Barro is awful

[ChicosBailBonds]

It's a pet peeve of mine not to rip on student athletes, especially ours.  They aren't professionals.  I know many people disagree with me on that which is fine.  I've worked with so many of these kids that it something that just sticks in my craw.

Yes they are elite athletes, yes they are on scholarship, but they are still kids (even if by definition they have legal adult status) in my mind. 

[murambler]

I'm not bashing Barro for no reason.  His progression from where he was when he entered the program up until last year was tremendous; he did all the things that we possibly wanted/needed him to do.  But it seems his forward development has ended there.  It's the lack of further development of his post game that most frustrates me.  He has had 4 years to work on this aspect of his game and I really don't see much improvement.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

I agree with Chicos. Barro had a bad game. So what? So did everybody else, with the exception of Matthews. McNeal had 7 turnovers!

To paraphrase Dennis Green...Barro is who we thought he was. He runs the floor as well as any big man in the country, which is an enormous help to us when we can get out in the open court. Last night we couldn't.

He's also hurt by the fact that our entire team revolves around guards. That's how we practice and it's how we play. There is never a play designed for Barro. If he gets the ball, it's a surprise and oftentimes it's thrown to him because McNeal or James have got themseleves in a mid-air pickle. Put yourself in that situation. Of course you're going to drop a few passes.

It's been tough for Barro to improve defensively because there's nobody of similar size to push him in practice.

[AlumKCof93]

While last nights game was bad, I don't think it was the worst game of the year.  At West Virginia, our poor offensive showing led to breakdowns on defense and a lack of energy.  I didn't think that was the case tonight - we just couldn't make anything.  Some of that obviously was defense, some of that was our inability to make wide open shots when they were available.  And I can't think of a time when I saw a team miss so many layups.

As for Barro, he was criticized a lot last year and I defended him as I thought he played well for us in spots.  Butthis year, he seems to have regressed badly.  I think he's lost confidence and that's led to just really bad play right now and tendency to make cheap fouls. That's what's most disappointing to me - he's not establishing position downlow so he just keeps giving up space and then fouling when the guy he's guarding makes a move.  He must be averaging one foul/3 minutes played. That's leading to more time for Burke and he's not the solution either.

[spartan3186]

Yea, our "awful" big guy Barro just cracked the Top 10 in blocks at Marquette, tying a guy named DWade. Damn this guy is horrendous and adds nothing at all to our team.

[murambler]

spartan, that's great that Barro entered the top 10 in blocks for Marquette all time.  How many of those were picked up the previous 3 years as compared to this year.  All I'm saying is this year his play has regressed and we might be more beneficial to have Trend out there blocking the shots.

According to stats taken from Marquette's official basketball site:

Barro has 20 blocks in 286 minutes: roughly 1 block/14 minutes
Blackledge has 11 blocks in 99 minutes: 1 block/9 minutes

Stealing a bit of your sarcasm, could you imagine that if Blackledge had been here for 4 years and played a respectable amount of minutes that he might have become the all time leader in blocks in Marquette history.

[Marquette84]

I'm not bashing Barro for no reason.  His progression from where he was when he entered the program up until last year was tremendous; he did all the things that we possibly wanted/needed him to do.  But it seems his forward development has ended there.  It's the lack of further development of his post game that most frustrates me.  He has had 4 years to work on this aspect of his game and I really don't see much improvement.

So what is your suggestion?  Kick him off the team?  Send him back to Milwaukee tonight?

Or should we settle to just rip on him for the rest of the year because his development doesn't live up to your standards? 

And please, since you apparently know how easy it is to figure out which guys have a higher top end, share your secrets.  Tell us exactly which HS juniors and sophomores we might recruit now who won't "frustrate" you because of their "lack of further development" half way through their senior college seasons.

[jage]

i'm with chicos and niv on this one.

the team lacked poise and flat-out panicked when the shots weren't falling. everytime we've lost a game the last two seasons, posters have claimed someone as their scapegoat. barro is a role player, that's been covered. it's unfair to to him to call him awful when he could still probably destroy you in a pick up a game. how many bad games did you have in intramurals?

and if you think i'm comparing apples to oranges hear you're taking college basketball too seriously. these kids are students first...atheletes second...just like we are/were. you don't rail on raynor or burke scholars when they get a BC in their honors english class, so get off their backs.

we have a good team...it's unrealistic to think we will win every game (although perfectly acceptable to think we can) and when the season is over, our record and post-season success won't define these players. ask any of the coaches and they care more about producing fine young men than winning a goddamn basketball game.

[murambler]

I'm not bashing Barro for no reason.  His progression from where he was when he entered the program up until last year was tremendous; he did all the things that we possibly wanted/needed him to do.  But it seems his forward development has ended there.  It's the lack of further development of his post game that most frustrates me.  He has had 4 years to work on this aspect of his game and I really don't see much improvement.

So what is your suggestion?  Kick him off the team?  Send him back to Milwaukee tonight?

Or should we settle to just rip on him for the rest of the year because his development doesn't live up to your standards? 

And please, since you apparently know how easy it is to figure out which guys have a higher top end, share your secrets.  Tell us exactly which HS juniors and sophomores we might recruit now who won't "frustrate" you because of their "lack of further development" half way through their senior college seasons.

I never claimed to know which guys have a "higher top end" nor have I ever suggested to kick him off the team.  Rather, my conclusion is to put Blackledge out on the floor because I believe that, at this point in the season, he has more to contribute (see Henry's latest Cracked Sidewalks entry).  What is there to lose?

[jaygall31]

you guys can bash ousmane all you want, but as i said before, in a year to go the distance with the significant pairity, we need barro...need him.