2014 SG/SF Ronnie Harrell (Signed)

[R to the OB]

Side note: his Twitter handle now says "Point Guard for Creighton University". Interesting.

Very interesting. If Ronnie's length could bother 3s defensively, think about how much it would bother 1s...

[taa71458]

Side note: his Twitter handle now says "Point Guard for Creighton University". Interesting.

Very interesting. If Ronnie's length could bother 3s defensively, think about how much it would bother 1s...

We'll have a 7'2" PG in 3 years...I like it!

[LJay]

Harrell observations from this summer:

He handles the ball way better than I expected.

He does not shoot as well as I expected.

That is all.

Well no, it's not. He and Milliken have really strange shooting form. I wouldn't be surprised if Jay coaches work on his mechanics.

[AttyAlum]

Harrell observations from this summer:

He does not shoot as well as I expected.

I went to the summer league three times this year and on two of those times, he shot the ball really well. The other time he struggled. I am choosing to say the night that he struggled was an aberration

He is much taller and longer than I expected. He is also more skinny than I expected (of course, so was Doug when he first got here).

[McKinney's Neighbor]

Everyone talked about Ronnie being a lights out shooter in HS, but he only shot 38% or whatever from 3. 38% from 3 isn't bad, but it's certainly not what I would classify as exceptional - especially in high school.

[Jet915]

Although it's high school, 38% is better than any Jay on the current team except Chatman. The days of having 3-4 guys shoot >40% from 3 might be gone.

[Chicagojayfan]

Although it's high school, 38% is better than any Jay on the current team except Chatman. The days of having 3-4 guys shoot >40% from 3 might be gone.

I think we may still have some 40+ shooters from 3. Part of what we do is share the ball and find mismatches. When I watched Harrell's highlights, he was often taking the ball down the court and having to find his own shot. In our offense, he'll often be passing when he would have been shooting in HS, so I think the potential is there.

LIke I said when I saw Hegner's film from HS, I like his touch and his natural feel for shooting. They reworked Hegner's shot a bit last year making it less of a push and looks like initiating it from higher up, but the basics of what made him a good shooter are still the same -- touch and feel. I think Harrell has the same type of touch and feel and is a better ball handler, but Hegner has post moves and more bulk to go with the height. From Harrell's HS film I might want to rework his shot a bit also as he looked like it started pretty low. The big question is strength and agility on the defensive end - 10 lbs is a good start, but he may need 10-20 more to take a major role in the BE. Given our need for shooters, we may not have that time.

[Jaysker12]

Although it's high school, 38% is better than any Jay on the current team except Chatman. The days of having 3-4 guys shoot >40% from 3 might be gone.

Maybe, maybe not. Kinda reiterating Chicagojay, us having so many "sharpshooters" could have easily just been a product of our offense doing its job. When the number one tenet of your offense is to always search for the best shot, your overall percentages are going to be higher for it. I don't think RH's 3pt% will go down simply because of the added distance to the college line. A lot of his highlights clearly show him shooting college 3's and scouts have said he has 'deep range'. Adding strength will only improve his range/confidence in shooting from range.

Thing to keep in mind is that we all heard about how amazing a shooter IZ was in high school- and he turned in an unspectacular percentage from 3 last year. I have no doubt that it'll improve as he fully adjusts to the pace of the D-1 game. RH and IZ are different players - namely the height and length advantage vs more polish on handles and IQ - but the expectation can't be that a true freshman comes in and is our best or second best shooter once conference play starts. I think an optimistic but tempered expectation is for Ronnie to become one of our best three shooters sometime during the season.

[LJay]

Had to dig deep to find this thread.

Ronnie certainly did not want to be here this year but his fantabulous Denver Pioneers just topped off a fine 8-22 season and, I believe, missed the Summit tourney. Thus, his career is over. Had he decided to stick it out I wonder how this season goes (if he actually bought in and tried).

Idle speculation.

[cu8493]

I watched parts of several of their games this year because they were on fox Midwest. Ronnie was the Ronnie we all knew. Some fantastic plays, some not so fantastic plays and some really awful plays, and times where he just didn't seem to give much effort. It appears to me he probably knew from practice last year and I'd guess maybe his post-season talk with Mac that he'd have to work his butt off to get time in the rotation with Jefferson coming eligible and with the others coming back. I think he decided it wasn't worth it. "What could have been" probably sums up his collegiate career about as well as anything. The Ronnie I saw in the parts of their games I watched this year would have struggled to get much playing time at CU this season, in my opinion.