Shepherd Will transfer

[sperry]

I don't know how good Shepherd might have been. He certainly looked better last year and earlier this season than he did in conference play, but he got such limited minutes in conference play it's hard to know for sure. If you know you're only going to play three or four minutes, you don't get to settle in at all and you may well feel you can't let the game come to you -- you've got to accomplish something big as soon as you're on the floor.

It's entirely possible that with Trae gone and Shepherd getting normal minutes next season, he'd have made some strides. We'll never know.

But either way, it boggles my mind a a little bit to hear people say it's no loss that he's transferring, simply we don't have a single point guard on the roster now. That's why I asked early in the thread if there was an announcement coming about a transfer PG coming in, because if not, Shepherd walked away from a season of starting at PG and many posters are blithely discounting his departure, as if we currently have other legitimate options at that position.

It's not a loss because the team was significantly worse with him on the floor than off it this year. Shepherd is almost the definition of a replacement level player. Whoever we add at PG will be able to at least replicate the minutes he gave us, and could easily be better.

Both the traditional and advanced metrics say he was not good: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/jordan-shepherd-1.html

 

[skyvue]

It's not a loss because the team was significantly worse with him on the floor than off it this year. Shepherd is almost the definition of a replacement level player. Whoever we add at PG will be able to at least replicate the minutes he gave us, and could easily be better.

Both the traditional and advanced metrics say he was not good: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/jordan-shepherd-1.html

I don't think we can know whether he'd have been better next season. He was in a no-win situation this season. I'm not guaranteeing we'd have seen improvement from him, but I think it's possible, whereas some posters have written him off altogether.

As for adding someone at PG, there's no guarantee we'll get anyone. That's my point: We've lost literally the only PG we have and some are reacting as if that's good news. If Coach Kruger has someone better than Shepherd lined up, great (though if he does, he's doing a great job of keeping it secret), but even then we're going to need a backup PG.

 

[BanjoCharley]

It's not a loss because the team was significantly worse with him on the floor than off it this year.

Could that be because when he was off the floor his replacement was a first team All American point guard?

 

[sperry]

I don't think we can know whether he'd have been better next season. He was in a no-win situation this season. I'm not guaranteeing we'd have seen improvement from him, but I think it's possible, whereas some posters have written him off altogether.

As for adding someone at PG, there's no guarantee we'll get anyone. That's my point: We've lost literally the only PG we have and some are reacting as if that's good news. If Coach Kruger has someone better than Shepherd lined up, great (though if he does, he's doing a great job of keeping it secret), but even then we're going to need a backup PG.

I would rather see a grad transfer run the point, and Bienemy be the backup point. I know Bienemy is better suited to be a 2, but the reps at PG can only help his playmaking down the line. If we really need a body, we can find a JUCO kid that could equal Shepherd's production at basically any point.

 

[sperry]

Could that be because when he was off the floor his replacement was a first team All American point guard?

A lot of his minutes in conference play were along side Trae.

 

[WTSooner]

Please show this

It's not difficult to go look at his game logs. Dude was playing 15-20 minutes a game in the OOC games, and doing quite well. First Big 12 game? Two minutes.

The hype that Lon Kruger gets as a coach, I don't understand it. I just haven't seen much during his tenure at OU. He's solid. Adequate. But he isn't a great coach. Just a good coach and good guy that has been doing this a very long time.

 

[skyvue]

It's not difficult to go look at his game logs. Dude was playing 15-20 minutes a game in the OOC games, and doing quite well.

He averaged 17 minutes per game in conference play, with 5 points and 3 assists per.

That's 10 points and 6 assists per 34 minutes of action. I'd take that from our point guard next year, given our current prospects at that position.

 

[JBaker]

Need good players! Not warm bodies!

Until last year I wouldn’t have been worried about this, but now I’m very concerned. It never made sense to me that we took Lazenby last year rather than leave a scholarship open for this year. That’s looking even worse now, because we could have been recruiting a solid PG for the last year if we knew we were going to have an extra scholarship.

 

[inoref]

Most coaches and pretty sure Lon is the same..couldn't care less if and where the player ends up

 

[Eielson]

Until last year I wouldn’t have been worried about this, but now I’m very concerned. It never made sense to me that we took Lazenby last year rather than leave a scholarship open for this year. That’s looking even worse now, because we could have been recruiting a solid PG for the last year if we knew we were going to have an extra scholarship.

With Harmon on the way, I think the staff has planned on one of two things:

1) Trae comes back (we've known for a while that wouldn't happen)
2) Grad transfer

Honestly, with Trae on campus and Harmon on the way, I doubt you end up with much more than a Shepherd type player. If you're good enough that Trae and Harmon don't scare you off, there's potential that you're good enough to scare Harmon off.

If our staff was really concerned about a scholly for a PG, they could have simply not offered Kuath.

 

[thebigabd]

He averaged 17 minutes per game in conference play, with 5 points and 3 assists per.

That's 10 points and 6 assists per 34 minutes of action. I'd take that from our point guard next year, given our current prospects at that position.

You'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

This roster is showing serious signs of neglect and issues, and the dust hasn't settled yet.

 

[CoachTalk]

You'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

This roster is showing serious signs of neglect and issues, and the dust hasn't settled yet.

I agree with your points here... but several of these guys don’t want to be here and can’t accept their role.

They need to go if they can’t gwt on board.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Please show this

I did in another post.
It’s easy to find on basketball reference though


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[schoonerdriver]

Shepard wasn't aggressive enough. He seemed to really struggle with physicality and pressure. Constantly dribbling east and west. Team really struggled offensively with him at point this season. I am guessing he would be better served as an off-guard and a system that is more structured than Lon's.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[152219]

In OOC, I only took the games against teams from the P5 conferences and Wichita State (so no scrub teams)

Shepherd's averages

17.6 min/game
FG % 53.8%
3 PT% 33%
5.2 ppg
1.8 rpg
1.4 apg
0.8 turnovers/game

 

[SoonerBounce13]

On the Trae thing, I'm not sure on that. Trae and him were roommates, and I've always heard Shep usually had Trae's back when others were upset with him. Shep was upset with the coaches because he didn't play as much, when he felt like him and Trae easily could have played together, but not the him and Trae not liking each other. I had always heard, like I said, the opposite.

Why should we believe you when you don't even know that they weren't roommates?

Unless McGusty, Trae, and Shep all lived together

 

[Ghost of Gar Heard]

Why should we believe you when you don't even know that they weren't roommates?

Unless McGusty, Trae, and Shep all lived together

A lot of college suites have more than just 2 students as roommates.

 

[CoachTalk]

On official to Charlotte

 

[Soonerinkc]

Good for him...hope he does well. He was in a no win situation. I'm sure he put enormous pressure on himself..when he gave TY a break. Of all the guys I watched on the bench (via TV time-outs, etc VERY LITTLE) he seemed to have a great "team" attitude...but that was a very small sample.

Obviously hindsight but there were issues on this team.

Who knows if he would have flourished being the full-time pg. I agree it takes some "time" to get into the flow of a game...so maybe it would have helped.

Ah well, wish him well.

 

[SoonerBred]

Good for him...hope he does well. He was in a no win situation. I'm sure he put enormous pressure on himself..when he gave TY a break. Of all the guys I watched on the bench (via TV time-outs, etc VERY LITTLE) he seemed to have a great "team" attitude...but that was a very small sample.

Obviously hindsight but there were issues on this team.

Who knows if he would have flourished being the full-time pg. I agree it takes some "time" to get into the flow of a game...so maybe it would have helped.

Ah well, wish him well.

I agree, he always had a good attitude on the bench. Hopefully we can rebuild with some Buddy Hield type attitudes that are contagious to the rest of the team.