Monday, December 8, 2008

*****UNKNOWN AWESOME PLAYER ALERT*****


While learning just how awful Hawaii is at defense, taking care of the basketball, and shooting while they get worked over by the not as good as you think Illini, I discovered an unknown gem in the Rainbow's 6-7 Junior forward Roderick Flemings. In addition to have a sweet name, he posses a good jumpshot, an insane vertical, good ball handling skills, and a nice mid-range game including a turnaround jumper from about 12 feet. As an added bonus, he's lefthanded.

He reminds me a bit of Hakim Warrick, which sounds silly until you look at both his stats and his pedigree. This is his first year with Hawaii after transferring from JuCo, but he did play his freshman year for Oklahoma State, where he averaged 3 points and 2 rebounds per game in 11 minutes - signing there after being given four stars by Scout.com and ranked as the #10 small forward in the country. Things didn't work out and he ended up at a Texas JuCo where he averaged 21 points and 12 rebounds per game and signed with Hawaii despite being offered by Georgetown, UCONN, Kentucky, Texas A&M, West Virginia, and Arkansas.

He's made an immediate impact, needed badly on a team that lost seven seniors, leading the team in scoring (17.0) and steals (1.4) and second in rebounding (7.2) and assists (2.2), while shooting 47%. He had a double-double in his previous game in against Prairie View with 22 and 13, and has already done it against the Illini with 11 points and 10 rebounds as I type this, with 11 minutes remaining in the game.

The rest of the Rainbows suck worse than the name the Rainbows, so this information probably won't help you in any way whatsoever, but if you do hear about him for some reason, just remember you heard it here first.

Some info that might help you, however, is that Chester Frazier of the Illini is 4-6 on threes tonight, and looks like he might finally have learned how to shoot. He's shooting 33% so far this year, which, sadly, is a career high. Not that I'm particularly worried about Illinois or Frazier, but one less weapon for a Big Ten team is always a good thing.

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