Mr. O'Brien Rambles
April 22, 2009 Jim O'Brien 
Good morning, gentlemen. Obviously, I’m a little new around here, but I don’t think I’m stretching too much when I assume we are all well aware of our inability to hit a jump shot consistently. With our roster currently set up the way it is, I don’t think we’re going to grow into a team that can hit 47% from the field consistently in one summer. Dayton doesn’t have a strong post presence that can give us a layup from the block, and Brian Roberts isn’t walking through that door to hit an open kick out after someone drives the lane. We live and die by the runner in the lane and the ability to out jump the other teams for put-backs. That's fine for a one and done tournament team, but not for a team that has bigger plans.
I don’t know how much can change when I look at the starters we’re bringing back. London Warren is very good at what he does, but hitting a spot-up from the wing just isn’t something he’ll learn to do overnight. Marcus is a great player, but he will be facing the opposing team’s best perimeter defender every night and will have to fight to get his shots off. Kurt, well I’m sure he’s a nice enough fella, but he’s only hit one “J” in his career and Rob Lowery is still laughing at him for coughing. I don’t doubt that Chris Wright can develop a good outside game, I just don’t see him doing it this year consistently enough to make a difference. I’m assuming for now that Chris Johnson slides in at the SF spot with Wright playing the PF, and if that doesn’t happen I’m going to have to make sure I don’t watch any of the games next year in public, because crying and breaking things can have an adverse affect on my reputation. Either way, CJ has potential from the perimeter as much as any 19 year old, but he’s really more of a slasher and a runner. What we need is someone who can hit an 18 foot jump shot consistently, while not being a liability on the defensive side. Thankfully, that man is already on our roster.
Paul Williams provides our team with something a lot of basketball teams in Ohio could use, a guy from Michigan. Coming out of Detroit Renaissance High School Paul Williams was 3rd in the Mr. Michigan balloting and a consensus top 100 recruit (Did I mention he's on the Detroit All Decade Team? I don't care it's from Bounce Magazine). Rumors were that if he had gone to school in-state, he would h
ave been more likely to have won Mr. Michigan, but as a fellow writer if I have a chance to screw a kid out of an award out of petty bitterness, I have to take it. Three things made him so attractive to other schools; his ability to come through and make his best plays during big games, his tenacious defense, and his 50% shooting percentage from the field.
Mr. Williams not surprisingly, didn’t receive a lot of time at the beginning of the season averaging only 8 minutes a game, most of which came in garbage time. With the loss of Rob Lowery came more court time, but still he lacked the breakout game that we saw from Chris Johnson and even Luke Fabrizius (I use the term "break out" loosely). The time he did get was productive, especially when it came extended time. In games where Mr. Williams played more than 15 minutes, he shot 58% from the field and 44% from behind the arc, considerably better than his full seasons averages of 32% and 26%, respectively.
With another year of getting stronger and faster, he has a chance to steal some minutes from London Warren, especially against teams who will employ a zone defense and hurt our ability to run. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that Gregory will only play you if you can play defense first, rebound second and if possible, shoot. Mr. Williams hasn’t proved that he can play defense yet on the Division One level, but I'm sure he'll learn to use his large reach to his advantage against smaller PG’s. Regardless of this his tenacity is already something he prides himself on and when it comes to defense, whether or not you really care can be the difference between a good defender and a great one.
If the snap shot of talent Mr. Williams gave us this year is much of an indication, which it may not be, he has all that is required to be the kind of guard the Flyers need. One that can sink a shot from the corner on a dish, or a pull up jump shot coming off of a screen. Even if he doesn't become the Brian Roberts guard who can create his own shot, just being able to hit a shot would be an improvement. Like I said, there isn't a lot of turn over as is on the roster, he's going to have to be significantly better coming in to the fall in order to warrant more playing time. We have every reason to believe Mr. Lowery will be back 100% and its not like MJ and Mr. Warren are going to lose much time. One thing that we didn't see much from Coach Gregory was a lot of creative line ups and I believe that with the talent we have in our back court, he might have to go small in order to get more scorers on the court. I'm not saying we're going to be Villanova, but at least Gregory won't dress like Jay Wright.
Reader Comments (6)
OB:
Are you serious? PW hasn't proved he can play defense on the D-1 level? Paul's reputation while at RHS was as a premier 3 point shooter and a lock down defender. Once he got healthy this past season he started taking minutes away from CJ for that reason -- because CJ forgets to block out his man on occasion. What surprised me was that at 6'3" PW was able to hold his own on the boards. He's gonna be a solid all-around player for UD in his last 3 years.
Great article. I have a confession to make. I always forget Paul Williams is on the team. In fact, I bet if we asked everyone who is a fan of this blog to name the players, I think Paul Williams would be one of the last, if not the last, player to be named. And that's a shame.
OB: Gotta agree--looking forward to a healthy PW next season. I can see him becoming our best outside threat at some point. I think he needs to bring back those black tights.
Swampy:
First off hey, big fan, I actually re-read your article about PW when doing some research on him. I said he hasn't proven it, because he hasn't proven it in college play, yet. I didn't comment on his talent or desire to defend, I just didn't see from him on the court what I had expected coming into the season, he's already good, he's gotta get better. A lot of that could have been attributed to the limited time he got on the court, but I'm just trying to call it like I see it, and you're right his improvement did lead to more court time. I'm really excited to have him 100% this entire year and can't wait to see him play more. As you can tell, I'm have really high expectations for him.
I do think PW has proven he can defend on the D1 level. Re-watch the WVU game if you have any doubts.
Also, I disagree with your contention that PW's minutes will come at the expense of London Warren. Last year, his increased minutes came at the expense of Chris Johnson, and I don't see that changing at all. In fact, most fans have already penciled in CJ at the three, but I wouldn't be one bit surprised if PW gets the starting nod next year.
Other than that, you are spot on that PW can be exactly the player this team needs to be better next year.
The off-season is for speculation, I'm making mine. Either way I found his percentages with extended time pretty interesting. He could be one of those players that needs to get in a rhythm which could be difficult with Gregory's style. Hopefully he adapts if that is a problem for him.