Summer league journal 6-23: Reed impresses

Greetings all! As we near the end of June, basketball related activities begin to pick up. Today marked the beginning of the Pro-Am summer league played at Montour High School. All 14 members of the Robert Morris basketball team are on one of the eight teams. There are four games each night, two of which happen at the same time in separate gyms. I caught a half of each game.

This was my first summer league experience. It was… something. The style of play was similar to how you would play a video game. The pace is frantic but free flowing with little defense and lots of three pointers and alley-oops. I definitely feel like I could bang some three pointers and impress the crowd. Anyway, some observations:

-The first game featured big man Lionel Gomis, point guard Jafar Kinsey, and former colonial Karvel Anderson going against shooting guard Marcquise Reed and Aaron Tate.

Reed was absolutely the most impressive person I saw play. The JUCO transfer averaged a measly 31.2 points per game at Capitol Christian and has a sweet looking jump shot. I wasn’t so much impressed with him offensively as I was defensively. I expected Reed to get buckets, but what I didn’t expect was for him to hound Karvel Anderson the way he did in the first half. He showed some active hands and overall good positioning.

There is a lot up in the air in regards to who will be the starting shooting guard. I think Chuck Oliver certainly has an advantage going into the season but isn’t a slam dunk by any means. Toole is going to want to go back to his man-to-man defense, something Oliver struggled with last year. If Reed can show consistencies with his jump shot and bring it on the defensive end he’s going to see the floor a lot.

-Watching Jafar Kinsey play for the first time was pretty cool. I think he was Toole’s first commit in the recruiting class. Kinsey has a Velton Jones-ish build to him and also ramped up the intensity on the defensive end grabbing a few steals off cross-court lob passes. He seemed pretty articulate off the pick and roll, identifying when to get to the rim but usually looking to pass first.

-The big men didn’t look too bad. Lionel Gomis is a big guy. Definitely has more muscle to him than most big men we’re accustomed to (which isn’t saying much). He was a little hesitant around the rim early, often fading away off his spin move in the paint. You can tell he throws his weight around rebounding though. Speaking of throwing weight around, here is your Aaron Tate update: still strong as a bull. I got a good chuckle out of watching his defender leave his feet on one of his patented pump fakes. Tate actually looked good offensively though: he finished with his left hand twice and scored off a nice low post possession.

-The other game being played featured Chuck Oliver, Lucky Jones, and Stephan Hawkins. The only notes I wrote down for the game was “shit ton of three’s.” Chuck and Lucky had some decent one-on-one battles and Chuck shot the ball well (and often). Hawk hit his baseline jumper but didn’t see any low post touches, which was kind of disappointing. Oh well.

-Game three featured two of the bigger names with one team having forward Elijah Minnie and guard Ryan Skovranko facing off against forward Andre Frederick. Minnie was fairly aggressive with his outside shooting and certainly has a nice shot for someone his size. His shot has a nice arc to it. He had a few nice drives to the rim as well. The biggest takeaway I had about Minnie was how he plays above the rim. RMU has very few guys who do that. It’ll be an adjustment period for him but you can certainly see the promise.

Not a whole lot doing for Skovranko who was not very aggressive and is definitely not the 6’7” he’s been listed as. Frederick seems to have a pretty good idea of what to do with the ball in the low post.

-Did not participate: David Appolon (foot), Rodney Pryor (ACL), Kavon Stewart, Jairus Lyles (undisclosed).

-Reminder: All of these observations are coming from the 20 minutes I watched in the first summer league game of the year. Don’t take anything too seriously.

Games are played every Monday and Wednesday. I will not be at the next two sessions due to previously committed activities. Follow Andrew Chiappazzi and Craig Meyer for updates.

Until next time!

--Chris Cappella

--@C_Cappella

Pro-Am rosters and coaching staff updates

The rosters of all eight Pro-Am teams has been released along with this years schedule. As you can see, all 14 of Robert Morris' players are on a roster: 

You gotta give credit where it's due, so big thanks to Matthew Steinbrink for tweeting out those photos even if he does cover Pitt basketball for a living. 

There are some former local WPIAL stars back in the league. Arizona point guard T.J. McConnell, Vanderbilt guard Nolan Cressler, Penn State guard Geno Thorpe, and Nebraska Guard Lance Jeter being the headliners. I like that RMU point guard Jarius Lyles is going to get the opportunity to learn from someone like McConnell.

In other housekeeping new, former Robert Morris assistant coach Michael Byrnes was announced as the new head coach at D-III Rhode Island College Wednesday. The news was first reported by Craig Meyer. Byrnes was an original assistant of coach Toole's 2010-2011 staff. Before joining Toole's staff Byrnes spent several years at the prep level as a head coach, compiling an overall record of 404-131. The only assistant remaining from that first year is Robby Pridgen. 

"Michael has been involved in basketball at both the prep and collegiate level for over 20 years and his success at the prep level speaks for itself," Toole told Rhode Island's University Herald. "The players he's produced, the contacts he's made and the experience he's gained in the prep school ranks made him a natural fit to join our staff at Robert Morris to help take our program to even greater heights."

Best of luck in the future coach!

--Chris Cappella

--@C_Cappella

Robert Morris releases its hoops schedule

As the title of this post suggests, the RMU basketball team has released its schedule. Here's the link for the full thing.

The beauty of schedule release day is that even though it's June and we have no idea of who will be good or bad, we still try and predict records and tough and easy stretches of the schedule. I love the non-conference schedule-- it's not overwhelming but just about every team faced is a quality basketball program. 

There are two "headliners" in the out of conference schedule. The second game of the year will be at Chapel Hill when the Colonials take on North Carolina. Much like last years early season matchup at Kentucky, this game could be a good measuring stick for a young squad. I don't think anyone will expect them to go into UNC and beat the Tar Heels but it would be nice to see the team play with some toughness. 

The second game "headliner" is at Georgetown in the fourth game of the year. This is a game I think RMU could realistically win if they play well. Georgetown went 18-15 last year and lost in the second round of the NIT. They lost one of their best players in Markel Starks to graduation. While they did bring in a good recruiting class, I'll be interested to see if Robert Morris could possibly steal one on the road. 

Everything else is about just as we expected. RMU will travel to Clemson December 30 before kicking off conference play at home against Mount St. Mary's in the NEC title game rematch January 3. The only game not previously announced that appeared on the schedule was the third game of the year at Bradley.

There will be more frequent visits to the Charles L. Sewall Center this year, which is nice. Last year RMU had only 12 total home games and only four of those were against non-NEC opponents. This year RMU will have 15 home games and six of these will be against non-NEC opponents (Lafayette, Youngstown State, Oakland, Buffalo, Duquesne, and Delaware). 

Reminder: the NEC is going with an 18-game conference schedule, meaning every NEC team will play each other twice. This is smart and logical. Last year there was only a 16 game conference schedule, which was not smart or logical. Although it's tough to say who we expect to be contenders in the NEC, the January 22-24 Thursday-Saturday road trip to Mount St. Mary's and St. Francis (Brooklyn) will probably be the toughest weekend of the year. The colonials will end conference play with two home games against Wagner and St. Francis (PA). Both of these teams figure to be in contention for the NEC title.

Not much more to add here. It was a pleasant surprise to see the schedule released extra early this year. See ya November 14.

--Chris Cappella

--@C_Cappella

Karvel Anderson gets another workout and scheduling notes

We already knew guard Karvel Anderson had a workout setup with the Houston Rockets but his work will not be done according to Stephen Gertz:

This is awesome news again for the Elkhart, Indiana native. As we said in our last post, it says a lot that teams want to bring him in for private workouts. Teams can only get so many private workouts before the draft so for Karvel to get another look says a lot about the possible interest of teams. The Pacers finished the year as the number one seed in the eastern conference and will have the 57 overall pick. Things are certainly starting to get... interesting.

In other news concerning the 2014 Colonials, check out this news from CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein:

Georgetown finished with a regular season record of 17-14 (8-10) and their season finished with a second round NIT loss to Florida State. That will be a nice early season test against a tough, talented, big time opponent. While the full schedule has not been released and certainly won't be for a little longer, things are starting to take shape. We know Robert Morris will play 18 conference games. We also know it will host Lafayette, Delaware, Buffalo, Youngstown State, Oakland, and Duquesne in return games for trips this year. RMU will also travel to Toledo and Georgetown. RMU will likely add only five (give or take) more games to their schedule.

Feel free to comment!

--Chris Cappella
--@C_Cappella