Small Guards

[Xevious]

I was reading the post regarding going small next season and it brought to mind a discussion I’ve been having recently regarding small guards.

Our current roster has the shortest guards since OB has been here. I’m not bashing short guys, I’m 5’7" on a good day, but I’m sure everyone knows it helps to be taller in basketball. Short players need to physically solid and/or very quick (Dead-eye shooting from 3 is also a big plus) and our guards do not seem to exhibit these traits. B10 guards average about 6’3" and only PSU has guards as short as ours. This effects us on both ends of the court. On D the shorter guard has to stay closer to his man, is less of a threat to block shots, and has more trouble rebounding. On the other end of the court, smaller guards have more problems getting open for jumpers, are blocked more often, and may have trouble seeing or passing to open teammates. This is just stating the obvious that if you have to players with equal ability, the taller player has the advantage. While 6’1" is not extremely short, I think having more than one 6’1" player on the court guarantees at least one mismatch.

Here’s the listed height for our guards for the 7yrs OB has been here.

Current 03-04 guards
JJ 6’5" 200
Billings 6’3" 210
Fuss 6’1" 200
Stockman 6’1 180
N. Dials 6’1" 175

02-03 Guards
Connolly 6’5" 210
Jernigan 6’3" 200
Sally 6’3" 195
Darby 6’1" 195
Fuss 6’1"190

01-02 Guards
Connolly 6’5" 210
Boban 6’5" 240
Brown 6’4" 200
Darby 6’1" 195
Fuss 6’1"190

00-01
Connolly 6’5" 210
Doylan Robinson 6’5" 210
Boban 6’5" 240
Brown 6’4" 200
Darby 6’1" 195

99-00
Redd 6’6" 215
Boban 6’5" 230
Doylan Robinson 6’4" 210
Brown 6’3" 190
Darby 6’0" 200
Scoonie 5’10" 185

98-99
Redd 6’6" 205
Boban 6’6" 230
Singleton 6’5" 190
Doylan Robinson 6’4" 210
Coleman 6’3" 190
Brown 6’3" 190
Scoonie 5’10" 185

97-98
Singleton 6’6" 200
Redd 6’5" 193
C. Davis 6’4" 223
Coleman 6’3" 190

#Note fluctuations in player heights are in the programs and are not typos.

[RAMdrvr1]

On most teams, I would probably agree with your argument that bigger guards are better. There are advantages of being taller. But you may have defeated your own argument by posting the measurements of our guards from the past few years. Other than Michael Redd (who didn't play much defense until his last year), our best all-round guards have been Stockman, Darby, Dials (all 6'1"), and Scoonie (5'11"). Plus we have the probable Ohio Mr. Basketball this year and a true scoring machine Butler (6'2") coming in next year. Granted, Stockman and Dials have yet to make their mark as really good OSU guards, but I'm willing to bet that they will.

It's easy to notice the extremely talented taller guards, but I'm sure that there is a lot of tall guards sitting on the bench all over the country, also.

[Xevious]

Actually I think you can get away with one short guard, and 2 for short stretches of time, but my point is we have two on the floor a majority of the time. Brown (6'4") was the 2G for essentially 3 years after we went to the 3 guard lineup, with 6'6" Redd or 6'5" Boban manning the 3G. This year our 2Gs are all 6'1" except for Billings. If you look at the previous guard lineups listed, the shorter players are usually the PGs. Darby subbed for Penn, BFC subbed for Darby. Even Scoonie who was physical, and very quick, had trouble with bigger athletic guards. I thought Ricky Moore's size advantage over Penn was a big advantage when we played UConn in the F4.

On offense I believe in most cases shorter guards can adapt unless they are matched against a bigger guard who is a great defender. On the defensive side their lack of size will always present possible missmaches and even post up opportunities for the opponents.

I'm also quite sure you are right that there are tall guards sitting around the country, but I don't think that proves anything since there are a lot of short guards sitting too, and thats all we have on our bench.

[RAMdrvr1]

You've made some good points. I think that if the smaller guard gets help when he is posted up by the larger guard, just like the smaller forward or center gets help, then there is no real advantage. Most smaller guards are quicker, and most of the time can make up the heigth difference that way. Unfortunately, R. Moore was real quick, also.

I can honestly say that I wish N.Dials was 6'5" !