NCAA T

[Chicagojayfan]

Sad thing with Nembhard is if he stayed at Creighton he could have grown into a truly elite player. Big time regression at Gonzaga. Some questionable tendencies now coming up as permanent habits every time I catch the Zags.

I don't know how much more upside Nembhard really had. He was an elite ball handler and passer, but a streaky/just OK 3 PT shooter, and a smaller guy who had trouble with physical defenders who pressed up top on the court (see Iowa State and AZ State games early in his career). Mac adjusted by getting more ballhandling for Trey, which worked really well. I don't know about any of the money stuff, but I do know that playing at Zaga gave him the opportunity to be the best kind of player he could be as that conference let him avoid all of the SJU type defenses he would have faced again in the BE. It's easy to go back through his game logs and see where he struggled against defenses like that

Ashworth is pretty much a Creighton success story as he learned to play D here and learned to play against BE style defenses, but he had his limitations as well. He was miscast as a primary ball handler and was brought in to be paired with Trey, and then Mac went out and got Pop to be the alternate ballhandler/scorer in the backcourt. To Ashworth's credit he stepped up as both a primary scorer and primary ballhandler for us while playing 36 mpg as well. I didn't think he'd do as well as he did at having to take on both roles so heavily, but he did better than I would have thought (and I was an optimist)

So I am happy to have had both on the team these last few years and don't know that there is a really good way to compare the two across different rosters. Personally, I think Nembhard would have struggled just as much as Ashworth at times this year (and maybe more as the BE got even more physical w/ the SJU resurgence this past year). He had Alexander there to shoulder the load with ballhandling when teams got really physical with him on the ball, and this year he wouldn't have had that either w/ Pop's injury

[jfan]

This would have been just after he scored 30 against Baylor in the Tournament. Makes no sense, because it sure didn't look like Mac was trying to hold him down. Especially with the type of players we had at every position on that roster. Helicopter parents!

[Duke1Agn]

Nembhard led what is likely the worst Gonzaga team in over a decade. They didn’t win the WCC and are the first Gonzaga team in 10 years to not make the S16. His scoring, rebounds and turnovers were all worse this season than they were during his final year at Creighton. He was essentially the facilitator and relegated to the 4th or 5th scoring option.

He’s a good college player but not great and he hit his ceiling with the Jays.

[Realhoops]

Nembhard led what is likely the worst Gonzaga team in over a decade. They didn’t win the WCC and are the first Gonzaga team in 10 years to not make the S16. His scoring, rebounds and turnovers were all worse this season than they were during his final year at Creighton. He was essentially the facilitator and relegated to the 4th or 5th scoring option.

He’s a good college player but not great and he hit his ceiling with the Jays.

I'll only take issue with saying he "hit his ceiling" in the sense that I think that if he had stayed, he absolutely would have developed and improved more than he did by leaving. I don't think he hit his ceiling while he was here in that I think he still had upside. He may have come as close to his ceiling as he got during college. (And that might really be what you meant.)

I'm in the camp that doesn't wish ill on guys when they leave, but I'm also not going to actively cheer for their success when they chase money and go somewhere else. Thanks for what you did here, good luck, but I'm going to focus on cheering for the guy who comes here and wants to be here and understands the value of being here now. And, more often than not, guys who have left here have not found more success or development elsewhere. At some point that needs to start being apparent to guys and an additional reason for them to stay here in the first place.

[AttyAlum]

I agree with a lot of what has been said. My take is that if Nebhard never transfers, Kalk wouldn’t be the only one from this team with a number eventually hanging in the rafters.

I don’t want to say anything against Ashworth as he has been a great player for two years, but we only hot two years. Ash is a great leader, a true fighter and someone that always gave everything he had. He also seems to be a pretty great person off the floor. We couldn’t ask for more. He put up with a lot of flack from this fanbase for the first half of last year, but never let it get him down, never seemed resentful and kept on battling.

As to the Fanta quote, I know some have attributed that to Nembhard, but it always seemed seem more applicable to Kaluma who really struggled that year.

[taa71458]

Sharpie gators

[section221jay]

McNeely blows 2 FT miss rebounds that absolutely killed UCONN.

[BirdBoy]

Disappointing postseason for the Big East

[BenningtonBluejay]

Disappointing postseason for the Big East

No one in the second weekend, when was the last time that happened?

[gocreightongo]

Disappointing postseason for the Big East

No one in the second weekend, when was the last time that happened?

2019, I think.