Tag: Will Richardson

Trio of Oregon Ducks named to award watch lists ahead of 2021-22 season

Will Richardson, Quincy Guerrier, and De’Vion Harmon. All are expected to play huge roles for the Ducks this season, with the trio up for preseason awards.

We are counting down the days until both the men’s and women’s Oregon Ducks basketball teams tip off the 2021-22 season, and as we get prepared to hit the hardwood, it is time to take stock of where both teams are at and what we can expect going forward.

It was revealed earlier this week that both squads are ranked inside the Top-15 — the men at No. 13 and the women at No. 10 — making them one of just three teams in the nation to have both programs able to say that.

Now, we also know that there are three players on Dana Altman’s team who are being considered for season-long awards, having been named to preseason watch lits. Here’s who to take a look at going forward:

Will Richardson — Bob Cousy Award Watch List

Sam Owens/IndyStar via USA TODAY Sports

Richardson is one of 20 players to be named to the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award watch list. Richardson was also selected to the Pac-12 preseason all-conference team after having a strong close to the 2020 season, helping the Ducks advance a couple of rounds in the NCAA Tournament.

He enters his senior season with the Ducks having a chance to get into the school’s top-10 list in steals, assists, three-point field goal percentage, and wins.

In 2020, former Oregon Duck Payton Pritchard was the first player in school history to win the Bob Cousy Award, and now Richardson has a chance to add to the list.

Up Next: Quincy Guerrier (Karl Malone Award)

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Will Richardson named to the preseason all-conference First Team

Will Richardson was named to the preseason all-conference First Team for the second straight year.

Having the best point guard in the conference can only help any team, but when it comes to the Oregon Ducks, it should propel them to go deep into March.

Oregon point guard Will Richardson was named to the preseason all-Pac-12 First Team for the second straight season. He was the only Duck on the first team, but newcomers Quincy Guerrier and De’Vion Harmon are on the second team.

Richardson had a breakout season last year in his first chance to finally be the starting point guard. The left-hander averaged 11.3 points, 3.9 assists, and 3.4 rebounds per contest and led Oregon to a regular-season Pac-12 title and all the way to the Sweet 16 before USC ended its tournament run with an overall record of 21-7.

More of the same is expected in Richardson’s senior season as Oregon has reloaded with such transfers like Guerrier and Harmon, as well as big men N’Faly Dante, Franck Kepnang, and freshman Nathan Bittle.

Oregon begins its season Nov. 9 with a home game against Texas Southern.

2022 aggregate NBA mock draft: Debut ranking of all notable prospects

The 2021 NBA draft class finished their first go-around in the summer league, which means evaluators are fully focused on next year’s class.

The 2021 NBA draft class finished their first go-around in the summer league, which means evaluators are fully focused on next year’s class.

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 Bleacher Report, Yahoo, The Athletic, Yahoo, SB Nation, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, 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.

Collegiate teams who had more than two players appear on a mock were Auburn, Baylor, Duke, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and UCLA. Three players will be on the G League’s Ignite roster and one is on Overtime’s Elite squad.

Additionally, seven players are rostered in Spain and four are playing in Australia’s NBL. There are also three players on Serbia’s KK Mega Basket included.

Freshmen one-and-done candidates who didn’t make the list but could climb on to join during the season: Harrison Ingram (Stanford), Trevor Keels (Duke), Bryce McGowens (Nebraska), Josh Minott (Memphis), Kowacie Reeves (Florida), Bryce Hopkins (Kentucky), Nathan Bittle (Oregon) and Jeremy Sochan (Baylor).

Some of the most notable collegiate returners who were snubbed from these rankings: Marcus Williams (Texas A&M), Jonathan Davis (Wisconsin), Kofi Cockburn (Illinois), Zach Edey (Purdue), Adam Miller (LSU), Colin Castleton (Florida) and Tyson Etienne (Wichita State).

Relevant international prospects to know who were not included below: Fedor Zugic, Lefteris Mantzoukas, Jayson Tchicamboud, Nikita Mikhailovskii, Yoan Makoundou, Tom Digbeu and Makur Maker.

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

Main Image: Coley Cleary / USA TODAY Sports Media Group

For The Win 2022 NBA mock draft has Will Richardson at No. 48 overall

Oregon Ducks guard Will Richardson is mocked to the Atlanta Hawks at No. 48 overall in the latest For The Win 2022 NBA mock draft.

The 2021 NBA draft came and went, with former Oregon star Chris Duarte getting selected 13th overall by the Indiana Pacers.

Duarte’s extremely strong senior season catapulted him up draft boards, resulting in a spot in the lottery despite being the oldest player in the draft class.

Will Richardson will hope to follow a similar path in the 2022 NBA draft after deciding not to leave the Oregon Ducks early and instead returning for a final go-round in 2021-2022.

The latest mock draft from Bryan Kalbrosky at USA TODAY’s For The Win does have Richardson getting selected, although not until the middle of the second round at No. 48 overall to the Atlanta Hawks.

Richardson averaged 11.3 points and 3.9 assists last year, both improvements from his sophomore campaign, but he also saw his field goal percentage drop from 47.9% to 44.3% while his three-point shooting went from an outstanding 46.9% to a still good 40.3%.

He also only appeared in 16 games thanks to a thumb injury, which sucked the air out of what was expected to be an extremely stellar season taking over point guard duties from Payton Pritchard.

Richardson has a chance to wow scouts and front office personnel once again in 2021-2022 and is widely expected to be selected in the draft.

Could he take a leap, as Duarte did, and end up in the first round? Time will tell, but the story of Oregon’s season next year will no doubt hinge on how Richardson handles the point guard duties over a full season.

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2021 NBA Mock Draft: Predicting all 59 picks, starting with Chet Holmgren

Let’s look ahead to next year’s draft.

We are only a couple of weeks removed from the 2021 NBA draft and it’s silly to publish a mock draft for next year. But let’s do it anyway.

Because frankly, far away as though it may seem, ten months can go by fast. Although a lot is going to change, some things stay the same. For example, I published my first mock draft of the 2020 cycle in May 2019 and all three of the first projected picks heard their names called within the first three picks nearly fifteen months later. Much of the rest, of course, is utterly wrong and embarrassing. But it is still helpful to track progression and regression.

Before we discuss the next crop of future NBA talent, however, let’s address the elephant in the room. You have probably noticed that the headline said this mock draft highlights 59 picks. No, that isn’t a typo.

Allow me to explain. The Milwaukee Bucks have forfeited the rights to their second-round pick in the 2022 NBA draft due to violating league rules regarding an attempted transaction made back in Nov. 2020. While it sucks for the additional person who is going to go undrafted, undrafted free agency isn’t the worst thing.

Otherwise, the order of this draft was determined by reversing the NBA futures odds courtesy of Tipico SportsBook. The teams whose odds fell outside the eight best in each conference composed the projected lottery. Meanwhile, all picks involved with previous trades were included in the order as well.

Another quick housekeeping note: My mock drafts tend to be fairly data-driven. But that can sometimes lead to some blind spots for evaluating prospects playing outside the NCAA (e.g. high school, AAU, FIBA, etc.), which made pre-season mock drafts particularly difficult.

That’s no longer the case thanks to the help from our fantastic new partners over at Cerebro Sports, a stats and analytics resource that scrapes box scores to determine how top basketball prospects have stacked up against all their previous competition.

With all that in mind, far away as we may be from draft night on June 22, here is how I see everything shaking out just based on what we know so far:

Will Richardson goes to Phoenix Suns in latest 2022 NBA mock draft

In ESPN’s latest 2022 NBA mock draft, Will Richardson is the only Oregon player to be selected, going to Phoenix at No. 56.

The Oregon Ducks are basking in the success of Chris Duarte and his early draft selection earlier this week, but it’s never too soon to look ahead to the next year.

While we may think that the Ducks’ roster this season is going to be extremely talented, ESPN might not quite agree. According to their latest mock, they only have one Oregon player getting selected in the 2022 NBA draft.

That player is Will Richardson, the veteran point guard who is expected to lead the Ducks’ to a deep tournament run this season. In the 2022 mock, Richardson lands with the Phoenix Suns at No. 56 on the board.  After missing the first several games of the 2020-2021 season with a thumb injury, Richardson shook off the rust and managed to average 13.8 points per game during the final 7 contests of the year.

So what about Quincy Guerrier, or Jacob Young, or De’Vion Harmon, or N’Faly Dante? Well, we might think they have a chance to be taken early in the draft, but the worldwide leader in sports doesn’t agree.

This season, though, all of those players will have a chance to prove the draft analysts wrong and climb up the draft board before the big day.

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Oregon Ducks predicted to be Pac-12’s second-best team in early 2021 basketball rankings

A flurry of offseason moves has Oregon basketball on the map, with many believing they can vie for a Pac-12 title and deep tournament run.

Five years ago, saying that your team was one of the best in the Pac-12 was a lot like bragging about your kid’s third-place finish in the elementary school talent show. Great job, but what are we really doing here?

The past decade for the conference has left a lot to be desired, with a lack of national champions and a select few deep tournament runs marring the Pac-12 as a whole and shedding doubt over the quality of teams. However, a resurgence in March of 2021 has things on the upswing. Impressive showings in the NCAA Tournament from Oregon, USC, UCLA, Oregon State have the conference registering a pulse for the first time in a while, and there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

For the first time in years, there is a belief that some teams out west can actually make noise on the national landscape, and a formidable opponent in March might be coming into form.

Among those teams to be a potential late-season darling is the Oregon Ducks, who are currently riding a high of landing numerous top-ranked transfers, and look to be as talented as any team that coach Dana Altman has ever had.

In his most recent conference rankings, The Athletic‘s Eamonn Brennan picked the Ducks to finish second in the conference, ranked only behind Johnny Juzang and the UCLA Bruins. Here is what Brennan had to say about Oregon:

And, yes, this roster looks unfamiliar. Will Richardson is the most important returner, and he was typically Oregon’s fourth or fifth offensive option; the losses of Chris Duarte (who is going to be a really good pro, just you wait) and Eugene Omoruyi especially will give this group a completely different feel from last season’s. But there will be similarities: With perimeter transfers De’Vion Harmon (Oklahoma), Jacob Young (Rutgers) and Quincy Guerrier (Syracuse), it’s not hard to imagine Oregon’s outside-in offense and matchup zone looks functioning in more or less the same way. The Ducks at their best were a matchup nightmare, a team of four fast 6-foot-5-ish shooters who could smell blood in the water. (Just ask Iowa.) This group will look a bit different in the specifics, but Altman’s ability to trim his team’s weaknesses and accentuate its strengths is a fixture of the Pac-12 men’s game each and every year. He’ll get them humming eventually.

The projected starters of Will Richardson, De’Vion Harmon, Jacob Young, Quincy Guerrier, and Franck Kepnang are impressive, but what the Ducks are bringing off the bench could be even more enthralling.

Rivaldo Soares, a JUCO All-American in 2020, will be joining 5-star prospects N’Faly Dante and Nathan Bittle. Oregon will also have Eric Williams Jr. returning, as well as a potentially dangerous Lok Wur in the paint.

With an impressive mix of size in the middle and speedy shooters on the perimeter, this really is shaping up to be one of the most talented teams that have come through Oregon in quite some time. The pieces may need a little bit of time to fit together in a perfect fashion, but Altman is a master artist who fans should have complete confidence in.

Getting picked to finish second in the Pac-12 is surely encouraging this far ahead of the season, but a deep tournament run seems to be in the cards for Oregon once again.

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30 of the best college prospects who won’t be declaring for 2021 NBA draft

A look at the big names you won’t see in this year’s draft.

As we approach the early entry deadline for the 2021 NBA draft, we have a sense of which players are set to return for another year of college basketball.

While scouts are more focused on the draft on July 29, evaluators around the league already have tabs on the best prospects that will continue their time in the NCAA next season.

Note that this list does not include notable names who have declared for the 2020 NBA draft but are just “testing the waters” like Isaiah Jackson, Miles McBride, Marcus Bagley, JT Thor, Matthew Mayer and Jason Preston.

Instead, the following players have either announced that they are returning or are expected to return to their team for the upcoming 2021-22 campaign:

2021 aggregate NBA mock draft 2.0: How has the NCAA season changed rankings?

Now that the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball season is underway, we are getting a more clear picture of the top prospects in the upcoming class.

Now that the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball season is underway, we are getting a more clear picture of the top prospects in the upcoming class.

Former top recruits like Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley and Jalen Suggs have made a great first impression and have confirmed why many already feel they are going to be solid future professionals in the NBA.

Of course, considering the unusual nature of the college basketball season, some players are struggling a bit more than others. The performance on the court will likely stray closer to the mean with a larger sample size as the year continues.

But to get a better sense of where everyone stands right now, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, The Athletic and USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s For The Win to see where the prospects rank at the moment.

We highlighted the prospects who have been the biggest risers since we published our last edition of this exercise.

College basketball standouts who have most drastically improved their draft stock through the early parts of the season include Keon Johnson (Tennessee), James Bouknight (UCONN), Jared Butler (Baylor), Corey Kispert (Gonzaga), Day’Ron Sharpe (UNC), Aaron Henry (Michigan State), Ayo Dosunmu (Illinois), Marcus Bagley (Arizona State), Moussa Cisse (Memphis), Charles Bassey (Western Kentucky), Jason Preston (Ohio) and Luka Garza (Iowa).

Below are the rankings based on the latest mock drafts from top analysts and experts:

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report

Jags Week 5 final injury report: Jack, Henderson, Allen all ruled questionable

The Jags had three defensive staters surface in the status column of their final injury report for Week 5.

The Jacksonville Jaguars’ defense has already struggled and that could be the case Week 5 against the Houston Texans. The unit could be without starters CJ Henderson (shoulder), Josh Allen (knee), and Myles Jack (ankle), after all three surfaced on the final injury report as questionable.

Joining them ass the only other player on the final injury report was defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale, who also was ruled questionable.

Henderson and Jack both sustained their respective injuries in Week 4’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, causing both to exit the game before it could end.

In addition to Henderson’s injury, nickelback D.J. Hayden also sustained a hamstring injury last Sunday, leaving the secondary without two key members. Hayden was eventually place on injured reserve Wednesday, which means he’ll miss three games at the least.

With both Hayden and Henderson sidelined in Sunday’s game, Sidney Jones and Chris Claybrooks took snaps on the perimeter and Tre Herndon was moved to the nickelback spot. Defensive coordinator Todd Wash indicated that the lineup would probably remain the same Sunday with Hayden on IR and Henderson fighting to return.

As for Jack, Dakota Allen will be the player to play in his place if he can’t suit up. Allen replaced him Sunday and was able to garner six total tackles in the process.

Another key takeaway from the injury report was that center Brandon Linder and left tackle Cam Robinson weren’t on it as both were listed for knee injuries earlier in the week. That means the Jags will finally have their full starting offensive line as Linder missed Weeks 3-4 and Robinson exited Week 5’s game in the second half.