The $1 million question: What's wrong with Skal?
- Thread starter preacher_tom
- Start date
Tipton's NAME was in this article. That's bad enough but not out of line...yet.
The article is accurate but it didn't say anything new. With the exception of a few on here who think PT will fix everything, it is clear that Skal is too weak and lacks the toughness he needs. It's certainly clear to Cal when he goes to the extreme of having team managers roughing Skal up in practice. Skal will either get up and start swinging or just lay there all year. It's up to him.
I personally think he is being mis-used by Cal. Skal is what he is. And he is only here for one year. UK doesn't have time to wait for Skal to put on weight, get stronger, become a post player, etc...If he was here for 2 or 3 years then fine...work on that stuff. But he isn't...so don't. Well, work on developing that aspect of his game some...but don't make that the main focus.
I think Cal should stop trying to make him a back-to-the-basket post up center and start utilizing his current skill set. Use him as a stretch 4 which is what he is comfortable playing. Post him up occasionally but mostly use him in the high post and out on the perimeter. Work him and Lee in a high-low post situation. Use him in the pick and pop out on the perimeter. This will also draw his defender out onto the perimeter and open up driving lanes for our guards.
I think Cal should stop trying to make him a back-to-the-basket post up center and start utilizing his current skill set. Use him as a stretch 4 which is what he is comfortable playing. Post him up occasionally but mostly use him in the high post and out on the perimeter. Work him and Lee in a high-low post situation. Use him in the pick and pop out on the perimeter. This will also draw his defender out onto the perimeter and open up driving lanes for our guards.
Isn't he averaging 10 points and a handful of rebounds a game? For a freshman, that's pretty darned good.
He doesn't need 25 lbs to play tough and hard. Kids do it everyday and are successful. I think he's confused on how they want him to perform. AD would have liked to have faced the basket and shoot jumpers all game but Cal wouldn't let him, and he bought in. Skal has to do that to.
His points average is above 10 because he was unstoppable against bad teams with small players guarding him. Against anybody big and strong, he's been useless. And his rebounding average is the worst of any freshman big man with significant playing time under Cal. He could improve a good deal just by gaining confidence and playing with more energy. But it's clear he's not strong enough to hold position posting on offense, defending, or blocking out for rebounds. Maybe this can improve, but he's also very weak with the ball. I agree with others that are saying he will not become a strong post player this season, and we'll be better off having ANY of our other big men defending opposing 5s and banging down low. Skal has a better chance of learning to defend out on the floor than he does being able to go up against a bruising post man, and we can hope to get him the ball in the high post where he has a good jumpshot.
But even with that if he plays hard and buys in, he can still be successful.
Needs to shoot more, actually.
Shooting the ball is the best thing he brings to the table. Cal dialed up a play for him late against ASU and he just wouldn't take the shot. Have to find a way to get him into a groove. The two games he's gotten in one early--NJIT, South Florida--he's had very good games.
Not since the defense figured him out.........
Now his turn (or Cal's) to figure out the defense.
Since he doesn't seem to know where to set up in the paint, he usually sets up too far away for his hook shot to be affective. Even skinny and weak you can get set up, you might get pushed out but you can draw fouls and he makes free throws.
That may be true.. but look at what Golden State is doing. Skal's style is perfect for them. The NBA is trending away from big, clunky 4's and 5's and moving towards stretch 4's and 5's with someout of an inside/outside game.
I would think playing Skal on the outside, face-up would help Kentucky AND his NBA Career. He's never going to be a Cousins or Drummond type..
This. I'm getting a bit tired of people saying he's too skinny to bang inside. You know, Anthony Davis and Nerlens Noel were also bean pole skinny when they here, yet that didn't stop them being dominant post defenders and tough as nails underneath.
Developing players for the NBA and winning are the same thing. If they're developed and NBA-ready, then they win. How many times does that have to be proven before some fans get it? Basketball's a team sport that's heavy on the individual concepts. If you have players out there who are ready or close to ready to play professional basketball, you're going to win a lot of games.
Totally agree, but I think Davis got around having to make body-to-body contact by simply having almost preternatural instincts. He also had tremendous hands so he could rebound out of his area. I still think the best play he made that year was a ridiculous pass he caught at Tennessee. It was nothing but a pass--a horrible pass--that he just jumped up and snagged. Didn't even score on the play but it got me out of my seat.
This is how he usually rebounded: by using his instincts to position and his hands to corral boards that caromed in wild ways. Skal doesn't have great instincts, hasn't played a whole lot, and he shrinks away from contact. I guess this is why Cal's talked about "fight" so much with him: because you can get a few rebounds per game simply by being a dog.
You can't play without hurting the team if you rebound like Skal does. It's the most worrying thing. This is why I think he needs to shoot the ball more: he has to figure out a way to offset the rebounding issue with something.
But there is a huge difference. Those two guys were comfortable playing in that role. Skal is not. Just look at his demeanor on the offensive end of the court. He might as well be sitting in the dentist chair with a drill in front of his grill. And neither one of those guys could shoot outside very well at that point in their career. Not as well as Skal can. Skal has decent range especially for a 7 footer. He is a proto-typical stretch 4/5 and we should take advantage of his abilities. He is a match-up nightmare for the other team's big if used in this manner.
Or we could just put Billy G on retainer as a toughness coach and make Skal 10% tougher so he can bang away with the bigs down on the block.
Did you know that Skal was in an earthquake and Heshimu means "warrior"?
I also heard a rumor that Willy Cauley-Stein played WR on his high school football team. Not sure if it is true or not though.
Well, that's a good post and perhaps makes sense in terms of how to use Skal offensively. But, you know, the biggest problem with Skal is NOT scoring or offense, instead it's his absurdly soft interior defense and lack of rebounding.
I mean, my goodness, did you see how guys like Plumlee and Welsh manhandled him? When you're making friggin Marshall Plumlee and Thomas Welsh look like All Americans then you know you've got some interior defensive problems. Even if we let Skal play more outside on offense, as you suggest, we've still got to find some way to get him to crash the boards and defend the opposing big guys better.
If we don't, we're likely to end up having a shorter than expected March.
Last edited:
Handful of rebounds would be accurate, if you have little midget hands. Skal averages 3.5 rpg, or 6.5 reb/40min. To put it in perspective, our 6'2 guard Briscoe averages 7.4 reb/40min, Willis averages 7.5, Poythress and Lee are both around 13, even our 5'9 PG Ulis averages 4.4.
He makes a good % of his shots. But he simply isn't taking many because he can't/won't hold his position long enough to get the ball and take a shot.
I think he has a few problems:
1) he isn't strong enough to hold his position, or to shrug-off/play-off contact
2) he doesn't have that "fight" in him yet to demand the ball, to go get a rebound or loose ball
3) as Cal has noted, he is used to playing vs much lessor players, and has some bad habits that he hasn't broken yet, such as standing up straight & using his hands (which could be tied to 1 above and not having the lower body strength)
#1 he isn't going to solve before he leaves UK. #3 should be fixed in the coming weeks. #2 may be the one that needs fixing the most, but also is hard to gauge how long that will take.
I think at least on offense playing him facing the basket more where he can use his quickness could help.
I bet everyone opinions will change by mid February. I remember Noel and KAT would bite in every pump head fake. Get into foul trouble. Noel was a different player by February. He had double digit blocks against ole miss at their place while playing with four fouls!!!! KAT was getting frustrated and couldn't stay in the court. By February he was more reliable than anyone on the court to bring it every night
