Kenner League Week 2 Recap: Welcome to the Brandon Murray Show
The first game of the day was the best game, as Brandon Murray and Primo Spears dazzled the fans in attendance on Sunday.
Week 2 of Kenner League took place all on Sunday this week, with the first game between Tombs and Hoya Blue tipping off at 5:15 PM, and the last game tipping off at 9 PM. Shoutout to all my fellow Hoya sickos who stayed for that 9 PM game that featured Denver Anglin and D’Ante Bass. Clearly, we lead busy and entertaining lives!
The main attraction on Sunday took place in Game 1, between Tombs and Hoya Blue, and Brandon Murray was the star of the show, by far.
The transfer guard from LSU was the best player I saw the entire day, across all four games. I had Murray down for 23 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 block. Don’t take those numbers as gospel, but the point is, Murray was a stud. He shot 9-of-17 from the field and was 2-for-6 from three. He showed the ability to score at all three levels and was a force in transition too. It was a really fun performance to watch in person.
There were other solid performances from Hoyas on Sunday that I will get into below, but it’s impossible to come away from McDonough Arena not thinking that Murray was the story of the day. He looked like a man amongst boys out there.
Here’s some words on each Georgetown player that played in Kenner on Sunday, starting with Murray.
Brandon Murray
As stated above, Murray was excellent. He was the go-to player on his team, and you could tell his teammates knew to get him the ball when they needed a bucket. Physically speaking, he has a sturdy frame that he uses to his advantage to bully his way to the basket when he wants to get downhill, but he also has some fun finesse to his game too, highlighted by a smooth stepback jumper that he used on multiple occasions.
Simply put, Murray gets buckets. He did it on Sunday, and he’ll be doing it soon enough for Georgetown once the season gets rolling too. The outside shot was a little shaky today, going 2-for-6 from three by my count, but he gets good lift on his shot, and showed plenty of range. Murray had a number of midrange attempts, which may have been influenced by the streetball style that is more common in Kenner League, but he also showed the ability to get past his man and drive to the rim when he wanted to, too.
When Murray got out in transition with the ball, he was nearly unstoppable. He is faster than I expected, and combined with his size, he’s like a bowling ball out in the open court. Good luck stopping him on a fast break. His ability to finish through contact also stood out.
Kenner League overreactions are common for many, including myself…but after the performance that Murray put on today, I think it is certainly realistic to say that Murray will push for All-Big East First or Second Team this year. I would also only expect him to be a Hoya for one season. He is a future pro, in my mind. He will be the focal point for Georgetown this year, and today showed he will be just fine being this team’s go-to guy.
Primo Spears
Primo Spears had a really good game that was overshadowed a bit by Murray’s performance, but his outing perhaps was more significant than Murray’s in the context of Georgetown because of the battle for the starting point guard job between Spears and Dante Harris.
Harris didn’t have a game today, so I’m not going to hand the job to Spears right away, until I see what improvements Harris has made this offseason, but the Duquesne transfer was excellent as the primary point guard for his Tombs team on Sunday, and showed off a flair for the dramatic with his handle that had the crowd ooh-ing and ah-ing a couple of times. In total, I had Spears down for 23 points as well, just like Murray.
Spears’ game has evoked comparisons to former Georgetown guard Jahvon Blair from some people, and those comparisons are justified after seeing him play, but I believe Spears will be better than Blair, because of his superior handle and passing ability. Regardless, Spears can score the ball in bunches, just like Blair did as a Hoya, and that will be a big boost for a Georgetown offense that could use all the scorers it can get.
Spears’ dribble package was impressive. Be it with in-and-out dribbles, crossovers, stepbacks, or hesitation moves, he had his defender dancing on multiple occasions on Sunday.
One concern that I have about Spears is how he will fare on the defensive end. His lower half is pretty small, and his lack of size will be an issue against bigger guards. A revamped Georgetown frontcourt should help cover up for Spears on the defensive end, but it will be interesting to see if Georgetown has to “hide” Spears on defense when he is out there. To his credit, Spears had three steals in his game, although a couple of those came off of gambles that would likely get him chewed out for by Patrick Ewing in a real game.
Jay Heath
Heath struggled initially in his game against Murray and Spears’ Tombs team, starting out 0-for-4 from three. He looked to be settling a lot from deep, but that changed once the second half got underway, as Heath made it a point to get downhill more, where he had more success. Once he got more aggressive, he seemed to find his shot too, as he finished with 16 points in the game by my (probably not totally accurate!) count.
Heath played point guard at times for his Hoya Blue team, and looked comfortable in that role. His ability to play on or off the ball will be a nice option for Georgetown to have as it sorts out its depth chart in the backcourt. My guess right now is that Heath will start at the 2 for Georgetown, in a three-guard lineup with Spears and Murray, but his ability to be a primary ball handler and run an offense could mean he could be a sixth man for the Hoyas who would stabilize their second unit and still play a key role overall. Intrigued to see how he is deployed this season.
Malcolm Wilson
Quiet day for Malcolm Wilson. A 7-footer should usually dominate in Kenner League, simply based on size, but Wilson didn’t particularly stand out when he was on the floor
Qudus Wahab
Wahab’s stat line from his game was eye-popping, finishing with 25 points (11-17 FG), 7 rebounds, and 2 assists, but context is important: He was being guarded by someone who was maybe 6’6”. Still, give him credit for going out there and putting up numbers that he should be expected to put up against inferior competition.
Not to be too much of a wet blanket here, but I came away from Wahab’s game feeling frustrated by what I saw. A lot of the bad habits that Wahab showed in his first stint with the Hoyas are still there: He takes too long to pass out of double teams, he holds the ball too long before making a move in the post, he puts the ball on the floor too much when grabbing an offensive rebounds, and he struggles to guard players out on the perimeter.
Against a much smaller defender, I wanted to see Wahab grab the entry pass in the low post, turn, and attack right away. But almost every time, he would catch the ball, wait 3-4 seconds, and then make a move. This gave the defense time to reset, and also allowed them to send doubles at Wahab pretty easily, which he still isn’t comfortable handling from what I saw on Sunday.
On defense, Wahab was playing a team without a center mostly, that ran a five-out offensive system, meaning he was pulled away from the basket often, and had to guard his man out on the perimeter. Sound familiar?
*Cringes in Colorado*
Look, Georgetown is a better team with Wahab on it. He will help them this year, and was a damn good player when he was here originally. But he has several significant flaws, and they all popped up on Sunday, multiple times. After a year away, I would have hoped to have seen Wahab at least start to show some signs of breaking these bad habits. Hopefully this is being harped on in practice by the coaching staff.
Wayne Bristol Jr.
Rough shooting day from the Howard transfer, who was 2-for-13 from the field and 2-for-6 from three. Bristol Jr. will earn minutes in the rotation as a 3-and-D type player for Georgetown, and he did look solid defensively, but the “3” part of the equation was not clicking for him on Sunday. Hope to see a better shooting performance from him in future weeks at Kenner.
Jordan Riley
Riley had one of the best plays of the day, a thunderous alley-oop dunk off a feed from Howard point guard Elijah Hawkins where he had to reach back to grab the pass. Riley’s hops were on full display there.
I was a bit surprised that Riley didn’t have the ball in his hands more during this game, and apparently, so was his dad, who expressed irritation on Twitter after the game.
For Riley to improve and earn minutes, he has to get reps with the ball in his hands, and learn how to operate with better control on offense in halfcourt settings. When he did have the ball on Sunday, Riley did seem to show signs of a tighter dribble and having a plan of attack when he took on his defender in 1-on-1 settings. He had a couple nice spin moves in the lane to get free for a layup, which was good to see. Moving forward, would hope that he will take a bigger on-ball role for his On Point team to aid his development as he heads into an important sophomore season for himself.
Ryan Mutombo
I missed the first nine minutes of Mutombo and Riley’s game, but from what I saw of Mutombo, I was fairly discouraged. Mutombo played the least amount of any Hoya on Sunday, and was relatively invisible when he did see the floor, despite having a size advantage on both ends of the floor. His teammates did not feed him in the post on offense anywhere near the level that Wahab was fed, and Mutombo didn’t make a major impact on the boards either.
In terms of his physical maturation, Mutombo didn’t seem noticeably bulked up from what I saw out there. For him to develop into a rotational player for this team, he needs to get stronger and quicker. I didn’t see improvements in either of those areas on Sunday.
Denver Anglin
Man, it was great to finally see that three-point shot in person. I only stayed for the first half of Anglin and Bass’ game, and both of the freshmen had quiet first halves overall, with Anglin going 1-for-3 from behind the arc, but I liked what I saw overall from the New Jersey native.
Anglin is on the same team at Kenner as incoming George Mason freshman point guard Devin Dinkins, who played at Gonzaga in high school, and Dinkins was the primary ball handler for most of the time that the two shared the floor together, so we didn’t get to see much of Anglin at the point, at least in the first half.
Overall, Dinkins and Anglin are very similar players, so it was fun to see them playing off of each other on Sunday, with both having the ability to play on or off the ball. Anglin seems to have taken a liking to Dinkins too, cheering loudly for Dinkins after a couple of nice plays for Dinkins in the first half.
From the couple of possessions where Anglin was on the floor and Dinkins was off, Anglin showed the ability to navigate a pick-and-roll as the ball handler with a poise that is uncommon for an incoming freshman. Of course, he will face tougher defensive tests in real games, and defense in Kenner is, um, not an emphasis, but I liked what I saw from him in limited reps as a point guard on Sunday.
D’Ante Bass
Just like his highlight tapes, the athleticism is the thing that stands out the most. I was also impressed with Bass’ rim protection on defense. What concerns me about Bass is when he has the ball in his hands on offense. He was 0-for-5 from three in the first half, and struggled to get past his defender in 1-on-1 situations in halfcourt settings. It just didn’t feel like he knew where he wanted to go when he got the ball on offense, or how he wanted to get there. He will need to learn how to attack college-level defenders better when he gets the ball before he can be counted on in the Georgetown rotation. There’s a lot to work with in terms of his tools, and his ceiling is very high, but there is a lot of development that needs to take place first, especially offensively, before he can contribute to this team.