Also played us when he was at Tarleton St in 2023-24.
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We can’t shake him. Maybe we’ll play him in the tourney this year.
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I’m convinced now… I’ve never seem him miss a shot!
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Debating whether to do this, but here we go: these guys make a casual reference to a gambling scandal with Thomas, and him playing despite suspicions he was betting on his team. I thought that was more than a little odd so I googled it and looked on twitter and Reddit. Nothing - no info.
Best I can tell is that they confused him with another guy in his team, Marcus Williams:
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Those guys were clearly confused. Thomas played in USF’s postseason games. The only game he missed was 2/1/25 vs Washington State due to a widely reported arm injury. Marcus Williams didn’t play in the 4 postseason games and those are the only games he missed.
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You saying the Bro Bible dont know bro?
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In this case, Bro Bible actually had the correct info.
Thanks, Bro Bible, for being the steadfast font of wisdom that we all need.
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Last deep dive done (not written)!
Thomas is going to be interesting to watch. He’s like a riverboat gambler on both offense and defense. Much stronger physically than I expected. Almost certainly not 6’5".
Roster is starting to come into focus for me - would really like some full game footage of the Euros, though.
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Looks like all/most of Bilbao’s Europe Cup full games are up on YouTube.
Just search: “ bilbao basket fiba europe cup” and select the videos tab
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I’m not seeing the equivalent for Rasta vechta. They played in the basketball champions league but only in calendar year 2024, I assume because they didn’t make the playoffs. I see a bunch of full games from that for other teams, but not seeing Rasta, at least on my mobile phone
Implicit in this is that domestic games are really hard to find on any legit source (YouTube).
Here are Rasta’s box scores
Here are Bilbao’s:
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Is he good though? That’s what I need to know.
He’s very good offensively; though a bit reckless and can force some things leading to turnovers or bad shots - it’s still a complete skill set that can create some crazy stuff off the bounce, shoot well from deep (off the bounce, stationary, or moving off of the ball using screens), has a midrange game I’d like to see him use a little less but can still be quite effective - especially as an end of shot clock option, and he finishes well around the rim/draw contact/fouls. He’ll even take his man on the block if the matchup is right. He will be unique and valuable for the team in his well-roundedness offensively.
Defensively… eh. He’s got the potential to be good. Very strong, very disruptive with his hands (read: gets away with grabbing and pushing a lot). He’s a pretty good rebounder for a guard but feels like he’s more 6’3’-6’4" than 6’5". In general, he feels much more like a SG on the court than a SF. He was tied for 4th in the WCC in steals only .1 per game lower than the three leaders - and that’s mostly from risk taking away from the ball which could fit well with what Odom does. He really focuses (too much, IMO) on his own man away from the ball, trying to face-guard almost and steal passes to him - but at the cost of general slow awareness when he’s needed to help. It’s weird though as most of the time he’s almost ignoring everything else but his man and then sometimes just freelances out of nowhere and makes a play. When he’s on the ball, he can be quite good in intervals… but he tries to initiate pressure and be invasive of space/anticipate which can often lead to him just getting beaten badly or picking up a foul. He holds up well to big guards trying to back him down most of the time.
San Francisco would sometimes play offense/defense with him at the end of games, though, where they’d take him out on the defensive end when they needed a stop and then get him back in to go get a bucket - which is telling.
It left me still feeling good about what he’ll contribute but also seeing a real opportunity for Gertrude, Lewis, and Onyenso to carve out some complimentary roles for themselves on this team as defensive support for the rest of our more offensively focused players (to be clear, Lewis was also a bad off-ball defensive player - but has a lot of potential as a defender, IMO).
Like - maybe if we’re starting Hall, White, and Thomas at the beginning of the year we are starting Onyenso to help with that back end and to allow those three to gamble more/play more aggressively trying to create turnovers. Maybe if you’re playing Grünloh over Onyenso or Tillis over De Ridder then you try to have one of Gertrude or Lewis in the game. Some more mixing and matching possibly than I’d previously thought.
Also - Thomas was often back up PG at San Francisco - so maybe there’s a little less Mallory this year than I’d anticipated if more of our guards can back up Hall there than I’d previously thought - which allows Lewis and Gertrude some more opportunities.
All very interesting.
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Lewis making a leap defensively might be our biggest X factor
It’s that or Gertrude being good enough offensively to merit having him out there for his plus plus athleticism
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