AuburnArch13

He’s certainly not. Would probably be a top-5 pick if he were eligible this year. As much as I love Wen and Zep, this team would be near unstoppable had the G-League not changed their rules and Scoot had ended up here. Top guard prospect in the country right now for sure.

Bruce Pearl era: 1) Sharife Cooper 2) Jabari Smith 3) Isaac Okoro 4) Chuma Okeke 5) Walker Kessler Obviously a little untraditional putting Smith at the 2, but he can give you all the spacing and shooting that you'd want while being an obvious mismatch. There’s be a drop off in ball handling and shot creation which is why I’d go with Cooper over Harper or others. On defense the thought is that Isaac would take the more ball dominant guard, Jabari and Chuma take the wings, Walker patrols the paint, and Cooper just kinda stands next to whichever guard is posted up at the three point line.

My understanding was that the veracity of that rumor hinged mainly on strep rhyming with Zep.

NBADraft.net now has him at the top of their big board as well. https://www.nbadraft.net/ranking/bigboard/ Truly a special talent we’ve got on campus right now.

Coop got optioned to the G-League Skyhawks along with Mays and Johnson. Should see more playing time there. Don’t imagine he sees much time with the big club for a while barring injuries.

Not sure Auburn can make an exception to a federal mandate.

And quite a few throw aways when he was running for his life. Didn’t see many inaccurate throws from Bo that I can remember. Great game from him

I mean, he kinda had to… wasn’t like we were getting much out of our running game. And the pass blocking was spotty at best.

He is a 3-star PG prospect. Probably a depth piece if he decides to struck with B-ball. I’m not appraised of the most recent scholly count rules, but I believe if he is counted for football, then he is not counted for basketball, but that may have changed. That would definitely be a plus. https://247sports.com/Player/Tre-Donaldson-46101161/high-school-250375/?Sport=2

For anyone curious, you can see a full reel of Cooper’s plays here (points, assists, rebounds, as well as missed shots and turnovers for the full experience.) He’s a little turnover prone right now as he’s getting used to the speed and length guys have at this level, but I think he’ll figure that out with time and I’d rather see him being aggressive than too safe. That’s what summer league is for after all. The three ball looked a lot better yesterday, but most were Eleuthera catch and shoot or step backs. I’d like to see him shoot them more off the screen. Guys are going under the screens a lot for him to limit his penetration, so he could definitely help himself by adding that shot to his arsenal. Hopefully he’ll also work on adding a floater, as he’s had some trouble finishing at the rim when there is a help defender that’s just waiting on him there. https://www.freedawkins.com/sharife-cooper-20210810/

Yep, looked a lot more confident shooting the 3 today. Especially that last one obviously.

Coop had some great passes throughout the game. Unfortunately the receivers of those passes weren’t always able to convert when they should have which will depress his stats a bit. He also had some head scratching turnovers and mental errors, particularly at the end of the game. All total he looked like a very gifted player that has only played 13 games above the high school level. Hawks have 4 more summer games so will see how he improves, but I imagine he’ll spend most of not all season in the G-league. He needs the reps more than the Hawks need his contributions at this point. And for any other Hox out there, Jalen Johnson looks like a real steal at 20.

For anyone interested, Cooper should see his NBA debut today at 4EST / CST for the Hawks summer league squad. Believe it will be televised on NBATV and ESPN 3.

Yeah, with Coop being on a two-way I imagine he spends most of the year in the G-League. He’s probably 5th on the PG depth chart at the moment, fighting for fourth this summer. But that’s probably not the worst thing for him. Let’s him have more actual game reps to work on his shot, and on learning to finish better in traffic against bigger guys.

Last I heard, he was trying to schedule a visit to UNC. I haven’t seen any indication that he’s visited or that he’s even got it on the schedule yet. But that’s the only news I’ve seen.

Would be cool if we could get Coop and Trae on campus for that game, since they’re both just up the road. Never hurts to have a couple of NBA guys on campus for the cameras for games like this.

Agreed. With the recent trade it looks like it’ll be Delon Wright as the backup PG with Coop and Mays battling for that third spot, as Kris Dunn is now gone and I imagine it’s less likely we re-sign Lemon Pepper Lou at this point.

Yeah, it’s a shame he dropped as far as he did but I think that the landing spot could make it a blessing in disguise as you point out. Not only would he potentially be learning behind Trae, but would also be in a system that is de-facto tailored to his game by virtue of the roster being built around Traes similar skill set. Will be interesting to see how he competes in the summer league relative to Skylar Mays.

I’ll venture an uninformed guess Coop ends with Houston at 23 or 24 and Thor ends up in OKC at 34 or 36. We’ll see though. Excited for both guys to make it to the show.

Yeah, Peach Jam is July 20-25 I think. So it sounds like we’ve got a good chance of knowing this month.

I mean maybe.. but I just can’t think of a case in either basketball or football where recruiting fell off quickly and precipitously after the coach retired - particularly when they were replaced by essentially a HC-in-waiting. UNC just landed a commitment from 5-star C Jalen Washington on Friday. I think we still have a good shot at Cruz, and I’m sure that our staff will be making all of the same arguments about UNC to him that your making now. But I just don’t see any reason to assume that Hubert won’t recruit just as well if not better than Roy.

I think that’s fair. It’s hard to replace a legend. But at the same time if there is a drop off, I’d expect a drop in recruiting prowess to lag behind any drop in on court performance if it happens. Even the UCLAs and Indianas were able to continue to recruit well until it was clear that the on-court product was not the same. I also think that the continuity that Hubert provides there as an internal promotion helps the recruiting cause. He’s likely to have already been personally recruiting many of these kids to UNC for a few years. So he’s not having to cobble something together out of whole cloth.

Anything could happen, but it’s probably safest to assume that UNC is still UNC until proven otherwise, especially from a recruiting standpoint. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they ended up being a threat for Cruz.

Lol. He made Book uncomfortable by literally breaking his nose. I’m not sure how much credit you should get for that. I won’t take anything away from Bev’s work ethic, he absolutely leaves 100% on the court. But a large part how he makes opposing players ‘uncomfortable’ is by how willing he is to take cheap shots and make dangerous plays. It’s not a coincidence that players he’s guarding wind up hurt at a disproportionate rate. Being willing to put other peoples’ careers at risk under the guise of being an ‘intimidator’ is not something we should glorify in the sport. It’s like pitchers that throw at some guy’s head because they know their stuff cant beat him. It’s bush-league crap plain and simple. And it’s not even like Bev can take back what he dishes out. His shove of Chris Paul because he thought Paul somehow slighted him after the game 6 / series loss the other day shows that. Not sure why anyone would have any respect for that clown.

So start undercutting jumpshooters’ legs, throwing haymakers, head-butting faces, and otherwise acting a fool? /s