Post by wh on Oct 27, 2010 21:06:44 GMT -5
Another Valpo guy calling Howard "the most overrated player in the Horizon League".
nwitimes.com/app/blog/sports/?p=4564&cpage=1#comment-4398
Odd that Butler's been able to have any success with this stiff on the court. Despite his obvious ineptitude, Howard has been an important part of 89 wins, which interestingly is the same number of games won by Bryce Drew during his historic four year career at Valpo.
Since I've been kicked around in a few posts on this subject, let me chime in. Neither I or paul Oren have said that Howard is not a good player. What I said is that Cory Johnson is better. Both players had great players surrounding them last year. Statistics just favor Johnson and the fact that he can hit the 3 on a regular basis while Howard never even trys a 3 only goes to support my theory.
Now, as for Howard being part of 89 wins, that's great. Was Bryce surrounded by othwer NBA players? Nope. All you Butler guys think Mack is a lock for the NBA and last year you had this Hayward kid. Bryce had a nice supporting group of players. They played well together and won at key times. Howard has been surrounded by better players, thankfully, as he has spent most of last year looking on from the bench. Inspite of this fact, Howard has clearly been a key factor, I'm not trying to take anything away from his accomplishments. Again, all I'm sayingis that based on statisitics and their roles and importance to their teams, that if I had to pick one or the other for FIRST team all confernce, it would be Cory.
I don't know why I'm biting on this, but what the heck...Zville - '72 isn't the only person that thinks Matt Howard is rated too high at 1st team. Look around the HL boards - EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE has mentioned it at one time or another. Why do think that is? Anti-Butler sentiment? Jealousy? Hardly. No criticized Mack or Hayward.
Come on. Matt only played 25 min/game last year and he averaged 3.5 fouls/game. That equates to more than 5 fouls/40 min. for an entire season. That's an incredible stat. His fouling problem got so bad that Stevens started rotating him out BEFORE he got into foul trouble in hopes that he would still be on the court at the end of the game. At some point I started wondering if Butler had implemented a "designated hitter" rule or something. His constant propensity for fouling has gone from a problem to a habit to an incurable disease. At some point it's up to the player to keep himself on the court, but Matt simply cannot do it.
You or some other Howard fan said he will be more of a go-to guy on offense this year without Hayward on the court. In order to having a significantly bigger impact on offense he is going to have to start playing 32-33 min/game like every other high profile HL player instead of 25 min. that 2nd tier starters or 6th men play. How is that going to happen...counseling, hypnosis, remedial summer basketball camp?