Former WVU Forward James Okonkwo Transferring To UNC
James Okonkwo, a former West Virginia big man who entered the portal after Bob Huggins retired last month as the
Former WVU Forward James Okonkwo Transferring To UNC
- Thread starter andrew jones
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Nice!
Welcome to the Family, Mr. Okonkwo!
You have made a great decision!
Welcome to the Family, Mr. Okonkwo!
You have made a great decision!
Big addition...
Former WVU Forward James Okonkwo Transferring To UNC
James Okonkwo, a former West Virginia big man who entered the portal after Bob Huggins retired last month as thenorthcarolina.rivals.com
Based on highlights I have seen, he looks to be a really good athlete with a high motor. Definitely need that! Not sure how much PT he will get? Hopefully at least 10mpg.
Seems like a great fit. He certainly fills the hole I was worried about.
Unpolished, but seems to know what to do with the ball near the basket.
Big, strong, athletic, and plays extremely hard! He will help so much..imagine if we had a player like him against Kansas in the natty! I also love how our bigs all have a different kinda skill set! I guess High and Washington are similar but between those 2, Bacot, Withers and Okonkwo…we can really mix it up.
Already plays tougher defense than our team played last year. Maybe it will inspire our team to tighten up on defense. My worries about Washington’s availability have eased. We now possess very good depth.
OK, so we have now put a plug in the only real hole we had, a guy that will play physically in the paint when Bacot is out. IN doing so we may have snagged a really high value kid, seems really fluid in his movements, seems to have + feet, love the motor. Don't let the 6'8" measure throw ya, don't know what it is exactly but kid has a really good reach, just guessing but his reach looks like it could be at least 7'2" and could be more.
Huggins was high on this kid and say what you will about Huggins but he knew talent when he saw it. The clips show him running the court well and finishing and stick backs, I would like to see if he has any go to finishing moves in the half court, one did show a little push half jump hook thing, looked like a Hansbourgh type shot, interesting. I would like to see what he can do with a mid range jumper, does he put the ball on the floor? Does seem to play longer than his height, uses that reach well.
With Jalen, Konkwo, High, Withers, I think we can easy let Bacot's minutes come down, I would really like to see Bacot stay around 25-28mins a game and not have to worry as much about playing aggressive defense because he is trying to stay out of foul trouble. Konkwo has to get his freer throw % well up, has to be a focus point.
What is really kool is this kid committed without ever visiting, I wonder if he has ever been to Chapel Hill. Just imagine if he has never set foot in the Dean Dome, Imagine when he first walks in to that place, just imagine what he will think.
And think about this, I used the term high value for this kid, means you not only get more than you expected but you get him for a longer term that you would many of the more hyped guys, and you get him focused on just getting better more so than his head being in the NBA now and feeling like he is forced to have to play in college for 1 season. Had it not been for Huggy getting busted for being STUPID, for forever tarnishing his legacy in the sport he was near stepping away from but had his time line skewed because he did something STUPID and driving while drunk or texting while driving are very clear examples of STUPID... Did I mention that Huggins driving drunk was Stupid, and a form of STUPID that has gotten a LOT of innocent people KILLED!
Sorry but I have to take a tangent here, I drink, I enjoy drinking, I do not drive drunk. When I was a child, the home I grew up in was on a well traveled 2 lane road just off of a nasty curve. For a while every couple of months there was a wreck that ended up in our front yard. Pissed my mom off because they would wreck a flower bed she took pride in, like every time it was just about what she wanted it to be, yet another wreck would destroy it again. I will NEVER forget that friday night, I was in bed sleeping, my bedroom faced the road. This man had been out drinking that friday night and was driving home, he was driving home with his 6yr old son and his 2yr old son. In the wreck the 2yr old was throw from the vehicle, the poor child was throw in to the brick front of our home, the child missed my bed room window by less than a foot. A few inches to the right, less than a foot, the child would have been thrown thru my bed room window, I was 8yrs old. That man not only lost his life that night, he as well was the reason his 2 young sons lost their lives that night, in our front yard. You drink, you drive, you risk that, why would ANYONE EVER do such a thing, WHY? So Bob Huggins, the nicest thing I could ever say about you is that YOU ARE A STUPID MAN and deserve much more than the punishment you got because you didn't care about ANYONE ELSE but your own worthless self. Bob Huggins is a STUPID man and that IS me being nice... Sorry but I had to get that off my chest...
Huggins was high on this kid and say what you will about Huggins but he knew talent when he saw it. The clips show him running the court well and finishing and stick backs, I would like to see if he has any go to finishing moves in the half court, one did show a little push half jump hook thing, looked like a Hansbourgh type shot, interesting. I would like to see what he can do with a mid range jumper, does he put the ball on the floor? Does seem to play longer than his height, uses that reach well.
With Jalen, Konkwo, High, Withers, I think we can easy let Bacot's minutes come down, I would really like to see Bacot stay around 25-28mins a game and not have to worry as much about playing aggressive defense because he is trying to stay out of foul trouble. Konkwo has to get his freer throw % well up, has to be a focus point.
What is really kool is this kid committed without ever visiting, I wonder if he has ever been to Chapel Hill. Just imagine if he has never set foot in the Dean Dome, Imagine when he first walks in to that place, just imagine what he will think.
And think about this, I used the term high value for this kid, means you not only get more than you expected but you get him for a longer term that you would many of the more hyped guys, and you get him focused on just getting better more so than his head being in the NBA now and feeling like he is forced to have to play in college for 1 season. Had it not been for Huggy getting busted for being STUPID, for forever tarnishing his legacy in the sport he was near stepping away from but had his time line skewed because he did something STUPID and driving while drunk or texting while driving are very clear examples of STUPID... Did I mention that Huggins driving drunk was Stupid, and a form of STUPID that has gotten a LOT of innocent people KILLED!
Sorry but I have to take a tangent here, I drink, I enjoy drinking, I do not drive drunk. When I was a child, the home I grew up in was on a well traveled 2 lane road just off of a nasty curve. For a while every couple of months there was a wreck that ended up in our front yard. Pissed my mom off because they would wreck a flower bed she took pride in, like every time it was just about what she wanted it to be, yet another wreck would destroy it again. I will NEVER forget that friday night, I was in bed sleeping, my bedroom faced the road. This man had been out drinking that friday night and was driving home, he was driving home with his 6yr old son and his 2yr old son. In the wreck the 2yr old was throw from the vehicle, the poor child was throw in to the brick front of our home, the child missed my bed room window by less than a foot. A few inches to the right, less than a foot, the child would have been thrown thru my bed room window, I was 8yrs old. That man not only lost his life that night, he as well was the reason his 2 young sons lost their lives that night, in our front yard. You drink, you drive, you risk that, why would ANYONE EVER do such a thing, WHY? So Bob Huggins, the nicest thing I could ever say about you is that YOU ARE A STUPID MAN and deserve much more than the punishment you got because you didn't care about ANYONE ELSE but your own worthless self. Bob Huggins is a STUPID man and that IS me being nice... Sorry but I had to get that off my chest...
Great Britain's U20 team is playing right now on the FIBA YouTube channel. Okonkwo started, scored the first points of the game, and already has a monster block in the 1st quarter.
12 pts, 10 rebs, 3 blks
Sat most of the 4th quarter as GB won.
Sat most of the 4th quarter as GB won.
Will be nice to have a rim protector. Also will be nice to have more of a violent finisher at the rim. Seems like a high motor guy. Fills a need.
That’s all I have to see…. Haven’t had that sort of swatting at UNC in a while.
So now I am hearing the kid is a 7'2" wing span and I clearly see he gets up nice, yeah, I get the shot blocking!!! Arrest Hubert for grand theft, he STOLE one here! LOL
Kinda blows my mind, this kid would not be here had Huggins not F'd up, talk about dropped in to our laps... What.... I mean, the only potential hole and we get it plugged with THIS guy? #DANG !!!
Kinda blows my mind, this kid would not be here had Huggins not F'd up, talk about dropped in to our laps... What.... I mean, the only potential hole and we get it plugged with THIS guy? #DANG !!!
I just started watching the game against Austria. Okonkwo controls the tap and scores the first bucket.
Won't affect the transfers, but now ol' Huggy Bear is saying he did not resign and will sue West Virginia if he is not reinstated. West Virginia says they are more then ready for the lawsuit if he wants that. The dude is a mess, and he is going to try to bring West Virginia all the way down there with him.
Thanks for the share…. I noticed a tendency to bring the ball very low when backing in to the basket… something Sean can work on.
On the flip-side, I really liked how he kept his hands high on offensive rebounds. A good pick up for fromcourt depth.
He looked better in this video than what I saw previously. Of course it was a highlights reel, so that makes sense.
He was successful on a number of moves that I'm not sure he'd get away with against good ACC competition - or against Armando in practice. We'll see. Fingers crossed. Maybe Sean can work on those things.
They lost to Luxembourg, so maybe the competition here was actually decent, but hard to be sure.
All that said, with Washington and High being question marks, I feel MUCH better having Okonkwo on board. Sure, we have Withers, but in the clips I've seen he looks a lot more like a 4/3 than a 4/5. So this means we shouldn't need for him to play post.
Probably just a money situation. I'm guessing he's trying to get some of his money left on the contract and WVU will cut him a check to get rid of him.
Quite possibly. He is saying his wife did not have the authority to turn in his resignation.
Another schools favorite son ( as a player and 16 year coach) Pat Fitzgerald just got the ax at Northwestern (looks like the baseball coach is next) for their "Wildcat Way" culture as they called it. Messy stuff on a couple of levels there. Ugly exits for sure.
David, that was a excellent synopsis of what Carolina is getting. The Tar Heels have not had a banger like this in a long time…
He also knocked down 2 3's.
We may have gotten another steal, ala Brady Manek, but a different type of hero.
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