Gary Johnson?

H

honolulu horn

100+ Posts
To be honest, I haven't followed the basketball season as well as I should have...what's up with Gary Johnson? When he wasn't playing it seemed like folks here were really excited about him getting the green light. But tonight's box score says 0 points. Is he a work in progress, behind schedule, catching bad breaks, not the guy we thought, or what?

This really is a serious question, for all I know the guy is doing great but it's not reflected in the box score. Someone please enlighten me.
 
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I'm afraid the time that Gary Johnson missed to start his career is going to affect him the same way that the loss of early playing time affected Mike Williams. Hopefully that won't be the case but we're beginning to see it now.

Barnes refusal to develop the bench is starting to be exposed as we continue through the season. Over the past 2 or 3 years he's approached playing time the same way that Coach K has notoriously approached playing time for practice under achievers: he won't play you unless you exhibit something in practice. While this strategy doesn't hurt Duke much due to the fact that they can always go get a hoard of McD AA the following year it totally leaves us thin with players who never develop until their junior or sometimes senior years. .
 
The problem with his strategy is that it works fine when you have enough upperclassmen to keep the team afloat. But the things he's looking for, I dunno, I don't think it's that common for a freshman to come right in and display those. It's not an excuse, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't demand it, but at the same time, I think if you're in a situation where you HAVE to play freshmen, you have to expect some of the deficiencies and help them play through it.
 
He is a good post defender. Jordan made a nice shot that rolled in, but Johnson played solid defense. Johnson is 6'6 and Jordan is 6'11. He is underconfident playing as a help defender and in the zone.

It's a crime that he played only four minutes against A&M. That is just ********. He's watched enough games, he needs to play and ftw.

Barnes is misusing Johnson for this half season. I rarely have a problem with Barnes and personnel (I thought he gave up too frequently on James Thomas during his senior year), but a player this talented has to play through the mistakes to get acclimated.

It is time to bring Abrams off the bench. Abrams is too easy to defend as he runs around the perimeter. James needs to move back to three as he has underperformed since moving back to the four. Mason can be the glue guy and Johnson should be out there playing.
 
I don't think Johnson was expected to be the best post defender. He was more expected to use his energy to beat bigger players to rebounds at both ends, but I don't think many people really thought he was going to be someone to shut down bigger players with the ball.

That said, missing nearly the entire non-conference schedule hurt him immensely. Let's re-evaluate him at the end of the year.
 
He is in the dog house because his defense has been atrocious and his offense not much better. But I do think he will eventually be a major contributor here --- just not this year.

It does look like missing the first half of the season really hurt him. Even though he was practicing with the team, there's a huge difference between practice and game conditions.
 
GJ has had one good game. Other than that, he's just been atrocious on defense --- simply lost on that end of the court. On offense, he works great to get position, and the players actually have the confidence to get him the ball, but I hope he's just rushing, because he's not finishing the three to five foot shot. We'll see if he comes around.

Anyone saying Pittman didn't deserve the minutes he got just wasn't watching.
 
Johnson contributed much more for us today. It was good to see him having a nice game. 12 points, 7 boards and 2 blocks in 19 minutes doesn't suck at all.
 
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