Alterique Gilbert lost potential | The Boneyard

Alterique Gilbert lost potential

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So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve been curious if anyone else would agree:

What would of happened to Alterique’s career at UConn if he never had gotten injured? Would he had lead the team to the NCAA? Would he have gotten to the NBA? Would Christian Vital vanish into the background and not become the player we know and love today?

It’s an interesting thought experiment and please forgive me if it’s been discussed before but now we sort of know the full scope of his college career. Would this Mr. Georgia Basketball, Jordan Brand Classic, McDonalds All-American be UCONN’s greatest loss under the Kevin Ollie era?

I love Alterique and this is in no way meant to come off as mean or short sided. I wish him the best in his professional career and can’t wait to see where he ends up

Thank you so much for reading, I’m really interested in your thoughts :)
 
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So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve been curious if anyone else would agree:

What would've happened to Alterique’s career at UConn if he never had gotten injured? Would he had lead the team to the NCAA? Would he have gotten to the NBA? Would Christian Vital vanish into the background and not become the player we know and love today?

It’s an interesting thought experiment and please forgive me if it’s been discussed before but now we sort of know the full scope of his college career. Would this Mr. Georgia Basketball, Jordan Brand Classic, McDonalds All-American be UCONN’s greatest loss under the Kevin Ollie era?

I love Alterique and this is in no way meant to come off as mean or short sided. I wish him the best in his professional career and can’t wait to see where he ends up

Thank you so much for reading, I’m really interested in your thoughts :)

FYP ;)
 

Chin Diesel

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In short we will never know.

His biggest hindrance in college was over penetrating against high level D1 front court players and a lack of an outside shot. Those two flaws in his game would have hindered him regardless of health.

In short, I don't think he would have led UConn deep in to any NCAA tournament.
 
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So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve been curious if anyone else would agree:

What would of happened to Alterique’s career at UConn if he never had gotten injured? Would he had lead the team to the NCAA? Would he have gotten to the NBA? Would Christian Vital vanish into the background and not become the player we know and love today?

It’s an interesting thought experiment and please forgive me if it’s been discussed before but now we sort of know the full scope of his college career. Would this Mr. Georgia Basketball, Jordan Brand Classic, McDonalds All-American be UCONN’s greatest loss under the Kevin Ollie era?

I love Alterique and this is in no way meant to come off as mean or short sided. I wish him the best in his professional career and can’t wait to see where he ends up

Thank you so much for reading, I’m really interested in your thoughts :)
What about terry larrier( remember him)
 
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AG was a great talent. Could get anywhere on the court he wanted. And I think would eventually have become a great point guard and three point shooter.

As much as the injuries cost him him, the invisible cost was he never had an off season to just work on his game. Every off season he was rehabbing. So sad, we'll never know.
 

ClifSpliffy

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In short we will never know.

His biggest hindrance in college was over penetrating against high level D1 front court players and a lack of an outside shot. Those two flaws in his game would have hindered him regardless of health.

In short, I don't think he would have led UConn deep in to any NCAA tournament.
hehe, i see what u did here. funny. accurate. lol.
 

August_West

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So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve been curious if anyone else would agree:

What would of happened to Alterique’s career at UConn if he never had gotten injured? Would he had lead the team to the NCAA? Would he have gotten to the NBA? Would Christian Vital vanish into the background and not become the player we know and love today?

It’s an interesting thought experiment and please forgive me if it’s been discussed before but now we sort of know the full scope of his college career. Would this Mr. Georgia Basketball, Jordan Brand Classic, McDonalds All-American be UCONN’s greatest loss under the Kevin Ollie era?

I love Alterique and this is in no way meant to come off as mean or short sided. I wish him the best in his professional career and can’t wait to see where he ends up

Thank you so much for reading, I’m really interested in your thoughts :)


. It was a factor in changing trajectory of program. Those first 3 games of that first season (before he went down) he was often best player on the floor. he was averaging 30 minutes a game and scoring over 10 points a game. Yeah we lost to Northeastern and Wagner to start the season but that was because Jalen and Rodney were absolute horsecrap. Against Wagner in his first college game Al played 35 minutes and scored 14, Jalen played 37 and scored 9, Rodney played 26 and scored 5. God those two were terrible to start season. Then Al went 7-6-3 against northeastern in 36 minutes. then the 3rd game against loyola Al had 16 first half minutes before going down with the shoulder. Had 10 points already. (Jalen scored 9 in 37 minutes, lol Purvis had 5 points in 31 minutes). That team had issues, but I believe with a healthy Al things wouldve been much different in my opinion. He had a swagger those first 3 games he was never able to regain.
 

BGesus4

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. It was a factor in changing trajectory of program. Those first 3 games of that first season (before he went down) he was often best player on the floor. he was averaging 30 minutes a game and scoring over 10 points a game. Yeah we lost to Northeastern and Wagner to start the season but that was because Jalen and Rodney were absolute horsecrap. Against Wagner in his first college game Al played 35 minutes and scored 14, Jalen played 37 and scored 9, Rodney played 26 and scored 5. God those two were terrible to start season. Then Al went 7-6-3 against northeastern in 36 minutes. then the 3rd game against loyola Al had 16 first half minutes before going down with the shoulder. Had 10 points already. (Jalen scored 9 in 37 minutes, lol Purvis had 5 points in 31 minutes). That team had issues, but I believe with a healthy Al things wouldve been much different in my opinion. He had a swagger those first 3 games he was never able to regain.
Took the words out of my mouth. As a true freshman, already coming of an injury, he was already looking like a special player from his first minute on the floor.

confidence is just a huge part of performance and his just got completely derailed with his bad luck. Not saying he’d necessarily be an NBAer but I think his career would’ve been very different.
 
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I spent multiple years hoping Jalen Adams and Alterique would lead us to greatness. I know in retrospect people say we didn't have enough shooting, but I felt we could find shooters. I felt then that dribble penetration and ball handling is the harder skill to find. I still feel that way... to some degree.

What do I think now? I don't know.... really tough to say. It probably was never going to happen. I mean, those two leading us back to Final Fours and championships. That was probably never going to happen.
 
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In short we will never know.

His biggest hindrance in college was over penetrating against high level D1 front court players and a lack of an outside shot. Those two flaws in his game would have hindered him regardless of health.

In short, I don't think he would have led UConn deep in to any NCAA tournament.
Completely agree with your assessment. I just want to add people are making his injuries a huge part of his shortcomings. He has low bball IQ for a PG. I’m glad for his time here .. thank you
 
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Completely agree with your assessment. I just want to add people are making his injuries a huge part of his shortcomings. He has low bball IQ for a PG. I’m glad for his time here .. thank you

I don't understand your comment about his injuries. He's probably the most snakebitten player we've ever had - maybe the most snakebitten college basketball player I've ever seen. His entire college career was derailed by injuries. Do you think people are wrong to mention that?
 
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1. No intelligent way of even guessing how much better the team would have been. But obviously better.

2. Christian Vital would have played significantly less his first two years, and not been asked to do as much. Most likely, in that event he doesn't finish his career as the best player in the AAC.

3. Zero reason to think AG wouldn't have been better had he been able to have a healthy career and work on his shooting more instead of spending most of his time resting and rehabbing.
 
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. It was a factor in changing trajectory of program. Those first 3 games of that first season (before he went down) he was often best player on the floor. he was averaging 30 minutes a game and scoring over 10 points a game. Yeah we lost to Northeastern and Wagner to start the season but that was because Jalen and Rodney were absolute horsecrap. Against Wagner in his first college game Al played 35 minutes and scored 14, Jalen played 37 and scored 9, Rodney played 26 and scored 5. God those two were terrible to start season. Then Al went 7-6-3 against northeastern in 36 minutes. then the 3rd game against loyola Al had 16 first half minutes before going down with the shoulder. Had 10 points already. (Jalen scored 9 in 37 minutes, lol Purvis had 5 points in 31 minutes). That team had issues, but I believe with a healthy Al things wouldve been much different in my opinion. He had a swagger those first 3 games he was never able to regain.

I don’t disagree, but its unclear to me medically as to how the shoulder injuries affected his game specifically when he came back. It’s much easier to quantify/ identify when someone has a lower body injury and you can see that they are slower, less explosive, can’t jump as high etc. I guess the shoulder hurt his confidence/ ability to drive and finish? But that’s not exactly a strong point of his anyways. Maybe it hurt his shot or dribbling? But it was his off hand and I don’t think he was ever a great shooter and continued to be a great dribbler after.

I am more inclined to think that his limitations were always going to be there, injuries or not. He is short, an inconsistent shooter, and not the best decision maker (over penetrating). Your baseline of success is a 3 game sample and 1 of those games he was pretty bad (3-10, 1-6 from 3). So it was way too early to tell what he was before the injuries, making this all impossible to try to figure out.

I look at it this way. If the injuries held him back a lot, he still could’ve been a great floor general, leader, calming presence type who runs the offense well. But he wasn’t very good at that. And those are the key attributes of his position. He dribbled way too much and didn’t move the ball at all. Over penetrated. Turnover issues. His turnovers actually increased over his career. The injuries didn’t hold him back in any of these areas, and I don’t see how he could’ve ever been a great player if he was poor at them. In other words you can’t really blame them.

I guess you can blame the injuries if you expected him to be an electric scorer and think they prevented him from doing so. But I don’t really see that.

I’m not bashing AG, just trying to think of it logically. He’s a great kid and I was really happy he got into the NCAAT and was rooting hard for them to win. But that’s how I see it logically.
 
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I don't understand your comment about his injuries. He's probably the most snakebitten player we've ever had - maybe the most snakebitten college basketball player I've ever seen. His entire college career was derailed by injuries. Do you think people are wrong to mention that?

that’s not what he said. He’s not saying you can’t mention the injuries. He’s saying most of his shortcomings were unrelated to the injuries and would be there whether he got hurt or not. I agree, see my post above.
 
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that’s not what he said. He’s not saying you can’t mention the injuries. He’s saying most of his shortcomings were unrelated to the injuries and would be there whether he got hurt or not. I agree, see my post above.

I read your post. On a fundamental level I just think it's absurd to say that the fact that he was never healthy while in Storrs, and spent his entire career either being injured or rehabbing from injury, didn't affect his development as a player. When you're rehabbing you're trying to get back to the place you started from, you're not improving. And it just doesn't make any sense - to me - to say it'd be different if it were a lower body injury. But Gilbert is one of the more maligned players that has ever come thru the program so it doesn't surprise.

He's short and he'd always be short no matter what. That's about the only aspect of his game that you can separate from the injuries. Kemba didn't know what he was doing on the court as a freshman.
 
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I read your post. On a fundamental level I just think it's absurd to say that the fact that he was never healthy while in Storrs, and spent his entire career either being injured or rehabbing from injury, didn't affect his development as a player. When you're rehabbing you're trying to get back to the place you started from, you're not improving. And it just doesn't make any sense - to me - to say it'd be different if it were a lower body injury. But Gilbert is one of the more maligned players that has ever come thru the program so it doesn't surprise.

He's short and he'd always be short no matter what. That's about the only aspect of his game that you can separate from the injuries. Kemba didn't know what he was doing on the court as a freshman.

Again, not what I said. I didn’t say the injuries never affected his development. I said most of the things that made him a disappointing or ineffective player were all unrelated to the injuries.

If you can explain the correlation between a shoulder injury and chronic poor decision making, over dribbling, over penetrating, poor shot selection, turnover issues, not running an offense, bad end of game management, I would be happy to hear it.

Clearly the injuries had some effect. And it’s impossible for anyone to say how much. I certainly never tried to. I am refuting the belief that he could’ve/ would’ve been a great player if he never got hurt. Because he couldn’t have with all the issues I mentioned above, which had nothing to do with the injuries. Now if you want to blame those things on a certain coach or lack of coaching, that is something I would inclined to agree with. But then we would sidetrack another thread so let’s not rehash that.
 
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Boatright was a much better player and he didn't even get his shot at the NBA (which is unfair. He should have gotten a fair look). Gilbert would have been a good college player, but you're kidding yourself if you think he could have gone to the league.
 

polycom

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Boatright was a much better player and he didn't even get his shot at the NBA (which is unfair. He should have gotten a fair look). Gilbert would have been a good college player, but you're kidding yourself if you think he could have gone to the league.
The bold is not how the nba works.
 
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His biggest hindrance in college was over penetrating against high level D1 front court players and a lack of an outside shot. Those two flaws in his game would have hindered him regardless of health.

You could have said exactly the same thing about Kemba Walker after his freshman year.
 
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The bold is not how the nba works.
It's pretty clear I was not calling the NBA draft process unfair. I was calling the situation unfair for Boat because he was a better player than quite a few of the guys that got drafted. Some guys just get overlooked when they probably could have made it in the league, but that's life I guess
 
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What about Mike LeBlanc? He was actually a better shooter then RIP. He was just in JC doghouse for lack of D. Wonder what if he stayed instead of going to Vanderbilt
 

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