation, but Glenn and the Poop Sheet don’ts always choose to cover interesting/juicy stories like why Julius Hodge chose NC State.

    I know you(and Vawolf82) have issues with Glenn and we will likely forever disagree. You are more than welcome to add some comments, but I was just trying to point out the two main issues State fans have with Glenn.

    They did write about Jeff Mcinnis sleeping with Phil Ford’s wife though.

    I don’t think he was there during the Brown era(or at least much of it) The situation you are mentioning is incredibly misunderstood/misused/misquoted by NC State people. The term “academic exception” was used by UNC system schools including NC State to label kids admitted below normal admission standards. At almost every ACC school that includes a large majority of football and basketball players. UNC wasn’t admitting more “exceptions” than NC State, but that article did lead UNC to getting rid of the term altogether. They weren’t admitting non-qaulifiers or prop 48s or whatever they were called back then.

    NC State followed UNC’s lead in recent years in getting rid of the term “academic exception” as well. There was an article since then in the last 3-5 years about it.

    Cany anyone find a link to this academic exception article about UNC?

  16. Wulfpack 04/14/2008 at 1:21 PM #

    I was no more impressed with Degand than I was with Javi. I just think both are serviceable, below average guards. MJ should never step foot on the court again unless we are up by 20.

  17. Southbeachstyle 04/14/2008 at 1:37 PM #

    Dennis Wycik, who is the editor/owner of the Poop Sheet (ask ACC Sports Journal) is a former UNC basketball player.

  18. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 1:41 PM #

    I have had a beer with Dennis Wycik once. Good guy. Dave Glenn also attended UNC law school(not sure about undergrad, but maybe undergrad as well).

  19. choppack1 04/14/2008 at 1:41 PM #

    Actually Mr O – it did – especially during basketball when Les period of time – when Mack Brown was having great success and we had Les Robinson coaching football, UNC had the lowest SAT scores and average GPA of any Big 4 school.

    I actually respect Glenn and enjoy listening to him. It’s because of my respect for him that I really have problems when he says, “Historically, Duke and UNC have taken the better student athlete…” Historically, that’s probably true, but when you look at UNC football at its peak – the Mack Brown era – they weren’t bringing in good students. He knows, but I don’t think he cares. I also don’t think Glenn writes the article he wrote about Doherty if he won a national championship.

    I think he would be fine if NC State never won a national championship and UNC won one in football and basketball every year.

  20. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 1:50 PM #

    Choppack: Can you provide any links/verification of those numbers?

    If you are refering to the single set of SAT scores for a single year, then I remember those numbers as well from the Stanford website. However, I am 99% certain they weren’t long term averages. Still, I am open minded and willing to be convinced. You are more than likely taking accurate comments Glenn has made in recent years after he got his radio show and attributing them to a time 5-10 years before he ever made those comments when it is possible things were different.

    However since Amato arrived, there is plenty of supporting evidence to suggest that we recruited many more borderline students than almost every other school in the ACC including FSU, Clemson and VPI and that UNC was “middle tier” in this regard which is what Glenn says his collection of GPAs and SATs supports. But again, these comments were made based on essentially from the year 2000 and beyond and had nothing to do with the Mack Brown era.

    If Doherty won a national title, then he probably wouldn’t have had his entire team revolt against him and threaten to transfer. If Doherty won a national title, then he would be considered very successful, his players players would respect him, and he would still be the UNC coach. Essentially if Doherty won a national title, then there really isn’t a story to write. I

    The fact that UNC went 8-20 and missed the NCAAs in back to back years is what made Doherty’s coaching style a story. Did he do it to further UNC’s cause? He is the editor for the most successful publication of its kind that has been around for something like 25 years and strictly covers ACC sports. How could they not cover a complete collapse of one of the top 3 or 4 programs in the history of college basketball and arguably the top program in the history of the ACC? It would have been unprofessional of them not to cover the story of what was happening behind the scenes of one of the biggest stories in recent ACC basketball history.

    By your logic, Dave Glenn was way ahead of the curve and saw Amato’s problems very early on. He was really trying to help us by getting Amato fired with the AJ Davis and T. Hall coverage, we just didn’t know it at the time. 🙂

  21. MattN 04/14/2008 at 2:06 PM #

    Don’t expect Degand to be 100% next season. ACL recon take A LONG DAMNM TIME to recover from. My guess is 2 years for him to really contribute again. And his speed is probably gone forever. It’s been 7 years since my ACL repair, and my left leg is STILL not as strong as my right.

  22. choppack1 04/14/2008 at 2:35 PM #

    Mr O – I don’t have the data to link those – I do know that it was over 3-5 year period. Not so coincidentally, we stunk during this period.

    When talking academic exceptions – you are right about Amato. However, to his credit, I think the kids responded to him very well in Raleigh once they were here (either that or he was excellent at covering things up.)

    I’ll also say this – he never really started getting critical w/ Bunting until it became obvious he would not be a winner in Chapel Hill. I always thought that his rather pointed question in a late August interview of 2006 was the proverbial warning shot across the bow. Up until that point, he wasn’t as critical of the hypocritical stances Bunting took.

    There were the comments after our victory over the Heels in Chapel Hil how we stomped on their logo, yet how he looked the other way when his Heels destroyed the Duke inflatible helmet in Durham.

    I used to listen to Glenn alot – and my impression was that he was very supportive of Bunting’s recruiting efforts.

    When AJ pulled the signing day switcheroo, he actually sounded ANGRY. Somehow I doubt he was ANGRY when Ronald Curry switched to the Heels after committing to UVa.

    Glenn can prove to me that he’s objective. In order to do so, he’ll have to do a critical piece a successful UNC coach (and it shouldn’t be something petty like a Kansas sticker) or be very critical of an unsuccessful, but ethically upstanding NC State coach.

  23. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 2:50 PM #

    Choppack: What critical piece do you expect of a successful UNC coach? I can’t think of any criticial piece of a successful coach for any school that hasn’t done something wrong off the court. Eustachy, Huggins, maybe Gary Williams and his DWI. I can’t think of a similar instance of something like that happening at UNC unless you want to count Anson Dorrance. They don’t typically cover women’s soccer though.

    Having emailed with Glenn in the past, I can say that he was quite understanding of those that were not in Herb Sendek’s corner even after he made the NCAA tournament in year 6, 7, 8, and beyond. Not trying to put words in his mouth here, just my opinions/recollections from some of his comments. He seemed to respect Herb Sendek as a good coach, but he totally understood the frustrations many NC State fans had with Sendek never winning big at NC State.

    He is also a huge fan of Tom O’Brien. Maybe he knows what all the BC fans know and that TOB is going to run our program into the ground.

  24. Mr. O 04/14/2008 at 3:06 PM #

    http://stanford.scout.com/

    That is the site. I sent them an email to see if they still have that data.

  25. Astral Rain 04/14/2008 at 3:17 PM #

    I think Degand would have been one or two more games this year, that’s it. You really think Degand would have been a four game improvement in the ACC over Johnson and Gonzalez at the end?

    Yeah, I agree Johnson is a load, but Degand would have cost a game on his poor foul shooting. I’d also say by the end of the year, Gonzalez was almost as good as Degand, and probably has more upside.

    The PG situation should be better- but not by enough. On the inside- who knows which Costner will show up, I’ve got a feeling it will be good Costner though. This next year is going to say a lot to me about whether Sid makes it here- if State isn’t improving by next year- cut the cord.

    As for ACL’s, athletes tend to improve faster, and the technology has improved- it may take part of next year, but he’ll have most of his speed back, if not all. Also ACL surgery has improved over the past few years.

1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply