ADVERTISEMENT

Darling

Darling: Strength's:

1. Plays extremely hard, leaves it all on court. Problem with that, he tries to hard, and that gets him into trouble sometimes.

2. Extremely FAST ball handler, dribbler, that can blow past defenders, but doesn't do it often because he A. Doesn't assert himself, and B. Awesome defenders with quick hands, sometimes pokes ball away, when he drives. 3. Good Passer, dishes out assist, but because he is young, freshman, higher level then used to, sometimes makes mistakes, and turns ball over instead of dishing out the assist. 4. Decent, ok, semi good, etc, outside shooter, shot except that he is currently in a slump.

5. Good at defending opposing point guards, 2 guards, but sometimes gets semi easily beat by bigger guards.

Weaknesses:

1. Young, freshman, is still adapting to higher level, etc.

2. Makes young, freshman, semi dumb mistakes, plays, etc.

3. Is currently in outside shooting slump.

4. Is NOT CONSISTENT in playing good, and is INCONSISTENT, and is like a Dr Jeckle, Mr Hyde.

5. Altho can sometimes finish at rim, score, etc, sometimes struggles finishing, scoring.

6. Does not get the minutes to improve, but doesn't CONSISTENTLY play well enough to warrant more minutes.

7. Is a semi smaller guard that makes it harder for him to defend bigger players, and harder for him to rebound, that said, sometimes he Darling does a good job rebounding, defending.

Darling is a young, freshman MIXED results bag with both strengths and weaknesses that the book is out on until after future seasons.

That's what he is to this team.

Fans are both either too easy on him, or too hard on him.
 
Last edited:
Probably wouldn’t have played much this year and might have even been inline for a redshirt. Personally I think he has shown enough to warrant a scholarship and be at least optimistic about his future. Plus as a WSU legacy and local product I feel there is less chance of him leaving WSU after he reaches his potential. Don’t see him being a real consistent contributor until probably his JR year. Very similar imo as Dion except more of a chance Dion might leave before we get any real benefit.
 
Probably wouldn’t have played much this year and might have even been inline for a redshirt. Personally I think he has shown enough to warrant a scholarship and be at least optimistic about his future. Plus as a WSU legacy and local product I feel there is less chance of him leaving WSU after he reaches his potential. Don’t see him being a real consistent contributor until probably his JR year. Very similar imo as Dion except more of a chance Dion might leave before we get any real benefit.

Reason Darling didn't redshirt was the injuries.

I agree he warrants a scholly, but I think it's undecided on whether there is reason to be optimistic on, about him.

That said, there is no reason to be pessimistic on, about him either.

I don't see him reaching his potential, contributing until at least sometime during his SOPHMORE year at the very soonest.

He does have upside, potential, etc, if he develops, asserts himself.

And don't think he leaves or if leaves doesn't leave until after Junior year.
 
All I can say is that if you broke Adam Morrison's record you can score. He will need to learn when to take his shot and right now its clearly in his head. I think he is doing fine for a frosh tossed into the wolves. He knows it isn't great and trys not to take too many shots--which is a good thing at this point.

Sure brings a ton of energy and handles pressure quite well for a frosh.
 
All I can say is that if you broke Adam Morrison's record you can score. He will need to learn when to take his shot and right now its clearly in his head. I think he is doing fine for a frosh tossed into the wolves. He knows it isn't great and trys not to take too many shots--which is a good thing at this point.

Sure brings a ton of energy and handles pressure quite well for a frosh.
Agree across the board. As jourdand & mik posted, he’s a redshirt if not for injuries. I love how he competes & he seems to have a high IQ. I think he’s worth the time to see if he can develop.
 
Probably wouldn’t have played much this year and might have even been inline for a redshirt. Personally I think he has shown enough to warrant a scholarship and be at least optimistic about his future. Plus as a WSU legacy and local product I feel there is less chance of him leaving WSU after he reaches his potential. Don’t see him being a real consistent contributor until probably his JR year. Very similar imo as Dion except more of a chance Dion might leave before we get any real benefit.
Dion?
 
Agree across the board. As jourdand & mik posted, he’s a redshirt if not for injuries. I love how he competes & he seems to have a high IQ. I think he’s worth the time to see if he can develop.
Darling is going to have to develop some additional skills. His size is a detriment and he's about 1/4 step slow to blow by defenders and get to the rim at the Pac 12 level.

He needs to adapt to the speed of D1 basketball. Shots he would get off in the GSL are contested in the Pac 12.
 
Darling is going to have to develop some additional skills. His size is a detriment and he's about 1/4 step slow to blow by defenders and get to the rim at the Pac 12 level.

He needs to adapt to the speed of D1 basketball. Shots he would get off in the GSL are contested in the Pac 12.

In addition to a very slow release. Maybe he develops into a pure distributor. Also, like others have said, I’m sure he would have redshirted if not for injuries
 
He's in his head with his offensive game, mainly confidence in his shooting. He is very good at positioning himself to get open looks from 3, but he looks a little uncomfortable shooting right now (like a younger Rodman). If he can get his shot confidence up, he's going to give us some nice scoring from beyond the arc, and other teams will need to account for him. This will open up scoring opportunities for others. I love his energy, he plays hard, and he looks like a kid that likes to put in the work to get better.
 
Darling is going to have to develop some additional skills. His size is a detriment and he's about 1/4 step slow to blow by defenders and get to the rim at the Pac 12 level.

He needs to adapt to the speed of D1 basketball. Shots he would get off in the GSL are contested in the Pac 12.

He Darling is not a step slow blowing past defenders. He does that quite well. His problem is NOT finishing at the rim, once he blows past defenders and gets to rim, and the reason he struggles at times to finish at rim, once he gets there, is his lack of size, vs shot blockers in waiting at the rim.

6-5, 6-6, 6-7 can deal with that a lot better then the 6-2.5, 6-3 of Darling.

And he lacks the jump out of gym ability that other 6-3 guards his size have.
 
He Darling is not a step slow blowing past defenders. He does that quite well. His problem is NOT finishing at the rim, once he blows past defenders and gets to rim, and the reason he struggles at times to finish at rim, once he gets there, is his lack of size, vs shot blockers in waiting at the rim.

6-5, 6-6, 6-7 can deal with that a lot better then the 6-2.5, 6-3 of Darling.

And he lacks the jump out of gym ability that other 6-3 guards his size have.
Darling is nowhere near 6-3
 
He's in his head with his offensive game, mainly confidence in his shooting. He is very good at positioning himself to get open looks from 3, but he looks a little uncomfortable shooting right now (like a younger Rodman). If he can get his shot confidence up, he's going to give us some nice scoring from beyond the arc, and other teams will need to account for him. This will open up scoring opportunities for others. I love his energy, he plays hard, and he looks like a kid that likes to put in the work to get better.
Agree, it’s mostly in his head.
 
Probably with shoes on. At least Darling is a lot taller than Roberts who was about 5-7
 
I don't why anyone has a doubt that Darling can play and be successful. He's quick, plays good D, has a good handle, the scoring will come (you don't do what he did in the GSL and not be a capable shooter). BTW listed heights in basketball mean nothing. Rochestie was listed at 6' and was shorter than me. Iroegbu was listed as 6'3" and was pretty close to my height. Oh, I'm 5'9" on a good day.
 
  • Like
Reactions: acgcoug
I don't why anyone has a doubt that Darling can play and be successful. He's quick, plays good D, has a good handle, the scoring will come (you don't do what he did in the GSL and not be a capable shooter). BTW listed heights in basketball mean nothing. Rochestie was listed at 6' and was shorter than me. Iroegbu was listed as 6'3" and was pretty close to my height. Oh, I'm 5'9" on a good day.

I don't have doubts, but Darling is not quite there yet.

Plus right or wrong, fair or unfair, some have doubts not only because he is not there yet, but because they can theoretically point to what he has or has not done so far this season, but also point to GSL and say "well the reason he is not good and hasn't been good, and won't be good is the reason he has scored 60+, and broke state scoring records, and was the best or one of the best in state, is that the GSL is weak competition. If he had played on the westside of the state, he would have only scored about 17 to 20 points per game, and so that's why he broke state scoring records in the Weak GSL, and why he hasn't done good, better, etc, at WSU".

It's a HORSESHET argument. They are wrong.
 
I believe there are at least 8 Players from the GSL playing D1 basketball this year not counting walk-ons
 
Last edited:
Lloyd, Watson, Stevens from Prep
Darling from CV
Grove Brothers from Shadle
Who am I missing?

Btw, the youngest Grove is at Gprep.
 
Lloyd, Watson, Stevens from Prep
Darling from CV
Grove Brothers from Shadle
Who am I missing?

Btw, the youngest Grove is at Gprep.
Christensen from U-High at Utah Tech (Dixie State).

Naje Smith at Boise State.

Tyson Degenhart at Boise State.

Joe Few - Gonzaga (sort of)

Few is the only one I can probably still dunk over.
 
That’s a good list. Seems higher than normal.

Maybe 1 or 2 more from this years class?
 
ADVERTISEMENT