Quote:
Originally Posted by jay santos
I'll have to trust you when it comes to Jensen's defense because I don't remember him well. I remember him as being a little slow to defend on the perimeter. He also played with a lot of tall guys behind him, and nobody in that time period could touch Utah's inside D.
Cummard has been labeled the premier perimeter defender in the MWC by an opposing coach. Cummard blows Jensen away in steals and blocks. Unless you can provide some more compelling evidence, I'm gonna have to believe at best it's sixes when you compare the two defensively--especially as soph's.
I always thought Majerus' comment on Jensen being the best defender he ever had as just a nice compliment to a hard-nosed role player type kid who Majerus really liked. I don't think most people took it seriously, including Ute fans. Am I right on that?
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Alex Jensen in his last 3 years at Utah was consistently called on to defend the opposing teams players from the 1-4 position. Jensen's assignment in the Utah-Arizona game was on Miles Simon, and he shut him down. He was also the primary defender on Vince Carter in the Utes victory over UNC.
Jensen was not a fast player, and frankly he was not going to lock anyone down with individual defense. The good thing is that basketball is a team game, and team defense is more important than individual defense. From everything I heard I would take Cummard over Jensen if it was a game of one on one, but in a basketball game I take Jensen. Jensen knew exactly where to be at each moment on defense. He always knew exactly how to funnel his man to help, to accomodate for any of his weaknesses.
Also I will throw one more thing into this debate. A comparison of freshman stats for Cummard and Jensen.
Alex Jensen
MIN FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG TPG BPG SPG PPG
24.8 58.8 100.0 75.7 6.1 1.6 1.6 0.4 0.6 6.7
Lee Cummard
MIN FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG TPG BPG SPG PPG
14.8 45.5 .395 76.5 2.3 1.6 1.1 .4 .6 4.9
Cummard had a much bigger jump from his freshman to sophomore years, but I think that was a lot easier for him because he was not suffering the ill effects of a mission. We all know that it takes about a year to really recover from a mission.
As for the steals and blocks, no Majerus player will ever be high in those stats. Majerus didn't teach his players to go for steals and blocks. Instead he wanted to rely on position defense, and didn't have his players gamble. Utah was always very low nationally in steals and blocks, but generally had some of the best points allowed per game and fg% defense.