Very Early St. John’s Red Storm Players and Coach Report Card

Rysheed Jordan

Talk about a guy making huge strides in development. Jordan’s freshman season was mired in ho-hum play and could probably be summed up as a disappointment. That had as much to do with the other-worldly hype that proceeded him as it did with him just playing sporadic basketball. Another year in the program, however, and Jordan is showing why some people think he is an eventual first-round NBA Draft pick.

The Positives

Rysheed Jordan is scoring baskets at a far more prolific pace. Last season he averaged 9.7 points per outing in 26 minutes of play a game. That is not horrible, although, the Red Storm faithful always knew that Jordan needed to score more for the team to be competitive night in and night out. This season, as Jordan’s field goal percentage has gone up from .41 to .45, he is currently averaging 17.6 points per game.

A surprising and unexpected bonus has been Jordan’s rebounding. The Red Storm have been rebounding solidly as a team (44.4 per), but a lot of them having exceeded their abilities as rebounders has a lot to do with Jordan grabbing over five per game.

The Negatives

Jordan is turning the ball over, a lot. 4.4 per game to be exact. That number rose because he happened to give up the ball 15 times in the last two NIT Season Tip-Off games, but it is scary to think that one of the Red Storm’s primary ball handlers has a habit for giving it up. An excuse can be made for him that the team is asking too much of him, but that doesn’t give him a pass for losing the Red Storm vital possessions.

He is also shooting a very low percentage from three. .20% to be exact. To be fair to him, though, it would be unwise to expect a player who was as raw as him when he joined the program to already be a proficient three-point shooter. The good news, as you can tell by his field goal numbers and the eyeball test, is that Jordan obviously has a better stroke than he did last year.

Like all members of the Red Storm, Jordan can play the game with a little higher level of IQ. Often times he drives to the basket with his head down and ends up jumping into the air hoping to use his athleticism to bail him out of the iffy situation his reckless drive put him him. This has resulted in many of his turnovers and many times he has been blocked at the rim because of it.

Grade: B+

All in all Jordan has played very well this season. In fact, he has gotten better every game he has played (if we don’t count the insane turnover numbers from the last two games). It is a pretty safe assumption to guess that some of his issues will work itself out as he continues to see more action.

Next: Sir'Dominic Pointer