Summertime, and the living is easy.
It’s late June, summer’s here, and the living is easy. At least, so we’re told. The Jays don’t subscribe to that notion it seems. Lot’s of activity on the Hilltop.
Goings on…
Players on campus and working out. Lake day… A few guys overseas for national team events. Also the alumni TBT team and schedule have been announced. White & Blue Review have set up their bracket challenge for the TBT Event.
WBR’s link to their TBT Bracket is below.
https://bracket.thetournament.com/leagues/join/S2K5F0X1
NIL EVENT…
The current Jays players collectively put on a NIL Event recently for kids… a big success.
International Hoops…
R2 will be in Canada for a Canadian NextGen event, late June into July. Art is in Europe with Team Uganda (Silverbacks) for a FIBA World Cup Qualifiers event. FIBA World Cup is Aug-Sept 2023. Bahamas team is in the USVI for the FIBA World Cup Qualifier event. Bahamas plays USVI @the UVI Arena , on July 1, 2022. Fredrick is not listed on the (old) roster, but assuming he will debut for Bahamas, much the same as Art did last summer for Uganda. I believe this will be Fredrick’s 1st run with the Bahamas ‘Bigboy’ Team. Bahamas has won FIBA Americas previously. However, they are not Top 10 (Americas) this go around and will need a big push to make the Top 7 cut for the World Cup next summer. So it makes sense for them to start now, the 3rd of 5 qualifying events to begin their push.
Bahamas: Will they limit their number of turnovers? With a record of 1-3, the Bahamians are one win away from the Virgin Islands to ensure their ticket to the next round. There is a lot of optimism that they will be able to achieve it, but they need to improve their turnovers. The Bahamas is the third worst team when it comes to taking care of the ball with 16.3 turnovers per game. It is an obligation for them to improve their decision-making and even more so now that they will visit their Caribbean rival.
FIBA Quote
Virgin Islands: Will their shooting effectiveness improve? It’s now or never for the Virgin Islands. They are one of the four winless teams, but will have the opportunity to close at home. The game against the Bahamas will be decisive. If they manage to beat them by 13 points or more, they could get through the first phase, however, it is a difficult challenge. Itβll be an uphill battle as they have not been able to be effective on offense, they have the worst field percentage with only 34.6%. Anything can happen in a game, but they have to change that stat drastically.
FIBA Quote
https://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2023/african-qualifiers
https://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2023/americas-qualifiers/team/Bahamas
Ace in the hole…
Maui stuff…
I put out a mock Maui bracket on the BJU…for discussion purposes. Here it is. I used the latest ESPN rankings to seed it. Something to play with and use for discussion. In all likelihood the actual bracket will be different, depending on which poll the good folks in Maui use for their seeding. Jays may end up as the 2-seed with the Razorbacks as the #1.
I actually prefer to play the 2-seed slate. Playing the Higher ranked teams (L’ville, Arizona, Arkansas) early is in our favor, as we generally come out the gate hot n fast. Plus we have experience playing together as a group and our opponents are all attempting to work in ‘new guys’ to their rotations and trying to build team chemistry and cohesion. We’re already there. Roll Damn Jays!
…and lastly.
Art and Big Ryan projected as 2nd rounders in the 2023 NBA Draftβ¦
Art@ #31.
Big Ryan @ #50.
Bluenotes 