ok - now I gotta ask....
- first, the kid obviously has played and pursued basketball for 15 years or so..
and he's been involved in the recruiting process for 3-4 years...
and I am sure he saw Wichita play, talked with the coaching staff and had about as COMPLETE of an understanding of what Wichita's OFFENSE is and what the coaches expect..
Then we hear such an excuse (and we hear this all the time)
"I just didn't fit in with the offense" or "I am transferring to play somewhere that suits my style better..."
???what??? How did the guy not discover that his style of play didn't fit or that he didn't fit the offense until a YEAR after he'd been there?
Nope, I prefer to believe 99% of these transfers, even when the kid says he didn't fit - have NOTHING to do with the kid's style or the "style" of offense...
they are kids who aimed too high and never had the talent, or kids who were totally misjudged by the coaching & recruiting staff (like Chris Blake, Stefan Zecevic, Jermaine Morgan, Anthony Fields, and dozens of others were by Geno) or were possibly kids who wore out their welcome with behavior issues.
I kind of agree but kind of disagree. Just sticking to Taylor, maybe it's just that he couldn't grasp the offense? In the times he did run the offense, it never ran smoothly. WSU's offense tends to run longer sets to try to find a good shot. Whenever Ty was running the offense, we tended to take a lot quicker shot (normally by Ty). Here are a few game stats
@Loyola: 2 Shots, 1 minute played
vs MSU: 2 Shots, 4 min played
VS NMSU: 4 Shots, 3 min played
@Drake: 2 Shots, 4 min played
vs Bradley: 7 Shots, 13 min played
VS Iowa: 8 Shots, 12 min
VS Bama, 15 shots, 30 min
vs US: 10 Shots, 18 min
The rest of the games he really didn't play in. But he is averaging a shot every 1-2 minutes.
While Fred had a couple of games that approached 1 shot every 2 minutes, the vast majority of the games were a lot lower (average through the whole year is a shot every 3-4 min.
Fred also had a 2 shot per assist ratio and an assist every 5 minutes, where Ty took 7 shots for every assist and an assist every 14 minutes.
I know I'm comparing an All-American to a true freshman here, but this is what I mean for style of play. Ty showed that he was a shoot-first PG, which is fine sometimes, but not when you shoot 29%. The offense isn't built to get the PG jumpers. That's what ended up happening. The screens set at the top to free up the PG, are designed to get them into the paint to dish out or to a big man. Ty was taking those looks from 3 or just inside the 3 point line without continuing the rest of the offense.
Would that have changed over time? I don't know, I don't see the practices. I'm sure Marshall was honest with him about upcoming playing time and he chose to continue somewhere else. If Ty played in a system like Evansville that is designed to get a guard lots of looks off screens, then maybe it would have been more successful.
As far as why it took a year to figure that out? I don't know either. Its hard to judge a kid on a HS team as far as tendencies because generally DI players are the best players on their HS teams, so they tend to try to create more for themselves because they don't have good options. Coaches hope that can be molded and controlled once they make it to DI, but it doesn't always work that way.
