Love what I saw. Made some really difficult shots at the rim. Think we got a good one. Also love his enthusiasm. I imagine he will be a great teammate.
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Funniest thing about that play is that Kihei was able to get to the rim and draw four defenders – even though everyone knew he was going to drive, and everyone knew he wasn’t going to shoot. Morsell and Huff were wide open, too.
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Harmon is gonna shine for us. Nice pick up.
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Watched the full game of the Arkansas State - SMU. A few thoughts:
- Harmon had some nice drives and ball handling. Sort of reminded me of Sam - picked his spots but also finished well. Was more aggressive early on.
- Shot looked pure and confident
- Defensively I thought he stayed in front of his man and closed out well - started off against Edwards and also guarded Boopie. Could guard 1-3. Probably some smaller 4’s.
- Little thing but he did a really good job boxing out on every play - something our guards struggled with that I appreciated here
- Generally good focus defensively, awareness and communication. Think he will assimilate well - sorta like Sam
A couple of other things:
- A State had 32 turnovers - not great supporting cast, either in distribution or mishandles by bigs.
- Harmon had 6 turnovers - I’d argue 3 of them were really on him - a couple casual passes where he just didn’t see a player clearly in the passing lane and one where he dribbled into his leg (but might have been a foul first). The other three were either drops by teammates out of bounds or received a pass in an impossible scenario.
- Defensively A State was a mess. I thought he was their best defensive player but got put in some impossible situations by his teammates and A States desire to hard hedge.
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Shoutout Rochester NY! Homeland of the Haney fam. Was just there a couple weekends ago.
I hated Ryan Pannone when we were recruiting Kon and he was the Bama coach in charge, but all is forgiven.
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I think I like him better on offense than Dixon. Dixon seems like he could be a defensive asset.
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Not a little thing!
Great recap. Thanks!
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I honestly don’t know why there wasn’t more high major interest in Harmon. Most of his other interest appears to have been bottom half P4 teams (Maryland, KState, Mizzou, etc.).
I know I’m a drinker of the Kool Aid and would probably hype up any commit we got but I do like the additions of Harmon and Dixon. Harmon I like on his own because I think his game translates nicely. Dixon I like more now that we have Harmon, if that makes sense.
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It’s a super small sample size, but I watched the SMU extended highlights, and while he was fine scoring (17pts) he had several bad turnovers, almost turnovers on the dribble and bad fouls (gave up several and 1s). I think, like the guys this year (cough Sam) he’s gonna need til Christmas to settle in at this level. Then will be really solid. He can certainly shoot and obviously we won’t need him to do all that was asked at ARST nor will he be the focus off the defense.
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Watched that game too and a lot of it is just the helter skelter nature of Arkansas State’s offense. It was a total mess without a true PG, and just felt really frantic. I’m sure he will really benefit from playing within a more structured offense, that still leaves plenty of opportunity for freedom.
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Yeah, was just trying to frame to the question of why not more high major interest. I also wonder if it’s more of a case that everybody just wants guards that can attack attack attack and are less interested in more limited 3/D guys at the wing spot. Idk
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Yeah it’s worth watching that full game for the context. Harmon definitely had some bad turnovers but so did literally every Arkansas St player. They had like 10 turnovers in the first 5 minutes.
The two fouls occurred within minutes of each other and were definitely bad “and 1” fouls on layups in transition. Went the rest of the game with only one (which didn’t result in an “and 1”).
This was also game 6 (all of which on the road). His first D1 experience and playing with an entirely new roster.
I’m more bull-ish based on what I saw from him that he’ll pick up things much quicker with a better supporting cast. At the very least he’ll be where Malik or Sam ended the season within the first month. I do expect the occasional boneheaded turnover though.
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I think one of the issues concerns the evaluations of those within the portal. A few weeks ago, more than a few Virginia fans were bemoaning the fact that there were few prospects listed in the Top 200 (On3 or 247Sports) who were uncommitted. I don’t know where Dixon was ranked at that time, but now he is in On3’s Top 100 (#78). Meanwhile, Harmon is outside the the top 300. I suspect that this is because On3 knows nothing about him. 247Sports has him [Harmon] inside their Top 250 (#138), but they have no mention of Dixon.
I suspect the obvious problem is that when 2,500+ players enter the transfer portal, none of the various services have the time or resources to provide an accurate evaluation or ranking of all them. The more obvious ones who played for P4(5) schools may be more exceptions than rules. Additionally, successful additions to any program probably have more to do with a staff’s networking within the coaching community and their own ability to evaluate talent. (I remember it was reported that when Randy Shannon was HC at Miami, his staff’s approach to recruiting was to simply call all the players to whom Rivals had given 4 or 5 stars. This also coincided with the decline of the program.) It will be interesting to see if either On3 or 247Sports revises their rankings based on the programs which are recruiting specific players, and, if they do so, the differences between the early rankings and any final ones.
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And to not be too defensive and rosy. A couple defensive breakdowns:
- He got caught a little slow to react to a lob to O’Neal. He was actually in good position to defend had the lob been on target, but the pass was short and O’Neal made a tremendous play to flush it. Maybe if he was quicker he could have disrupted it.
- Got caught when they transitioned to zone playing too high which led to an easy corner three.
Generally, thought he managed well in what was poor team defense. Didn’t suffer from the same lapses or miscommunication that we saw in Sam and Malik.
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I was trying to find one of Harmon’s later season league games against one of the better teams in the league and noticed this guy on Troy’s roster. He’s from the Toronto area. How many basketball playing cousins on both sides of his family does SGA have?
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I thought I read that they had 32 turnovers in that game? Is that true? I didnt even know that was possible.
My prediction is that Harmon will turn out to be what we thought Malik was going to be last year: A guy who can score from all three levels. Not as good a shooter as Sam, but more aggressive and more versatile.
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I think Harmon’s jumpshot is better than Malik (and on par with Lewis) but I don’t think he will finish as well as Malik. Both are athletically average but Malik seemed to have a little more guile and capability (e.g., crowded lane fadeaways to create space). Maybe I just need to see more Harmon film.
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