Jensen vs Cummard

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by UteStar

jay...nice to see the honesty, but you are dead wrong about him being overrated and about not being a difference maker. If you barely remember him, it is hard to talk about him.

As I said before, he is a guy that guarded the oppositions best player (guard or forward). He was great at defense because he stayed in front of his players. Short guys could not shoot over him and struggled to ever get around him...tall guys struggled to get in a position to score over him. He was also clutch down the stretch (game winning shots including an absolutely amazing final couple of minutes against Air Force at Air Force during his senior year). In terms of not letting his team lose, I would put Alex second behind Andre Miller. I would put him ahead of Van Horn (who hit a bunch of last second clutch shots), Bogut, Hanno and Doleac.

Jensen really did it all. Right now, Cummard is nowhere near the player that Alex was. With that said, maybe he will be in the next year or two. He definately shows traits that make him invaluable. It will be interesting to see how he turns out.

I've been admitting my lack of knowledge on Jensen from the beginning. My first post I said that and was making a statistical comparison of the two. Outside of the statistical comparison, I admit I don't have much value to add to the discussion. OTOH, since Cummard's still a soph, and Jensen was still a role player as a soph, nobody can really compare the two much at all.

[Insensitive PAP]

in the 7th round by a Japanese basketball team, or something equivalent, so I think you overate him a bit. Don't get me wrong, he was an excellent basketball player but he was more a product of Majerus's system than anything else.

Utah played great defense because Majerus was a fantastic teacher of defense, and a master strategist. Majerus could gameplan to make teams do what the were bad at. This made the sum greater than the parts and made average players look better than they really were (see Jensen). All Majerus's teams played great defense, before and after Jensen.

Jensen was a very good on the ball defender, and he was a tirelss worker off the ball denying the opposing teams star from every getting the ball. He was great at using his body to minimize his athletic deficiencies. I give him all the credit for this. The problem is, Cummard is a great defender too, though you don't seem willing to recognize that, and it makes me wonder if you've even watched a BYU game.

You also seem to be stuck on comparing Jensen's junior and senior achievements to Cummard's sophomore season, which really makes no sense at all to a sane person.

Take Andre Miller or Michael Doleac off that team and nobody would have ever heard of Alex Jensen. Role players are only as good as the stars they support, and that's all Jensen was.

Originally Posted by mpfunk

Here is my point on the Alex Jensen v. Cummard comparison

I think Jensen was the better player as sophomore. I also think that Jensen's stats severely suffered as a sophomore, because he was very out of shape from his mission (something that Cummard is not dealing with) and he simply was not needed to score or rebound that much on that team. The scoring was handled by Andre Miller, Doleac, and Mottola. Even Drew Hansen was more important offensively.

Where Jensen wins this battle is in defense. Utah was simply the better defensive team, and IMO it was largely a great defensive team because of Jensen.

In addition you cannot separate team results from all this comparison. Jensen was the key lock down defender in the Utes victories against UNC and Arizona. If you want Ute players in order of importance to the 1998 NCAA Championship game run it goes: Andre Miller, Alex Jensen, and Mike Doleac.

[Insensitive PAP]

Originally Posted by UteStar

jay...nice to see the honesty, but you are dead wrong about him being overrated and about not being a difference maker. If you barely remember him, it is hard to talk about him.

As I said before, he is a guy that guarded the oppositions best player (guard or forward). He was great at defense because he stayed in front of his players. Short guys could not shoot over him and struggled to ever get around him...tall guys struggled to get in a position to score over him. He was also clutch down the stretch (game winning shots including an absolutely amazing final couple of minutes against Air Force at Air Force during his senior year). In terms of not letting his team lose, I would put Alex second behind Andre Miller. I would put him ahead of Van Horn (who hit a bunch of last second clutch shots), Bogut, Hanno and Doleac.

Jensen really did it all. Right now, Cummard is nowhere near the player that Alex was. With that said, maybe he will be in the next year or two. He definately shows traits that make him invaluable. It will be interesting to see how he turns out.

All that good things you just said about Jensen are the same things Cummard does for us.

[mpfunk]

Originally Posted by Insensitive PAP

in the 7th round by a Japanese basketball team, or something equivalent, so I think you overate him a bit. Don't get me wrong, he was an excellent basketball player but he was more a product of Majerus's system than anything else.

Utah played great defense because Majerus was a fantastic teacher of defense, and a master strategist. Majerus could gameplan to make teams do what the were bad at. This made the sum greater than the parts and made average players look better than they really were (see Jensen). All Majerus's teams played great defense, before and after Jensen.

Jensen was a very good on the ball defender, and he was a tirelss worker off the ball denying the opposing teams star from every getting the ball. He was great at using his body to minimize his athletic deficiencies. I give him all the credit for this. The problem is, Cummard is a great defender too, though you don't seem willing to recognize that, and it makes me wonder if you've even watched a BYU game.

You also seem to be stuck on comparing Jensen's junior and senior achievements to Cummard's sophomore season, which really makes no sense at all to a sane person.

Take Andre Miller or Michael Doleac off that team and nobody would have ever heard of Alex Jensen. Role players are only as good as the stars they support, and that's all Jensen was.

Everything I have heard about Cummard makes me think he will be a very good player. I respect goatnapper's basketball opinion above every other BYU fan, and he thinks very highly of him. Based on everything that has been said about Cummard, I would take him over every single player the Utes have including Luke Nevill. Of course at Utah Cummard would not get more than 10-15 minutes of PT a game. He would deserve 30, but since his greatest attributes are defense Giacoletti wouldn't play him.

[mpfunk]

Originally Posted by Insensitive PAP

Take Andre Miller or Michael Doleac off that team and nobody would have ever heard of Alex Jensen. Role players are only as good as the stars they support, and that's all Jensen was.

Also as a freshman and sophomore Jensen was just a role player, as a junior he was the second best player on the Utes. As a senior he was the best player on the Utes, and the best player in the MWC.

[Insensitive PAP]

I just think a lot of the credit goes to Majerus. He put great teams on the floor and the best players on good teams tend to get the credit. I have a hard time believing Jensen would be player of the year if he was playing for Giacoletti.

Originally Posted by mpfunk

Also as a freshman and sophomore Jensen was just a role player, as a junior he was the second best player on the Utes. As a senior he was the best player on the Utes, and the best player in the MWC.

[mpfunk]

Originally Posted by Insensitive PAP

I just think a lot of the credit goes to Majerus. He put great teams on the floor and the best players on good teams tend to get the credit. I have a hard time believing Jensen would be player of the year if he was playing for Giacoletti.

This we can agree with. I won't deny that Jensen was in many ways made great, because he listened to Majerus and did the things Majerus told him to do.

Majerus clearly played favorites with his players. His favorite guys were guys who didn't have great talent, but got the most out that talent. Jensen got more out of his talent than any player at Utah not named Andre Miller.

I just wish Majerus could have somehow given Jensen's work ethic to Britton Johnsen.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

Saying you don't know enough, while in the same sentence saying Cummard wouldn't get off the bench...you're contradicting yourself.

It's like Funk making the comparisons he was making, then admitting later he hasn't watched ONE single BYU game all season.

Actually, no, I'm not. Because of my ignorance of Cummard, I really can't see him getting off the bench of that Utah team. If you don't want to believe I can make both comments, that is your problem.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Alex Jensen benefitted from the Coattail Syndrome, where a player on a successful team gets more credit than they deserve because the team is successful.

It has nothing to do with offense, defense or special teams.

Alex Jensen was a good, but largely unspectacular player that I would want any self-respecting wingman for BYU to aspire to be better than.

Clearly, you are incapable of being objective because at that point in time, Utah treated BYU like a two-bit whore, which is more than BYU deserved during those days.

[Detroitdad]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

Clearly, you are incapable of being objective because at that point in time, Utah treated BYU like a two-bit whore, which is more than BYU deserved during those days.

I felt that we were treated more like a three bit whore. And a note of thanks would have been nice.