Tag: Will Richardson

Jaguars inactives for Week 15 game vs. Texans

The Jags have named their six inactives for Week 15’s game, and it appears TE Jacob Hollister will be getting some play time after weeks of being a healthy scratch.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have released their list of inactive for Week 15’s game against Houston, and six players were on it. Those six players are as follows:

  • 21 CB Nevin Lawson
  • 24 RB Carlos Hyde
  • 76 OL Will Richardson Jr.
  • 89 TE Luke Farrell
  • 92 DE/OLB Jordan Smith
  • 97 DT Jay Tufele

Running back Carlos Hyde was the lone player to surface in the status column for the Jags on Friday’s injury report and was ruled out with a concussion. He missed all of the Jags practices this week while in the concussion protocol after sustaining a huge hit from linebacker Derick Roberson last Sunday against Tennessee in the second half.

Offensive lineman Will Richardson was a late addition to the injury report on Friday with a back injury. While he didn’t surface in the status column, it appears the Jags want to give him time to recover.

Another player worth noting that was listed above is rookie tight end Luke Farrell. He’s played in 12 games so far, but with a coaching change occurring this week, maybe new interim coach Darrell Bevell wants a more experienced option on the field in Jacob Hollister.

As for the Texans inactives, they are as follows:

Quick hits: Ducks let upset slip away with a poor second half

Oregon put a scare into undefeated Baylor for a half, but it wasn’t nearly enough to pull off the upset.

Playing great for 20 minutes against the No. 1 team in the nation isn’t nearly enough if you want to shock the world.

Oregon played the game of the season for a half, but the real Baylor Bears came out of the locker room with a purpose and outscored the Ducks 43-31 in the second half.

What resulted was a 78-70 win for Baylor, which improved to 10-0 on the season. Oregon fell to 6-6 as the Ducks go back to the drawing board once again.

The difference between the first half and the second half was definitely the energy level. Baylor was seemingly getting every rebound ad every loose ball in the last 20 minutes of the contest.

Baylor also made shots, something the Bears had trouble with for the first half. The Ducks also turned the ball over way too many times with 16 miscues.

2022 NBA Draft Big Board 1.0: Debut rankings of the top 101 prospects

Let’s be honest. Ranking the best NBA draft prospects is a fool’s errand. But evaluating this class is an especially challenging assignment.

Let’s be honest. Ranking the best NBA draft prospects is a fool’s errand. But evaluating this class is an especially challenging assignment.

One of the top pre-season prospects (Patrick Baldwin Jr.) is playing for a mid-major program that has just two wins so far this season. Other top prospects (AJ Griffin and Peyton Watson) are not getting much playing time for their high-major programs. Meanwhile, guard Jean Montero is playing in the inaugural Overtime Elite league. How do we compare his productivity to other prospects? I’m frankly not sure.

But nevertheless, my big board exists. Rather than going small, I decided to blow it up and do the opposite. Why did I go ahead and rank 101 prospects if this class has been so challenging to evaluate? There are two distinct reasons.

One is that I’m absolutely crazy and get a very fulfilling satisfaction with the completion of a mock draft and big board because it feels complete. It looks awesome seeing as many names as I can fit on one article, even if the science behind the rankings is a bit inconclusive.

The other reason is that as I make more big boards throughout the year, it’s interesting to track the progress (and regression) of certain prospects. I am inevitably wrong about most of these placements! But this article serves as a barometer for where I feel certain players are at in their development right now.

Note that several notable prospects (e.g. freshmen Max Christie, Matthew Cleveland, Nolan Hickman, Hunter Sallis, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, Jeremy Sochan, Kobe Bufkin) were excluded because I expect them to go back to school to improve their draft stock.

More likely than not, some of those players will declare for the 2022 NBA draft. When that happens, I obviously will not have them outside of my top 101.

Until then, as we prepare to turn the calendar into a new year, here are the debut rankings for 101 of my favorite prospects.

All stats are accurate as of Dec. 14 and are from Sports-Reference unless noted otherwise.

Quick Hits: Oregon suffers a brutal buzzer-beater loss on The Farm

Oregon suffers a gut punch in the name of Jaiden DeLaire as the Stanford forward knocked down a three at the buzzer to down the Ducks.

Dana Altman said it would be a process.

Two conference games, two close losses in games the Oregon Ducks probably should have won.

Stanford’s Jaiden DeLaire knocked down a three-pointer from the left wing at the buzzer to defeat Oregon 72-69.

Will Richardson had a chance to give Oregon the lead on the previous possession, but his three-pointer didn’t find the mark. The Cardinal called timeout with three seconds left to set up a play to find DeLaire.

Oregon is now 0-2 in Pac-12 play, 5-5 overall and this season is quickly becoming something no one in Eugene expected. The Ducks were a Top 15 to begin this year, but now will be fighting for their post-season lives and it’s just mid-December.

‘We’re not getting better:’ Dana Altman is brutally honest about Oregon Ducks basketball

The Ducks aren’t a quick fix away from turning this around, and Altman was brutally honest about that on Wednesday.

Coming into the Oregon Ducks 2021-22 men’s basketball season, there were some extremely high expectations. A lot of new pieces were on the roster, but with Dana Altman at the helm, and veteran guard Will Richardson returning, a top-15 ranking and projections deep into the NCAA Tournament were not outlandish.

A month into the season, the results have subverted those expectations by a large margin. Oregon is currently 5-4 with blowout losses to BYU, Saint Mary’s, and Houston. Their fourth defeat, a close 69-67 OT game against Arizona State, came against one of the worst teams in the Pac-12 conference. This is certainly not the product that we expected to see on the floor at Matthew Knight Arena.

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We knew it would take a little bit of time for Altman to assemble this Rubix Cube and get the team playing winning basketball, but nobody expected the lows to be this far down in the basement.

“We’re making fundamental mistakes that should not be made on December 8th. Maybe on November 9th when we play our first game,” Altman said in a press conference on Wednesday. “We’re not getting better.”

One of the main problems for the Ducks is that their star players are not playing like stars at the moment. Richardson, who has been among the team’s leading scorers over the past couple of seasons, is often struggling to find the bottom of the net.

The several talented transfers to come to Eugene aren’t doing much better. So far, both Jacob Young (9.7 ppg) and De’Vion Harmon (8.7 ppg) are struggling to have the impact that we projected, and Quincy Guerrier (6.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg) is playing way below his ceiling that we saw at Syracuse. All of this has led to a sort of malaise settling over the team in the month of December.

“Everybody’s a little down,” Altman said. “As competitors, you know you’ve underperformed, and that bothers you. So you’ve got to fight you, got to compete. And I told them it’s not going to be easy to get it back. It’s not like turning on the light switch fellas. We’re going to have to battle our tails off to get it back, and you’re going to have to show great resolve to get it done. And I’d like to say I still believe they will, but it is not going to be easy.”

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Throughout the season, the Ducks have shown more than a few bright spots, including a blazing start to the year where they had big wins over Texas Southern and SMU. They were also able to blow out Montana and dispatch with UC Riverside. The highs have been impressive, but the lows have been tough to watch. We know from watching that the talent is there to be a really good team, but the consistency is what’s lacking.

“Do I think we can turn this around quickly? Probably not,” Altman said. “You know this is something we’re going to have to do every day in practice and for a long time to be a consistent team. Can we have some bright moments? Yea, but we’re going to have some moments because we just don’t have the habits necessary to have that consistency. And that’s been proven in games, it’s just not my opinion. That’s been proven.”

Coming up, Oregon is going to have some tough tests on the schedule. They travel to Stanford on Sunday and then host Portland on Tuesday — two games that are extremely winnable should they play to their potential. On Friday, though, the No. 2 Baylor Bears come to town for an early-season clash. Before the season started, this looked to be arguably the premier game of the year; now it might seem like a better idea to watch with your eyes partially covered.

The Ducks may come out and surprise us, giving Baylor a test deep in the woods. They certainly have the talent to play with some of the top teams in the country, but a lack of consistency has us questioning which team is going to show up on any given night. Will it be the sharp-shooting unit that downed a future tournament team in SMU? Or the inept offensive squad who failed to score 20 points in the first half during three of four games last month?

That’s certainly the million-dollar question for Dana Altman, and after talking to him on Wednesday, he obviously isn’t shy to give you an honest answer.

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Aggregate NBA mock draft 2.0: Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith battle for No. 1

In order to help us get a better sense of where all of the projected top prospects in the class stand as of right now, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, Basketball News and USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s For The Win.

Please note that these rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for consensus, not our own opinion.

Since our last update, the players who have improved the most spots are Ismael Kamagate (Paris), Moussa Diabate (Michigan), Azuolas Tubelis (Arizona), Hugo Besson (New Zealand), Efe Abogidi (Washington State),  Iverson Molinar (Mississippi State), Justin Lewis (Marquette), Max Christie (Michigan State), EJ Liddell (Ohio State), and Ochai Agbaji (Kansas).

The most notable prospects making their debut on our rankings are Trevor Keels (Duke), Bryce McGowens (Nebraska), MarJon Beauchamp (G League Ignite), Keon Ellis (Alabama), Christian Koloko (Arizona), Wendell Moore (Duke), Blake Wesley (Notre Dame),  Josh Minott (Memphis), Zach Edey (Purdue), and Johnny Davis (Wisconsin).

Some of the top prospects who did not make the cut this time included Hunter Sallis (Gonzaga), Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (Tennesse), Kobe Bufkin (Michigan), Mouhamed Gueye (Washington State), Jahvon Quinerly (Albama), Adam Flagler (Baylor), Jaylin Williams (Auburn), Matthieu Gauzin (Le Mans), Isaiah Wong (Miami), Marcus Williams (Texas A&M), and Tyson Etienne (Wichita State).

Otherwise, you can learn the latest updates on every single prospect who has been included in recent mock drafts by scrolling below.

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report

For The Win’s first mock draft of the season has Boston Celtics taking two guards

Boston goes backcourt-heavy in this projection of their 2022 NBA draft.

It may only be November and still at the start of the 2021-22 NCAA collegiate season with most teams having just played a handful of games that count, but if you think that means there hasn’t been enough of a sample size for NBA draft analysts to start assembling their first mock drafts of the season, you clearly don’t know how these prospect-obsessed minds think.

And such is the case with our friends over at our sister site For The Win, who just published their own first mock draft of this season. Analyst Bryan Kalbrosky has released a full two-round projection for the 2022 NBA draft, complete with a pair of selections for both of the draft picks the Boston Celtics will use if they don’t deal them away first.

Let’s take a look at who Kalbrosky sees Boston taking this summer.

2022 NBA Mock Draft 2.0: Predicting all 59 picks, starting with Paolo Banchero

After a few games, we have a much better idea of how prospects like Paolo Banchero and Chet Holmgren will be used until the 2022 NBA draft.

After a few games, we have a much better idea of how prospects like Paolo Banchero and Chet Holmgren will be used until the 2022 NBA draft.

Preseason mock drafts, like the one we published back on Aug. 11, are especially challenging. Predictions are mostly guesswork based on uninformed priors until we’ve seen the usage of how each coach will implement the prospects we are evaluating.

Additionally, several players used the offseason to work on certain skill sets (e.g. Kansas’ Ochai Agbaji is now a much better shooter) in ways we couldn’t have projected.

As such, even though it’s only been a few games, it’s a lot easier to discuss the 2022 NBA draft now than it was even just last month. The season is underway for college basketball — and the G League Ignite, Overtime Elite, and several international leagues —  which means draft boards are shaping up.

After a ton of movement, as of right now, here is how we see the 2022 NBA draft unfolding.

Draft order is pulled from Tankathon. All stats are accurate as of 11/22/21.

Everything we know following Oregon Ducks’ 86-63 beatdown over SMU Mustangs

The Ducks grabbed a resounding 86-63 win over the SMU Mustangs on Friday night, using a hot start and solid defense to pace the way to an easy win.

The Oregon Ducks got a commanding victory over the SMU Mustangs on Friday night, which gives them a nice boost of momentum going into next week when they get set to travel to Portland and take on the BYU Cougars in the PK85.

Oregon’s 86-63 win will look solid on the schedule this early on, especially considering that SMU was an NIT team last season and returned much of their core from that run.

The Ducks got off to an incredibly hot start in this game, making their first 7 shots and building an early lead over SMU. Their first missed basket didn’t come until the 14:33 minute mark, with Jacob Young and Quincy Guerrier doing the heavy lifting early on.

Once they cooled off on offense, it was the Oregon defense that stepped up in the first half, holding the Mustangs to under 30% shooting beyond the arc.

The second half was much of the same, with the Ducks building up a 24-point lead and using the final 12-15 minutes of the game to go through offensive sets and get some developmental work in the game. Overall, it was an impressive victory for the Ducks, and their season is off to a great start.

Here are some instant notes from the game:

Everything we know following No. 13 Oregon’s 83-66 season-opening win over Texas Southern

The Ducks looked solid in their first game of the season, beating Texas Southern 83-66. Here’s an instant reaction from the game.

At long last, the Oregon Ducks’ men’s basketball team kicked off its 2021 season at Matthew Knight Arena, picking up a 83-66 season-opening win over Texas Southern.

This was our first opportunity to see a whole host of new players on the roster, several of whom came to Eugene via the transfer portal this offseason.

In a surprise to many, the Ducks started out the game with a small-ball lineup, utilizing three guards and two forwards. They then went on to shoot 19 three-pointers in the first half. That trend continued in the second half, with Oregon attempting 36 for the entire game.