Talent Discussion

[steelbison]

Just wondering what others are thinking.


Did we miss on some local talent? Curious as what everyone thinks about these three local players we didn't really recruit who are blowing up right now.

Mack Arvidson 6-2 SR Grand Forks Playing for Northern State

19.1 PPG 70-140 FG .50% 51-100 3pt .51%


Aaron Lien Moorhead 6-4 SR Playing for MSUM

18.3 PPG 81-142 FG .57% 21-49 3pt .43%


Tanner Kretchman JR Fargo Playing for MSUM

16.5 PPG 61-129 FG .47% 33-68 3pt .48%



Personally I didn't know much about the GF kid but he sure can shoot the ball and is pretty athletic.


I did think we should have offered both Lien and Kretchman out of HS. Both needed a RS year to get stronger but I thought both were Div 1 BB players.

[El_Chapo]

Blame Saul.

He'd rather take sawed off Wisconsin kids then these 3

and Why Cant DAVE RICHMAN not get 1 single Wahpeton Science JUCO!!!! ever!!!!

[Leonardite]

Lien for sure. Having watched him play over the past couple years at MSUM, we could have used him.

[Mr Meaty]

I guess I would say it is hard to compare how someone is doing vs "lesser" competition and translate to playing NDSU type competition. I am not saying they are not good enough to play for NDSU or should have been offered something. But it is just hard to compare.

[steelbison]

I guess I would say it is hard to compare how someone is doing vs "lesser" competition and translate to playing NDSU type competition. I am not saying they are not good enough to play for NDSU or should have been offered something. But it is just hard to compare.

OK, that is a valid point. Counter point could our Point Guard hit 50% of his 3's if no one guarded him? Could he even hit %35 percent?

I wish we played MSUM to see what those guys could do to us. Are you certain we would win? I think we would..but I'm not 100 percent certain...


I think they would make us a better team then we currently are. Do we even have a true Point Guard right now? All three of the above players have gotten better every year.

AJ is avg the same amt of points he did as a freshman and sophomore. Khy looks like he is taking a step back from last year. Why aren't our players getting better?

Dex has definitely improved year to year. Anyone else? If so who?

I do like our two freshman a lot.

[Bison"FANatic"]

Part of the problem with "missing" or not on people in basketball is there are so few scholarships to go around per position. Usually in sports like football money can be found if the player is there but not so much in basketball especially when you can't split scholarships.

[natstar1]

Just looked at Arvidson bio and this is his first year as a starter. Never got to play much until his junior year when he started playing 20 minutes a game. Hard to say he would be much of an improvement over anyone we have now.

I got to hear the Mary coach speak over the summer and he said Kretchman is the best PG in D2.

[steelbison]

Just looked at Arvidson bio and this is his first year as a starter. Never got to play much until his junior year when he started playing 20 minutes a game. Hard to say he would be much of an improvement over anyone we have now.

I got to hear the Mary coach speak over the summer and he said Kretchman is the best PG in D2.

yes I noticed that as well. I was just throwing him in as he is blowing up this year.

Looks like he had an injury a few years back. Maybe that held him back some last year?



Again I thought out of HS both Kretchman and Lein could play at NDSU. Both needed a RS year..

[ndsubison1]

Just wondering what others are thinking.


Did we miss on some local talent? Curious as what everyone thinks about these three local players we didn't really recruit who are blowing up right now.

Mack Arvidson 6-2 SR Grand Forks Playing for Northern State

19.1 PPG 70-140 FG .50% 51-100 3pt .51%


Aaron Lien Moorhead 6-4 SR Playing for MSUM

18.3 PPG 81-142 FG .57% 21-49 3pt .43%


Tanner Kretchman JR Fargo Playing for MSUM

16.5 PPG 61-129 FG .47% 33-68 3pt .48%



Personally I didn't know much about the GF kid but he sure can shoot the ball and is pretty athletic.


I did think we should have offered both Lien and Kretchman out of HS. Both needed a RS year to get stronger but I thought both were Div 1 BB players.

Can they shoot? Then I say yes.

[MrAugustana]

Just looked at Arvidson bio and this is his first year as a starter. Never got to play much until his junior year when he started playing 20 minutes a game. Hard to say he would be much of an improvement over anyone we have now.

I got to hear the Mary coach speak over the summer and he said Kretchman is the best PG in D2.

Having watched Kretchman for the past several years, I'd say that's a little bit of a stretch, but I understand why their coach would say that. That being said, Kretchman is easily one of the top 2 or 3 points guards in the NSIC, but, as far as being the best PG in D2 goes, Justin Pitts down at Northwest Missouri State (a junior from the MIAA conference in Missouri whose team is currently #1 in the country) will probably be the National Player of the Year this season. I'd pick him 10 times out of 10 over Kretchman and probably over just about anyone in the NSIC.

Kretchman and Augie's Jordan Spencer are both probably top 3 point guards in the conference, maybe even #1 and #2, depending on how you want to order them. They put up comparable numbers, with Spencer averaging more assists but Kretchmann putting out a better assist-to-turnover ratio and Kretchman being a slightly better 3-point shooter. In my opinion, Kretchman is working with more overall talent this year than Spencer in terms of his team's starting 1-5 spots, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Kretchman himself is a very, very good point guard. Plus he's usually pretty clutch in tight games and high-pressure situations.

Lien is also very good. It's a really good topic for discussion, as has been noted already. Are these guys good because they were able to play right away and get in-game experience early in their careers (I believe both have been pretty key players since coming in as freshmen), or would they have ended up being just as good redshirting for a season at a school like NDSU and getting better against their D1-level teammates in practice for a year or two before starting to get decent in-game minutes? Always tough to tell.

Either way, both would probably get some minutes at NDSU at this stage in their careers, but how much they'd play and how much impact they'd make is hard to tell (obviously). Unless you guys are like Jackrabbit fans who think any D2 kid, no matter how talented or highly-accoladed he may be, would be a perennial benchwarmer at a school so high and mighty as SDSU. But so far that's not what the discussion on this message board indicates. Which I always appreciate about you guys.

As far as Arvidson goes, I'm almost positive he had a season-ending injury a year or two ago which, as someone mentioned, might have contributed to his lower minutes until this latter part of his career.

Thanks for letting me jump in on here. Due to the mandatory week-long break D2s are required to take, our message board gets a little quiet this time of year.