Well, just finished watching Keegan Murray and the Iowa Hawkeye's beat Rutgers. Personally, I'm all in on Murray. I'd have a hard time convincing myself that Banchero is better than Murray. He's taller and weighs more, and he's younger, but it ends there. Murray had his usual 26 pt's today, and that's all well and good, but it's all the little things that Murray does. He's a very smart basketball player, and when the game is on the line, it's those little things that he does that help win the game.
Just over 3 minutes and change left in the game, and Rutgers has gotten Iowa's lead down to 9 pt's, and they have the momentum. Iowa needs a basket, they take a shot and the rebound bounces off to the left side, and out of nowhere comes Murray beating everyone to the loose ball, he kicks it out to another teammate who launches another three, and the rebound bounces toward the right sideline, and yes, you guessed it, there's Murray all the way across the floor to grab another board. Iowa misses again and Rutger brings the ball down the floor. They have a cutter and the pass is made and Murray anticipates the pass, steals the ball and goes the length of the floor for a dunk.
A bit later Rutgers gets the ball to a player under the basket, and there's Murray with weakside help that causes a turnover. Believe me, I would love to have Holmgrem or Smith on the Kings, but if we could come away with Murray, I'd be happy as a clam. He knows how to play the game. In his last ten games prior to todays game he has scored, 26pt's, 22pt's, 23pt's, 26pt's, 15pt's, 28pt's, 24pt's, 23pt's, 37pt's, 30pt's. During that span he's averaged 57% overall, and 46% from the three. He also averaged 7.8 rebounds per game.
I honestly have never gotten this age thing. So your drafting a player that's 21 or 22 years old, and you have him on a rookie contract for 4 years meaning that he's then 25 or 26 years old. If he's a keeper you sign him to a 5 year extension which at the end of he's 30 or 31 years old. By this time he's been on your team for 9 years, which is longer than the average. In the case of Murray, you'd be drafting a younger player in hopes that in a couple of years, he might be as good as Murray is right now. Where is the logic in that. That's like throwing a diamond away and replacing it with a piece of coal and hoping that piece of coal turns into a diamond.
Also watched the Auburn game, and they got their butt's kicked. I don't think Auburn is going anywhere in the tournament. Their guard play is just horrible. Smith didn't shoot the three very well today, but shot the ball well overall for 17 pt's. Auburns guards or the chuckers as I like to call them combined to go 4 for 27 from the floor with Johnson going 0 for 14. Almost every shot Smith took was self created, and highly contested. The NBA will seem like a relief to him. I don't remember Kessler's exact stat line, but he went something like 5 for 8 from the floor. He only took 8 shots while his guards were chucking up 27 shots. unbelieveable! Wisconsin and Johnny Davis coming up next!