Star-spangled Ducks

Classes won’t resume at University of Oregon for almost another six weeks, but there’s no reason we can’t crunch some numbers here in the dog days of summer.

For the third consecutive year, Oregon Men’s Basketball has landed a commitment from a 5-star recruit. Kwame Evans Jr is a 6-foot-9, 200-pound forward from Montverde Academy in Florida. His 247 player rating is 0.9973, and he is the No.1 ranked player in Florida, and the No.7 ranked player nationally.

As far as numbers go, those are impressive. But what have we seen from Evans so far that he could bring to the floor at Matthew Knight Arena?

Taking a look at film, it is obvious that Evans is very fluid for his size, in that instead of more of a bruising power forward, Evans has the handles and shooting of a guard. In the open court, he looks flat-out deadly. He can snag a defensive rebound and be down the court in just a few long strides, too fast for other bigs to keep up with and too tall for guards to stop from getting to the hoop.

From a half-court set Evans is less lethal but still very versatile as he has developed a consistent stroke from 3-point range as a left-handed shooter. He has a nice pull-up midrange game as well and makes swift, quick cuts to the basket for easy layups and dunks. Attacking the basket he is difficult to stop due to his speed and ranginess.

Defensively Evans has the agility and length to be a bother on the perimeter and in the paint, although consistent defensive highlights of him are somewhat difficult to come by. The good news is that he has a noticeably sturdy lower body, which will give him an assist in holding his ground should he get stuck with a big man in the paint.

One note from 247 Sports is that so far Evans does not appear to be a primary play maker on the offensive end, but given that he still has another year of high school to complete and that he will be coming in with 4-star point guard Jackson Shelstad, this may not be a glaring concern right now.

All in all, it looks like Altman has managed to snag a player whose skill set at his size is in very high demand not only in college but the pros as well.

Be excited!