Who will be named the 2013-14 MVC Freshman of the Year?

[Khan4Cats]

Ted Friedman will most likely start as the 5 for UNI by all indications. Jeremy Morgan will be playing off the bench as the #4 or 5 guard. Not saying that makes it definitive but it would seem likely that Ted has a better shot at the award than Morgan does.

Agreed....though being the #4 guard makes him the first guard off of the bench.

It means
UNI is lacking in the post - a shock to no one right now
UNI has a ton of guards - a shock to no one ever with a Jacobson coached team

Jeremy would probably be starting this year but Wes Washpun is eligible this year and is an athletic freak with speed, size, jumping, defense. Not a great shooter though....he reminds me of what Johnny Moran would have been if Johnny had athleticism. Wes jumped over Chip Rank (6'6) to win the dunk contest at UNI's McLeod Madness event http://instagram.com/p/fpp4_4sBFZ/

Jeremy is going to be a great player at UNI, but a year of growth isn't going to hurt him. If he doesn't win FOY, oh well. Watching his senior highlight tape shows the talent he has, but it's so hard for a guard to come into the MVC and look great right away. The guard play in this league is always real tough...coupled with the fact ath UNI usually has about eleventy billion guards on the roster.

Friedman is more likely to get the numbers to look like a FOY for UNI. He is likely going to start at the 5 from day 1. He's already got a big build to grow with at 6'9 230-240ish and is, from all accounts out of practice, as good/better than Tuttle and pushes people around. We'll see with that I guess.



Neither one of those two is the best player at UNI though...and if a freshman was our best player this point in the season it better mean we signed Andrew Wiggins because if it doesn't it means we aren't real good.

Couple things.

Washpun dunked over Virginia transfer Paul Jesperson, not Rank. And it's significant because A) Washpun is 6'1". B) Jesperson is 6'6" C) UNI actually had a player dunk and not just do a lay-up.

Morgan is going to be a very good guard in this league and will have the length and athleticism UNI has not had in a guard since Randy Blocker. How much he plays this year will depend on his defense (as with all UNI players). It's possible he puts up some stats that will look really good, especially if he can force some playing time division alongside Mitchell, Bohannon, Washpun and Morrison (whom he should).

Friedman will possibly start because of his size but I wouldn't look for eye-popping stats. He will play for defense and rebounding and because we aren't real deep in the post (he is the only true center on the team), he has work to do as a scorer.

A freshman won't be our best player. Neither will a senior. We will have some depth for practice with 18 on the roster but only 10 scholarship players will play this year, only 3 over 6'6". Add in one walk-on likely to play in Martino and we aren't as deep as it looks on paper.

[Cdizzle]

Couple things.

Washpun dunked over Virginia transfer Paul Jesperson, not Rank. And it's significant because A) Washpun is 6'1". B) Jesperson is 6'6" C) UNI actually had a player dunk and not just do a lay-up.

Nice. I like it when people are realistic about what their team is. Makes it so much easier to believe when they claim some player is going to make a big impact.

[uniftw]

Ted Friedman will most likely start as the 5 for UNI by all indications. Jeremy Morgan will be playing off the bench as the #4 or 5 guard. Not saying that makes it definitive but it would seem likely that Ted has a better shot at the award than Morgan does.

Agreed....though being the #4 guard makes him the first guard off of the bench.

It means
UNI is lacking in the post - a shock to no one right now
UNI has a ton of guards - a shock to no one ever with a Jacobson coached team

Jeremy would probably be starting this year but Wes Washpun is eligible this year and is an athletic freak with speed, size, jumping, defense. Not a great shooter though....he reminds me of what Johnny Moran would have been if Johnny had athleticism. Wes jumped over Chip Rank (6'6) to win the dunk contest at UNI's McLeod Madness event http://instagram.com/p/fpp4_4sBFZ/

Jeremy is going to be a great player at UNI, but a year of growth isn't going to hurt him. If he doesn't win FOY, oh well. Watching his senior highlight tape shows the talent he has, but it's so hard for a guard to come into the MVC and look great right away. The guard play in this league is always real tough...coupled with the fact ath UNI usually has about eleventy billion guards on the roster.

Friedman is more likely to get the numbers to look like a FOY for UNI. He is likely going to start at the 5 from day 1. He's already got a big build to grow with at 6'9 230-240ish and is, from all accounts out of practice, as good/better than Tuttle and pushes people around. We'll see with that I guess.



Neither one of those two is the best player at UNI though...and if a freshman was our best player this point in the season it better mean we signed Andrew Wiggins because if it doesn't it means we aren't real good.

Couple things.

Washpun dunked over Virginia transfer Paul Jesperson, not Rank. And it's significant because A) Washpun is 6'1". B) Jesperson is 6'6" C) UNI actually had a player dunk and not just do a lay-up.

Morgan is going to be a very good guard in this league and will have the length and athleticism UNI has not had in a guard since Randy Blocker. How much he plays this year will depend on his defense (as with all UNI players). It's possible he puts up some stats that will look really good, especially if he can force some playing time division alongside Mitchell, Bohannon, Washpun and Morrison (whom he should).

Friedman will possibly start because of his size but I wouldn't look for eye-popping stats. He will play for defense and rebounding and because we aren't real deep in the post (he is the only true center on the team), he has work to do as a scorer.

A freshman won't be our best player. Neither will a senior. We will have some depth for practice with 18 on the roster but only 10 scholarship players will play this year, only 3 over 6'6". Add in one walk-on likely to play in Martino and we aren't as deep as it looks on paper.

I got Rank and Jespersen mixed up, same height so I'm not too concerned. Tuttle threw it down a bunch last season, including more than a handful of drive the lane dunks, and Deon threw it down twice last season (Deon is listed at 6'1, which is actually pretty damn close).

I didn't say Friedman will put up great stats, but if I had to guess he'd have numbers closer to FOY than Morgan just because of playing time...if I had to guess Friedman for stats I'd say 5-7 ppg 6-8rpb .8 bpg. None of which is eye popping, nor likely good enough to win FOY, I just don't see Morgan putting up the stats needed to get the nod for FOY from a wing player.


The UNI system isn't built to get players 13+ ppg over the course of the season, and if they do they are like AJ and just throw it up when they touch it. The system is designed to have 3-4 players in the 9-12 ppg range, 3-4 players in the 6-9, ppg range and 2-3 in the 3-6 ppg range. That gets to about 65-70 ppg, which is where UNI has wanted to be for years.

With the new system that we are apparently going to, we'll see how that translates though

[GoRamblers]

Nice. I like it when people are realistic about what their team is. Makes it so much easier to believe when they claim some player is going to make a big impact.

Gee, I wonder who you could be talking about...

[Cdizzle]

Nice. I like it when people are realistic about what their team is. Makes it so much easier to believe when they claim some player is going to make a big impact.

Gee, I wonder who you could be talking about...

Actually, I was mostly referencing a poster who recently said this:

"We know WSU has depth. We know ISU has a good core, and UNI always has athletes."

UNI always has a lot of things. Good discipline. Good coaching. Good execution. Good fundamentals. Decent to good shooters. And that's fine. That works for them. But to pretend they are a team of high-end athletes (comparatively speaking at the D1 basketball level, of course) is ridiculous.

[ahunte1]

Gee, I wonder who you could be talking about...

You'rreeee so vaaiin...

[GoRamblers]

Actually, I was mostly referencing a poster who recently said this:

"We know WSU has depth. We know ISU has a good core, and UNI always has athletes."

My bad.

Gee, I wonder who you could be talking about...

You'rreeee so vaaiin...

See, but the ironic thing is that that song WAS about him!

[BEARZ77]

Might want to keep Ruder in the mix, kid had a great week of practice and an impressive debut at the twilite tipoff. Still a log jam at the 2 guard spot, but he's in the running.

[Wufan]

Excited to see Milton Doyle!

[uniftw]

Nice. I like it when people are realistic about what their team is. Makes it so much easier to believe when they claim some player is going to make a big impact.

Gee, I wonder who you could be talking about...

Actually, I was mostly referencing a poster who recently said this:

"We know WSU has depth. We know ISU has a good core, and UNI always has athletes."

UNI always has a lot of things. Good discipline. Good coaching. Good execution. Good fundamentals. Decent to good shooters. And that's fine. That works for them. But to pretend they are a team of high-end athletes (comparatively speaking at the D1 basketball level, of course) is ridiculous.

Yet UNI has been the most consistent (one of the 2 or 3 most at the least) program over the last decade or so.

Athletes don't make a great team if the athletes aren't anything other than just that, athletes.

WSU has had better "athletes" that UNI the entire time Marshall/Jacobson have been around, yet Jake has a winning record against Marshall (I believe). Bradley, MSU, IlSU, etc... all have better "athletes" yet I wouldn't ever take their players/program ever UNI's.