A look at the 6’6" SG/SF transfer from Arkansas State’s game, the opportunity in front of him, and for us.
I’m sort of hopeful that Harmon can be our SG of the future. And your Cuts was optimistic.
Thought the same as you in that he has the ability to be a scorer. Right killer mindset and definitely saw grit and ability.
My initial assessment was that he was more of a Sam type scorer. Threat from deep, but able to pick his spots and get to the rim - showing some real skill while doing so, not opportunistic. With the thought that next year (just like we hope with Sam), he can be more aggressive, downhill guy.
Looking back though my only concern is reps. He only had 2.5 2PA per game. Sam had 8+ 2PA per game at Toledo his sophomore campaign (down to 4 2PA per game last year, while maintaining 3PA volume of around 4 3PA per game).
I just wonder how much of a leap is realistic when looking at the numbers. And will we ride with any struggles early in the season (like we rode through Malik’s struggles) without the pedigree. Or will he look to just carve out and settle into that Jacari role. Early season minutes are going to be really interesting to watch.
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Idk how Harmon was still available when we reached out. Dixon slots in better positionally at the 2 but there is definitely some concern about whether there’s a risk of his game translating up a level. That’s not as much of a concern with Harmon, as you have suggested. Harmon feels like a guy who will seem like a much bigger name at the end of the season (kinda like Jacari).
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It’s all dependent on whether his defense can keep him on the floor, though.
There’s real upside for Harmon at SG if it can - but if last year’s tape is consistent with his range of movement this year… teams will probably hunt him on those guard switches.
I think we’re better suited to “hide” someone like him on defense on this roster than we were last year. We will be more switchable generally and depending on who he’s playing alongside (I’m thinking Dixon, Adekunle, and Anya) we could have enough support for it to not really matter. Also think the general roster continuity will make a better defensive team, which will be somewhat contagious, even for the weaker individual defenders.
Our defense could be good at hiding guys if Ibe is a viable backup to Grünloh and if we let our wings freelance and proactively try to create chaos like Odom did with VCU - but in a world where, say, he and Chance are on the floor at the same time (which - I expect Chance will be on the floor most of the time) you’re still probably going to be facing just as much pressure on your rim protection - which theoretically won’t be as good as what we had with Ugo in the mix last year (how could it? He was so good… I do keep salivating at the idea of the 7’8” wingspan, though).
In a world where you could play Dixon or Sam (or Eli in theory) at SG alongside either Adekunle or Anya… your defense looks a lot more tasty and your ability to create havoc on that end rises significantly.
So Harmon would really have to be a lot better than those offensive options in that situation if he’s not improving his agility this offseason because I think that defensive tradeoff would be real.
It’ll be interesting.
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I only got through the shooting stuff so far, but boy is it fun to watch him shoot.
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Dude can really let it go.
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Harmon and Lewis will be the chillest duo of shooters in cbb
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100% Zero doubt.
Don’t love hearing the biggest area for improvement is agility. Usually as an adult you can only meaningfully improve agility by losing fat or adding leg muscle. If he’s already at the body composition we want him at then those gains will be marginal. Foot speed is more or less genetic and early age development. Hard to improve it much after about 16 or 17