I'm not sure what happened last year. Reuniting with English can only be a positive. His game seems similar to Schwartz - he's mostly a shooter from 3 and midrange. Doesn't seem to finish at the rim a lot. Sounds like a great locker room team first guy.
The big negative is the significant drop last year in numbers. If those numbers stay true, he'll be a depth guy who can give us a spark here and there. If he goes back to anything like his first three years, he's a starter who will lead us in scoring some nights. It buys some time and takes some pressure off of Justyn, but at the same time he's only here for 1 year.
I like the move. B+/A-
As
@gmujim92 indicated earlier, he was playing behind a rotation of Santiago Vescovi, Kennedy Chandler, Zakai Ziegler, and Jordan James. Vescovi was First Team All SEC and led the conference in 3Pt%. Chandler was Second Team as a true freshman and will go in the first round of the NBA draft if he declares. Ziegler was on the SEC All-Defensive team. James is a former 5-Star do-it-all glue guy.
And then behind all of them, he was competing w/Justin Powell an Auburn transfer who was 38% from the 3pt line this year and 42% last year.
I'm a fan of the move as well. Not only has Bailey shown he can be a very solid player, but even when his minutes last year went from 24.8 to 9.6 as a Senior, he remained a positive locker room presence. I wish it was more than a one-year rental player, but I think in that year we'll see positive things on the court, plus get positive things in practice and the locker-room that we don't necessarily see.
Like a lot of 3Pt shooters, he can be streaky. Went 3-16 (19%) from the arc in a 4-game stretch last season immediately followed by going 19-34 (56%) over the next four games. He's not primarily a drive to the basket guy, but def. can when it's there and defense and rebounding have improved quit a bit after three seasons of practice under Barnes.
I've been hoping for this one for a minute.
I'm hoping we end up w/Victor Bailey, former teammate of Gaines at UT.
I also imagine some solid transfers coming in. Would love to see us add Victor Bailey from UT. I mean...someone was right about Gaines early on. (pat's own back)
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