Brayon Freeman looked very talented but had some uneven games to start his GW career.

This guy is going to be a great GW player.  You can see it tonight.  

Highest rated recruit in GW history and you can see why,

If he sticks around. Last good player we got to stick around was Yuta…

The Dude wrote:

Brayon Freeman looked very talented but had some uneven games to start his GW career.

This guy is going to be a great GW player.  You can see it tonight.  

Highest rated recruit in GW history and you can see why,

Dude, while I agree with the post, he’s not the highest rated recruit in GW history.  He’s not even close.

Shawnta Rogers was a top 30 HS recruit - easily our highest rated in history (and unsurprisingly, probably our best player). 

Pay Ngongba was a top 50ish recruit.  Very highly rated. 

Rickly Lucas and JR Pinnock we’re both top 60 or so - in the same year.

Omar Williams was borderline top 100 and had more hype than Freeman.  Matt Cimino was a top 150 recruit, just like Brayon (he was highly regarded and chose Gw over Indiana, which made his bust even more frustrating).  Yinka came with incredible buzz, including playing in the Capitol Classic.  He wasn’t “rated” because overseas guys/one year prep school guys weren’t rated, but if you were around the program in ‘92 you knew that at the time he was considered the best recruit in history (Kwame and Vaughn Jones also came with a lot of buzz from their Capitol Classic appearance).  Max Blank was featured in Sports Illustated as one of the nation’s top recruits. Gapare is more highly rated than Freeman was.   I’m sure I’m forgetting other top 100/top150 guys. 

Again, I think Freeman is great and JC’s failure to get him back in the game quickly when he was our best player Friday was a major reason we lost, but it’s just not accurate or fair to the others to claim he’s our highest rated recruit ever. Please retire that incorrect line.

You really should look at the list again.  First the earliest year I saw at a quick glance was 2003, So really all time Where's Swanta?   Second, the two players listed after Freeman are ranked better nationally than Freeman (Marfo and Cimino) , So really highest rated?  Maybe you mean position and not National but still these rating are pretty bogus.  

Dude: you're the one who said all-time.  Put your comments in the proper context.  

Great to see such enthusiasm, as always.  

Does Brayon make the All Rookie team?

I think Bishop's recent mini slump slides him to 3rd team all league along with JoeBam who will also make 3rd team all A10

 

Free Quebec wrote:

I think Brayon does make it.

I’m assuming it’s just for true freshman, not transfers or second year freshmen (otherwise Brayon probably doesn’t make it).

As for JoeBam on the third team, it’s possible but tough. I think he’s competing with Jordan Hall, D’Shawn Schwartz, Noah Fernandes, and Darius Quisenbury for the last spot on the third team, plus voters may put a Dayton guy on just because it seems hard to leave off everyone from the number 2 team despite none having standout stats.

May depend on where we finish and if voters really want to put two GW players on.

I’m assuming he’s behind these 14 players right now (not in order):
Brajkovic, Loyer, Lee, Vince Williams, Oduro, Yuri Collins, Grant Golden, Tyler Burton, Jacob Gilyard, Lofton, Ossunyi, Chubs Ohams, Jalen Adaway, and James Bishop.

Not impossible for him to move ahead of any of those guys and I could obviously be wrong, but as of right now, deserving or not, it’s hard for me to see voters picking him over any of those 14 for a variety of reasons. There’s also a few guys I didn’t mention who could also move ahead or Joe in voters’ eyes (like Gibson Jimerson, best 3pt shooter in the league).

 If we finish top 7, I think we get two players across the three teams. If not probably just one. Brayon I believe will be all-rookie but it will be close.

You know, defense does count in the overall evaluation of a player

If asked who the most complete player is on this year's team, several players might be mentioned.  Brayon Freeman should most definitely be one of them.  

Among the team's guards and wings, his shooting percentage is second to Joe Bamisile.  Leads the team in three point shooting percentage  after looking past Knapp's 50% mark on 3-6 (I do not mean to upset JF over this.)  He edges out James Bishop in rebounding despite playing nearly 8 fewer minutes per game.  Leads the team in assists.  Is second to Brendan Adams in assist to turnover ratio.  Tied for the team leader in steals with Joe despite playing 4 1/2 fewer minutes per game.  Against A10 competition, he is scoring 11.4 points per game while handing out 4 assists per game.

The eye test will tell you what the numbers can't.  He plays with poise.  He makes mistakes but then does not dwell over them.  He has "blow by" abilities which is to say that he can beat his man off the dribble.  Joe McDonald and Carl Elliott were both outstanding point guards but neither owned this ability.  SirValient Brown had this but it was hard to view him as a point guard despite this being the position he played.  Tony Taylor?  Maybe I'm "misremembering" but I don't recall him beating guys with his quickness that often.  The guy who of course comes to mind is Shawnta, very (ironically) large shoes to fill.

As both a point guard and a freshman, it only makes sense to watch Brayon defer to his teammates perhaps more than he should.  Sunday's game wasn't the first time that Brayon got the team going with his scoring (he scored the team's first 7 points) only to see his game more or less fade into the background thereafter.  Am not sure whether we are going to see this for the rest of the season, but I'm convinced that a key to this team's success is to become less reliant on James and Joe's scoring, which means that players like Brayon, Ricky, Brendan and Qwanzi need more opportunities to step up their game.  In JC's first season at GW, the team was so reliant upon Armel, Jameson and JNJ for points that they became very easy to guard.  When we play like we did on Sunday, with James and Joe taking nearly 60% of the team's shots, 80% of the team's three point shots, and 75% of the team's free throw attempts, we fall back into this trap of being too easy to defend.  

Brayon has shown an innate feel for knowing what to do with the ball.  Many college point guards spend 4 years never figuring this out.  His high school and AAU experiences have prepared him so well to excel at this level.  Kevin Larsen (Montrose Christian) and Patricio Garino (Montverde Academy)   are two great examples of players who thrived in the college game largely because of the aquality of the teams they played on and the competition they went up against.  Brayon is in this same boat. 

Hoping to see a more balanced attack from here on in, with Brayon playing an instrumental role.