Dont start the Neal is not athletic crap

[Krugerfan52]

This is probably the most detailed youtube highlight clip I've ever seen. It really highlights his athleticism. One play he ran down a break and blocked a shot, something that Hardrick, Allen, and Fitz will never do. He has a very good post up game. I don't think we'll see much of it on the next level as I think he's a little undersized to post up guys on a big12 level. He does seal very well like you said and wastes very little movement. If you watch it when he gets the ball in the post, he makes his move instantly with either his drop step or his one dribble. In contrast, when Tiny got it in the post, he just held the ball, did his lean back, took two, sometimes three or even four dribbles. As the season went on, Tiny started doing something I really didn't like was catching the ball in the post and pivoting away from the lane and facing up too much.

So like the post says, he has a high bball IQ. His weaknesses are going to be his ballhandling, his slow release from distance, and his youth mainly. I think he'll be a heavy rotation player by the end of his Sophomore year.

Thats a good point about Neal making a quick move and not waiting. Tiny does that, Longar did that, and even Blake did it a lot his freshman year. But Blake improved and was ready to make his move his soph year which made him unstoppable. It also didnt give the defense a chance to come double team like Tiny does. Its almost like Tiny is waiting so that he has to pass it back out, because he doesn't want to go to the hole. Hopefully he'll improve that like Blake did. But it's nice to see that Neal is already there...at least against HS competition.

 

[thecynic]

As campbest said, Neal is not new to many of the posters here. OUHoops introduced him as a possible recruiting prospect as far back as February 27. I found another thread SoonerNorm started sometime later. Check 'em out and you'll see.

http://ouhoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13935

http://ouhoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14205

On that point, I stand corrected. I think I may have even read one of those.

 

[HoHum]

um no. He had an offer WV, but he would never have been offered by a Huggy WV team. WV, the two Oklahoma schools and mid majors were his other offers. But as far as how he played in high school and during AAU ball, he wasn't better than Neal in my opinion and neither was Godbold. Godbold put up better numbers, but his all around game wasn't close to Neal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz5U7vgQDx8

What are you 'um no'ing about? He had an offer from Beilein WV, which made an elite 8 (I'm pretty sure) and is still Big East. And he had offers from the Oklahoma schools.

You just 'um no'ed me, then repeated the exact same info I said in my post.

 

[Seymore Cox]

What are you 'um no'ing about? He had an offer from Beilein WV, which made an elite 8 (I'm pretty sure) and is still Big East. And he had offers from the Oklahoma schools.

You just 'um no'ed me, then repeated the exact same info I said in my post.

The un no meant he wasn't a great high school player.

 

[HoHum]

The un no meant he wasn't a great high school player.

Never said he was. Said he was pretty highly recruited and pretty good. Which he is/was. He committed the April before signing day, that cut off a lot of potential attention. So to have 5+ offers before summer AAU ball came around says a lot.

I just think its premature to start touting a guy who doesn't even exist according to rivals and scout and comparing him to an McDonald's All-American and skills like Larry Bird and all of this stuff.

But, I realize this is what fans do. I thought Torin Walker would see 15 minutes a game this year. I remember a post saying you thought Ray Willis would be an All-Conference guy and better than Obi Muonelo. So we're all guilty of it.

Good luck to him though, I like for Oklahoma High School guys to be good players.

 

[Sooner04]

Because that one game where the ball just happened to bounce to him and he got a few rebounds his own coach went off after the game about how weak he was that day.

And thats the BEST game you can come up with for the kid.

Actually his best game was last year against Mississippi Valley State when Capel went to the full court trap and Ray went for 14 points in 15 minutes. His athleticism when we went to the trap had me very excited for things down the road.

Unfortunately that press went the way of the dodo, as did Ray's minutes.