Brock Motum & Getting My Nerd On

Brock Motum is heading to Washington State University.

Continuing with my scouting report on individual players from the U/20 Men's National Championships, I turn my focus to Washington State Cougar bound lefty Brock Motum.

Motum who is from Queensland is an 18yo, 205cm (6'9) power forward who must have felt a little unlucky not to have been named MVP of this national tournament. Teammate and St Mary's bound PG Jorden Page was awarded the highest individual honour of the week.

Cougar fans, get any thought of Aron Baynes out of your head. Motum is a wafer thin power forward with skill. He is not a banger but has talent that can be developed into something.

Unlucky not to average a double double at the U/20's (20pts,9rebs), but take note he produced these stats while averaging just over twenty minutes of court time.

His play was efficent (67% from the field, 60% from deep and 84% from the charity strip) and never seemed to force the issue on offense at all. He was a monster on the offensive boards and from the games (3 of 6) I saw, he turned a high percentage of these into points.

During the Championship Game he showed the ability to step out and knock down the three (3/3) with confidence.

An interesting stat that leapt out at me was the lack of shot blocking. The stats show zero for the week and now that I think about it, I did not remember a one. Unusual for a guy that was a tree amongst weeds on most nights.

What I liked about Motum's play at the defensive end was his ability to use his length (not sure what his wingspan is, but I guess it is over 7') at the top of a full court zone press. He averaged over 1 theft per game but it was his disruption due to his length he caused in the backcourt.

Motum showed me good poise and feel for the game but I would have liked to have seen some type of solid post game.

I know it is hard to criticize someone that put up numbers as he has done, but remember he is going to play in the tough Pac-10 Conference. This Aussie tournament does not resemble anything defensively that the young fella will face from Ben Howland and the UCLA Bruins.

I was trying to think of someone to compare him to in the USA and I had to go all the way back to Brad Lohaus of Iowa Hawkeye and Milwaukee Buck/Boston Celtic fame. (By the way, both are redheads.)

Motum has the tools to play in the Pac-10, but I will keep an eye out to see how he handles the physical play he will face on the interior.

I just feel the mid-major level would have allowed him to play minutes early in his career as his body continues to develop and mature.

All the best to Motum as he heads over to play in one of the premier conferences. That is of course until you play the Zags. I know the student section will come with something for this guy to remember his trip to Spokane by.

- Yesterday I started to educate myself with this new cyber tool that is known as Twitter. (I'm becoming a networking fool!) What really suckered me in though, was the ability I now have to "track" the likes of Shaq, Steve Nash and Kyle Korver (do not laugh).

Shaq was recently in Orlando to play the Magic and through Twitter anyone who could find him received tickets to his game that night.

("I'm n the mia on the beach whoever touches me gets 2 ticket u have 30 min" said SHAQ.)

Well, I could not sign up quick enough as I'm going on a family holiday to Phoenix. People who know me well, know that I love the free stuff.

Thanks to Twitter, if you here of a skinny white Aussie male stalking Shaq, you know I have found him. He just better have the tickets, otherwise, well....I'll have to revert to buying some.

Hoops News

- Melbourne Tigers level up the series at 1-1. boxscore

- Little did we know CJ Bruton was right thinking New Zealand is part of Europe. CJ and this journo must have went to the same geography class in the USA.

- "Stormin" Norm Taylor still playing the game he loves. Can anyone else not remember Taylor suiting up for the Razorbacks?

- Hey big spender or loser?

- Corey "Homicide" Williams wants to be a Croc for life.