Peak offseason part 3. Bill Self SFs/wings
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I know what you guys are thinking. “Boy am I excited to see who Jhawk69 thinks the best wings of the Bill Self era are.” Well I have come to ease your suffering. Here are my authoritative and unquestionable rankings.
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Ochai Agbaji. The number 1 spot came down to Ochai and B-Rush. I almost wanted to call this a tie, as both have really strong cases for #1. Both were national champions who could shoot and defend. Rush was the better defender and Ochai was the more prolific scorer. I ended up giving the slightest of edges to Ochai because I think Ochai was more of an alpha who could take over at the end of close games, a role which Rush ceded to Chalmers. I do think Rush could have scored like Ochai, in which case he would be the clear number 1, but I cannot give Rush a boost due to speculation.
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Brandon Rush
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Svi Mykhailiuk (He played a lot of wing and a lot of stretch 4 in his career so he will appear in both rankings). In Svi’s junior campaign he was a great shooter and a bad defender. His senior season, however, he was an even better shooter and all-around scorer and developed into a good defender. His help defense on Marvin Bagley and his 3 pointer near the end of regulation against Duke make him a legend.
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Travis Releford. Releford is such an underrated player. Not only was he an elite defender, but he averaged an an efficient 12ppg as a senior. This means he is only averaging 5 fewer points per game than Andrew Wiggins, and his defense is easily worth 5+ ppg more than Wiggins’ defense.
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Keith Langford (would be above Releford probably but was injury plagued). Langford could put so much pressure on a defense with his driving and all-around scoring ability. He was a very good passer for a wing too.
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Andrew Wiggins. Good scorer. Good moments on defense but inconsistent.
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Ben McLemore. Better shooter than Wiggins but a lesser all-around offensive arsenal.
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Grady Dick. Similar game to McLemore but less athletic.
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Xavier Henry. Good player overall but way too streaky.
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Isaiah Moss. Not great but not bad either. Good enough to hold down the fort for a year.
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Kelly Oubre. He could have been higher but his lack of hustle really cost him and the team.
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LaGerald Vick (Could have been much higher but he is penalized for leaving the team his senior year, which I think really hurt us).
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Johnny Furphy. Lots of potential and some great games, but at the end of the day he was a liability on defense and 9ppg on 35% from downtown isn’t enough offense to make up for it. He could have been great had he stuck around and developed.
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Rylan Griffen. He does not know how to move without the ball on offense, play defense, or handle the ball. Pretty much no positive basketball traits and a lot of negative ones.
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100% agree with the difficulty choosing between Rush/Och for #1 and I think I would have ended up at a tie. Ochai did have to take on the larger role but from what I remember of Rush, he might have been the better all around player just on a better team.
Svi and Releford at 3/4 seem wrong to me but if you are putting a lot of weight in to 4 years of contributions I can’t fault it too much.
I might be alone in this but Ben/Gradey feel like they belong on the shooting guard list no? Maybe even swapping them out for McCullar on the SG list as he played the 4 at times even.
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For me, I’d put Keith Freeze at number 3 and I’m not even counting that he paid for Wesley to attend KU.
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Oachi would be indisputably #1 if his final four performance would have been closer to Brandon Rush’s. It’s the only chink in his record, which still wasn’t enough to keep him from earning MVP honors.
I think #1 on the list has to be the proper placement.
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Good with Ochai at #1. He was a huge success story
