something that surprised me Isiah scored more point in his 2 seasons than TJD did
- Thread starter kurt cloverdales
- Start date
Trayce played well tonight. He improved his fitness and did a nice job running the floor. Other than free throws, I think we saw an improved player in TJD tonight.
To be a little fair to your thread title... Isiah played in 5 more games in his two years than TJD. 4 after last night.
His conditioning is great. We didn't see some of the transition steals like we did in the Bahamas. He can use his length and speed and time long passes on the break very well. Go Go Gadget arms haven't made an appearance yet. They will.
still surprised that Thomas scored that much in his time here, he had to average over 15 a game to put up that many points, playing with woodson witman kitchel tolbert turner, he played with a lot of scorers.
He averaged 14.6 pts 4.6 reb 5.5 a as a freshman in Woodson’ssenior year.
As a sophomore he averaged 16.0 p 3.1 r 5.8 a.
Isaiah's freshman year he played 40 minutes nearly every game (except that he was often in foul trouble) and had to carry a lot of the scoring load. Wittman was out the entire year with an ankle injury and Woodson missed the entire middle of the season with a back injury. Woodson started the season then was sidelined to have back surgery and only came back for the last 6 games of the big ten season and the NCAAT. IU was devastated by injuries that year ( Steve Bouchie was also out after being a starter the first few games) and still won the Big Ten. Maybe Knight's best coaching job. When Woodson came back, IU was dominant but the longer he played the more pain he was in and he was pretty much shot by the time the tourney rolled around.
A couple of side notes re; Woodson. Despite only playing the last 6 or so games of the conference season, he was named the league MVP - a testament to both how good he was and how important he was to IU. It also showed the tremendous respect other coaches and the media had for him as a player. At the clip he scored before and after his injury he also would have become both IU and the Big Ten's all-time leading scorer had he played the full season. If he and Wittman had both been healthy all year, IU might very well have made another final four, maybe even won another national title. If he had been injured earlier and redshirted that year ( his senior year) he would have been on the 1981 title team and that team might have dominated college basketball that season the way the 1975 and 1976 teams did.
I got to IUB in 1977 a year after Woodson and graduated in 1981. Mike Woodson was easily the best player I saw live during that stretch, including those wearing an IU uniform and those playing for opposing teams - and there were a lot of great players in the Big Ten during that time.
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