Yes, I was. Won't deny it. There are things he does very well. So long as he was surrounded with guys who could score, he was pretty good. Watching that game last night, he had 11 assists, which is excellent. He also missed 10 of 14 shots, though he made 3 three pointers (one was banked in from nearly 30ft), which I don't think ever happened at UK. But he missed multiple times right at the rim. Even back when I defended him, I acknowledged that he was limited. There is no question, if he's not surrounded with multiple shooters/scorers, the team is going to struggle. If he must score, the team is in trouble. On this particular Washington team, Wheeler was needed to score. He had 11 assists last night because guys were hitting shots who don't usually make them. That team is currently 16-13 and their only chance to make the NCAA-T is to win the PAC12 tournament, which won't happen.
And he ESPECIALLY needed to play in space like we do more today. He had some shooter then but we were playing Cal's clogged up circle cut offense and he was dead in the water without driving lanes. When you cant drive or shoot there's not much more you're going to get done out there. But we had a stretch where we were spacing it and he looked pretty good in that drivnig and whipping it around - so did the others as well. Then things deteriorated back to a clogged up slogging style again. But he had his moments. I remember the Duke game his first year and he was all we had, everyone else looked completley lost.
Lol , you sound like my son when he was 16-17 , you catch him in a doozy and it's " I was W...... I was Wr ...... ....................................................... I was Wr......................... Ah forget I'm not saying it" ... LOL
He was offered disability , but choose to transfer .
So his one skill was to drive 15ft in a straight line and do nothing.
Lance Ware was another of Cal's favorites.
Also because Cal failed to land a good player at that position. Another of our incomplete recruiting classes with a big hole in it.
You mean being butthurt?
He could handle well, was quick with the ball in his hands, and had really good court vision- could find the open guy and get him the ball. When he was surrounded with great offensive players, it was a thing of beauty. At the height of their play, that team was very good. If you get a chance, rewatch some of those January games from that season. They were humming at that point, playing as well as anyone in the nation. But it fell apart...
No matter how well we played we had a low ceiling come tournament time with Wheeler running point. For me personally I’m always judging how what we do translates to a championship run. Wheeler’s deficiencies were many and easily exploitable. It was a disservice to both UK and Wheeler for him to even be on the team to begin with. Cal’s inability to land the top freshman in specific roles put him in a bind over and over. Wheeler is just one example.
My problem is with the “Wheeler will start and you’re an idiot if you don’t think so” group when we got to Wheeler’s 2nd season. They just couldn’t get past his assist numbers to see that he wasn’t the type of player we needed to rely on to steer the ship in March. Hes just not that dude. I thought he could be a helpful piece as a spark plug off the bench but some people here just weren’t hearing it and they’d treat anyone who disagree like they were idiots. Well, here we are.
I imagine people would probably take it easier on him if he hadn’t quit the team in the middle of the season because he wasn’t going to start anymore. Kind of killed the goodwill, honestly.
I always figured that Cal took him because he was the kind of guard that comes into Rupp and lights us up. So he didn’t take him for what he could for UK but what he could do against UK. He neutralized him.
Thought I heard one of the announcers say Cal held Brooks back or wasn't used properly at UK
The dude only averages 8 pts, 3 boards and .7 assts per game at WKU. He really only had one good game that I remember.
There are similarities for sure. The biggest difference is Wagner is about 6 inches taller and a much better finisher. So, when he gets in the lane, he can usually score. Wheeler had to kick it out somewhere nearly every time because he was 5-9.
Dude, no. Wagner’s stuff is largely mental although his shot is functionally broken. Wagner doesn’t look like a stiff bowling ball with carrots for appendages. He doesn’t have to put his whole ass into a shot to get it to the rim. He’s just pressing. I’d take Wagner back for another year if he was so inclined. Wagner got messed up in the head by Dillingham’s shot getting so much better immediately and by Sheppard doing 95% of everything right almost immediately. And then by falling behind in the flow of the team by the injury (or whatever happened behind the scenes for Cal to bench him for a bit).
