Utah State commits Marcel Davis and Quincy Bair rolled into Alta High School with the rest of the American Fork Cavemen Wednesday night, conveniently about a one minute drive from the current headquarters/bachelor pad of The Sagebrush Spot. So why not go check out the kids in person, right?
While the stats from the game might be less than impressive, don't let them take away from a solid showing on the court in what turned out to be a 57-50 victory.
While I could easily try and tell the story of the game, that would end up mostly talking about Austin Waddoups and his 20-point performance. But since Waddoups isn't signed on to wear an Aggie uniform anytime soon, I'll keep the focus mainly on Davis and Bair... But also include my thoughts on Waddoups at the end, because he showed he's worth mentioning.
The good things they had in common
- The biggest thing that stood out was that both players know how to play as a team. They trust their teammates to be in the right place and to react to what they can do to create opportunities, and in turn, their team is very good. Between both players, there could not have been more than four times when they forced a shot they shouldn't have.
- Both players are very good at handling the ball, both in the open court and in traffic.
- Both players faced double-teams early in the game and each time immediately recognized the situation, kept cool and were able to pass out of it. One of those was a beautiful pass from Davis to a teammate under the basket when Davis was trapped deep in the corner.
- Did I mention they play great as a team? Should fit in nicely with Stew Ball.
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Marcel Davis
PROS
- Swagger!!!
- Davis seems to always see one move ahead oh where he's at. There were times where he hadn't even hit the ground yet on an offensive rebound, but still seemed to already know where he was passing to make a play. His court vision is great!
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CONS
- Two or three times he tried to force a pass into a place he shouldn't have tried to fit a pass. In fairness, there were just as many times where he made a perfect pass to set up a great opportunity.
- Seemed to disappear for stretches of time. Much of it seemed due to the fact that there are other playmakers on the team, and Austin Waddoups was making plays left and right, essentially claiming the spotlight for most of the game.
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Quincy Bair
PROS
- With his team trailing by six at halftime and struggling to get points, Bair basically took over the 3rd quarter. He put the team on his back, but still kept the rest of the team involved.
- Great at driving to the basket to create scoring chances around the basket and did so both off the dribble and posting up.
- Created scoring chances and made spot-on passes to teammates using his athleticism and driving ability. Also made a perfect pass to a teammate for an alley-oop layup.
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CONS
- Could have had a dunk off of a very smooth backdoor pass, but starting looking up to the rim before he had corralled the ball and a would-be dunk turned into a turnover.
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Summary: Both these kids are going to be studs in Aggie uniforms. They've got solid, well-rounded and diverse skill sets with very few holes in their games. Any of those holes appear to be fixable as well, especially with a coach who develops talent like Stew Morrill.
On Austin Waddoups: He was awesome! His game tonight was reminiscent of Jared Quayle when JQ would turn into the do-it-all MVP on the court. He just completely took over the game, particularly down the stretch when Alta was making a comeback attempt. As far as the college game goes, Waddoups doesn't look to have the best quickness or especially size to ideally suit the college game, but tonight he just kept getting the job done. Having seen him play, I'm not going to be the guy that goes and says he's not good enough or not big enough to play college ball at a high level. People once said the same things about the likes of Quayle, Jaycee Carroll and Brian Green. Things worked out okay for them. And you never know how kids are going to keep developing through ages 17-19. I say keep an eye on this kid and don't be surprised if you see his name on a college roster somewhere next season.
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