re: UA Basketball (16-15, 8-10)

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Best freshman in America that nobody's talking about?

Alabama's Jaden Shackelford.

Averaging 24.0 PPG in his last four games.

Crimson Tide visits Mississippi State tonight.

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Jon Rothstein

I'd be shocked if we made the tournament. How many remaining games would do you guys think we need to win to have any shot?

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I still marvel at how unnoticed he went as a recruit. His talent was so evident in HS. I’m not sure how anyone could watch him play and think... “this kid isn’t worth a scholarship”. If I can do it as a fan, then a highly paid coach should be able to identify a player’s talent without seeing him go against higher level competition.

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I have to assume people just didn't think he'd be able to consistently get good shots off in college, plus the other aspects of his game.

He's proved that wrong.

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I have to assume people just didn't think he'd be able to consistently get good shots off in college, plus the other aspects of his game.

He's proved that wrong.

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You definitely have to think this was their mindset. The skepticism that he’d become a stud is understandable. The fact they didn’t think he was worth an offer is what’s mind blowing. He had 2 high-major offers. Neither of them remotely close to where he lived. If these 2 programs could identify it, how could all of the local high-major programs who likely were able to see him multiple times miss it?

It’s crazy how 2 players in our class, Forbes and Shackelford had extremely similar college interest levels, but the most average of joes could watch the 2 back then and see that one could be a potential stud in his first year and the other a questionable role player who might be shown the door after his first year. These coaches (especially assistants) are being paid an absurd amount of money to simply watch HS basketball to identify talent and they’re missing guys like this pretty regularly.

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I still marvel at how unnoticed he went as a recruit. His talent was so evident in HS. I’m not sure how anyone could watch him play and think... “this kid isn’t worth a scholarship”. If I can do it as a fan, then a highly paid coach should be able to identify a player’s talent without seeing him go against higher level competition.

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Power conference skills with mid-major size and athleticism. He needed the right system, and inadvertently found it.

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He had 2 high-major offers. Neither of them remotely close to where he lived. If these 2 programs could identify it, how could all of the local high-major programs who likely were able to see him multiple times miss it?

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And 1 of those offers was from Avery Johnson. As Robot said, he probably needed to find the right kind of system and he inadvertently did.

I'm not entirely sure how good he'd be in a system where he had to take more dribble 3's and mid-range jumpers and less catch and shoot 3's, but man he is comfortable with his shot almost no matter the traffic around him. I think that is one of those things you just can't always figure out whether it will translate or not.

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He's damn sure not afraid of contact when he heads to the bucket.

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I think the biggest reason he was overlooked was because his skillset is one that you watch an undersized high school kid show and think "wow, that guy seems to know how to get shots off/get angles/etc.......but he'd never be able to do that in the "P12/B12/SEC" ".

It seems like there are kids like that every year, we just never seem to be the benefactor of those skills. We seem to always get the opposite guy, dude who looks like he should be a great player but doesn't have the internal basketball wit or skillset to go with his "off the bus" look.

It's pretty great to finally be in the other seat

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Forbes and Shackelford had extremely similar college interest levels, but the most average of joes could watch the 2 back then and see that one could be a potential stud in his first year and the other a questionable role player who might be shown the door after his first year.

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Yeah, it's ironic that Forbes will need more time to adjust to the speed/athleticism of college ball.

That said, I like what I've seen from Forbes. He obviously committed to getting better defensively. He's improved immensely from the beginning of the season.
Just from limited time watching him in warmups for the 3 games I was able to see when visiting this January, it seems he has a nice, smooth 3 point stroke that he's just not replicating in game pressure and certainly not strong/quick enough with the ball in traffic.

However those are among the most fixable issues for a freshman. I think he'll end up being a very solid player even though your point still stands comparing him to Shack who looks like an future All-SEC caliber talent.

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That said, I like what I've seen from Forbes. He obviously committed to getting better defensively. He's improved immensely from the beginning of the season.
Just from limited time watching him in warmups for the 3 games I was able to see when visiting this January, it seems he has a nice, smooth 3 point stroke that he's just not replicating in game pressure and certainly not strong/quick enough with the ball in traffic.

However those are among the most fixable issues for a freshman. I think he'll end up being a very solid player even though your point still stands comparing him to Shack who looks like an future All-SEC caliber talent.

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Agreed. He's improved a lot as the year has gone on - especially with his increased role due to Herb's injury. Shackleford is way ahead of him, but to be honest, he came in as a polished son of a coach. He's a lot closer to his ceiling already than Forbes is.

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Scorers just know how to put the ball in the basket. Regardless of who they are playing against.

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I generally agree, but there are some guys who are scorers in high school that just don't have enough athletic gifts to translate that to high level college basketball.

Look at Lawson Schaffer as a prime example. He scored at will at the highest level of Alabama high school basketball and was the 6A player of the year. However, he wasn't going to be able to do that in college consistently. Not high-level college basketball. I think he could have had a very solid career in the D2 ranks or even at a place like Troy or Mercer, but not at a high level. His God given body and athleticism just were't good enough to let his scoring traits work.