O-ver-rate-ed?
March 18, 2008 by Mike Casazza
The Oakland Tribune released the results to its annual Pac-10 writers poll last week and Arizona’s Chase Budinger was considered the Most Overrated Player.
WHO IS THE LEAGUE’S MOST OVERRATED PLAYER?
On Arizona’s Chase Budinger:“Seems to disappear a bit too often when games are on the line.”
“Lute Olson called Budinger the best freshman he’s ever had at Arizona. Those words have made it hard to figure Budinger’s brilliance one moment, sloppiness the next.”
“World-class athlete who doesn’t seem to have enough fire in him to be a dominant player.”
“Inconsistent, mediocre defender and rebounder for his size, too often shy away from taking the ball to the basket.”
“Scores a lot and has the big rep, but how many games has he won for the Cats? How many big shots has he made? He’s not a game-changer.”
This sounds familiar. Good thing Boeheim wasn’t around. ( ” … is there a fine for that?” )
To be fair, Budinger has handled this pretty well.
Gimino: Father defends ‘overrated’ Budinger
on error resume next plugin = ( IsObject(CreateObject(“ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.3”))) if ( plugin LOS ANGELES – The Pac-10’s Most Overrated Player sat in front of his locker and just kind of shrugged.
He hadn’t known he was the most overrated until being told that a survey of Pacific-10 Conference writers dubbed him as such. Not exactly the news one wants to hear.
Not exactly news that was going to ruin his night either.
“
You have people who like you,” Arizona sophomore Chase Budinger said. “And you have people who don’t like you.”
The Pac-10’s Most Overrated Player – maybe we’ll just call him MOP for short – had a good night as the Wildcats thrashed poor, defenseless Oregon State 87-56 in a the first-round Pac-10 tournament game at the Staples Center.
Earlier in the day, the Oakland Tribune published the results of its annual survey of Pac-10 writers. Of the 22 votes on the question about the most overrated player, Budinger received a league-high 7.5.
Cal’s Devon Hardin was second with five votes.
“It’s kind of like reading blogs,” the MOP’s dad, Duncan, said at halftime. “Who cares?”
He’s got that right.
But, well, is it true?
Overrated is a function of expectations vs. performance, and the expectations were for Budinger to have a first-team all-conference season.
He’s the one who said in February 2007, when talking about coming back for his sophomore season, “I want to try to be the best college basketball player out there.”
Instead of first team, he was third team. That was reasonable. No howls of protest.
Judging only by that criteria, the verdict comes in: overrated.
Which is not the same as saying he has given a bad performance.
“Chase was touted as he was going to be the greatest player ever when he got here. That’s a lot to live up to,” said interim head coach Kevin O’Neill.
“Chase has lived up to every expectation I have had – and more. He’s averaged 17 a game, faced constant double-teaming, constant harassment,” O’Neill added. “The two chunks of time when Nic (Wise) and Jerryd (Bayless) weren’t playing, it really fell on Chase to carry things and do more.
“And that made it very difficult for him.”
If nothing else, Budinger has a perception problem. If he has a bad game, it’s not because the other team played great defense or that it was just one of those days.
It’s because Mr. Overrated is too laid back, a charge that he, his father and O’Neill deny.
But Budinger is who he is, and he’s not exactly wired the same way as the more demonstrative and observably intense Bayless. Budinger has had to be told, from Lute Olson to O’Neill, to be more aggressive.
“You can’t be throwing up the numbers he has and doing the things he’s doing if you don’t have a good work ethic,” Duncan said. “He’s not laid back. He’s working as hard as anyone out there.”
Budinger has increased his scoring from 15.6 last season to 17.2. He is shooting 37.0 percent on his 3-point attempts, a nearly identical figure to last year.
His rebounding has dropped slightly from 5.8 per game to 5.4, largely a function of Arizona’s disinclination to crash the offensive boards, per O’Neill’s defensive-minded approach.
“He had a great year last year and was Pac-10 Freshman of the Year,” Duncan said. “But they had a different team last year. This team has been decimated by injuries, different guys in and out of the lineup, a different style of play and different coaching. I’m surprised these guys can come out and play basketball.”
Say this: The season, even if Budinger hasn’t lived up to everybody else’s expectations, has been good for him.
He’s learned to play better defense because of O’Neill. He’s learned a different kind of offense, a NBA-style of offense.
That’s all a great education.
“There are a lot of little things that Kevin has done to really help Chase,” Duncan said. “We started with Lute, who is a great coach. Kevin has done a fabulous job taking over with all the background noise that the program has had. You have to give him tremendous credit.”
The MOP still has work to do. He shot 12 of 34 in two games against Stanford this season, both losses. Arizona plays the Cardinal in the Pac-10 quarterfinals Thursday night.
“They really try pressuring you on the wings, forcing you to drive, which leads you straight into the trees,” Budinger said of Stanford’s 7-foot twins, Brook and Robin Lopez.
“I have to really pick and choose my spots and be really patient about it.”
It’s also an excellent chance for the MOP to shed his new label.
“I’m proud of the year he’s had,” O’Neill said. “And I think he’s going to have a great finish.”