All Hail Jalen Suggs
An ode to the Gonzaga freshman none of us paid enough attention to
I told myself that I wasn’t going to write anything tonight, that I was going to blissfully slip into a typtophanic, DIPA-induced slumber while watching Villanova play Arizona State and wondering how in the hell Northern Iowa could possibly blow a cover when leading by 16 points with 14 minutes left.
But then my kids fell asleep. And my wife fell asleep. And I was left to my own devices, which meant that I went back and rewatched Gonzaga’s 102-90 win over No. 6 Kansas from Thursday afternoon, and I couldn’t help myself.
Jalen Suggs is an absolute monster.
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I was texting with an NBA evaluator earlier today about Suggs. He told me that he thought it was the most impressive performance he’s seen by a freshman since the days of Zion, that what Suggs did on Thanksgiving this year was better than what Anthony Edwards did on Thanksgiving Eve last year; 33 points in one half of basketball on that stage against that Michigan State team is no joke.
To be clear, I think that’s wrong.
But … it’s not that crazy to believe.
The way Suggs closed Thursday’s game against the No. 6 team in the country and maybe the best on-ball defender in the sport in Marcus Garrett was exceptional.
Early in the second half, Kansas had finished off a comeback that had started when Suggs picked up his second foul at the 9:13 mark of the first half. Coming out of the under-16 timeout, the score was tied at 57 and Uncle Mo sat squarely on the Kansas sideline.
From that point on, Suggs had 16 points and four assists.
He completely took over.
He put the team on his back, doe.
I was going to put together a full video breakdown with some analysis of why the things that he was doing were so impressive, but there’s no point. The tape speaks for itself.
Watch:
Now, there is a lot to discuss about Suggs from an NBA Draft perspective, but I’m going to save that for a different day.
I want to talk about him in the context of this team.
Heading into the season, the guys that were getting the hype on this roster were Drew Timme and Corey Kispert, and rightfully so. Timme is, as expected, a breakout star; there are a couple of reasons why Filip Petrusev returned to Serbia to play in the professional ranks, and one of them certainly was the fact that he saw Timme coming.
And Kispert? He’s Joe Harris. He’s the prototype of a 3-and-D wing. He’s talented enough to be WCC Player of the Year when he isn’t the third-best player on his team. I would have picked him in the 40s in the 2020 NBA Draft. Both of those guys are All-Americans.
They also have Andrew Nembhard, a former five-star recruit that started for two seasons in the SEC. He’s eligible now. Joel Ayayi was one of the most improved players in the country last season. He has a chance to play in the NBA, as does Oumar Ballo. Anton Watson is a perfect four-man on this roster. Think about it like this: Aaron Cook, who will barely see the floor this year, averaged 15 points and 3.3 assists for Southern Illinois last season.
But Gonzaga has had talent like this before.
What they haven’t had is a guy that can change the game at the point the way that Suggs can.
He is so dynamic. He’s explosive, both in finishing around the basket and with his first step getting by defenders and to the rim. He has deep range. He’s a really good passer that can make reads out of a pick-and-roll as well as the flashy dimes in traffic; it’s almost like he was an awesome quarterback or something. In all the years that Gonzaga has been really good, they’ve never had a guy that can do all of these things. Josh Perkins was sensational in ball-screens. But he wasn’t the scorer Suggs can be. Nigel Williams-Goss was a first-team All-American. He wasn’t the athlete Suggs is. Kevin Pangos was a bucket, but he was nowhere near the driving threat that Suggs is.
He’s everything you want out of a ball-screen point guard, and Mark Few loves a good ball-screen as much as anyone in the country.
There are two plays that stood out to me more than anything else on Thursday.
(I’m embedding the key screenshot. The full clip is in the video above.)
The first came with the game tied at 57. Suggs had found Timme rolling to the rim out of a ball-screens a couple of times. On this possession, Kansas iced the screen, so Timme slipped. Suggs read the weak side defender — circled below — and found Joel Ayayi open for a three in the corner before Joel had any idea that he was going to be open for a three in the corner:
The second came as he was in the midst of putting Kansas to sleep.
Suggs came off of a ball-screen and hesitated, just for a moment, at the top of the key, around 26-feet from the rim. From what amounted to a standstill, it took him one dribble to beat four defenders and get a layup at the rim.
ONE DRIBBLE!!!!
That is not normal!!!!
He can, and has, and will continue to take over games when Gonzaga needs him to.
And what makes this Gonzaga team so scary is that they really aren’t going to need him to that often.
They’re a top three team in the country if Aaron Cook is starting at the point and Suggs is in Australia, or playing football, or in Minnesota. But they don’t have a grad transfer from the Valley running their team.
They have a top five pick running their team.
With all that talent around him.
The good news is that is COVID forces us to shut the season down, at least we know who is going to win the title.