by Region 1 Fan » Tue Mar 07, 2023 2:01 pm
Give Hankinson a lot of credit last night. They played great, knocked down some HUGE shots and simply outworked OG on the glass. Great team win for them and should be an interesting matchup against CC tonight. I'm a little taken back on the bashing of one kid from OG. Honestly, a little difficult to digest, especially coming from adults. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but some of the comments are border line inappropriate and should be removed or at least restated. Hatfield has been a 2 year starter for OG; last year as a role player where he shot maybe 8 to 10 and avg. about 15 points per game - very efficient scorer. This year, his role changed and he and one other kid had to front the bulk of the scoring as this year's team wasn't as deep as year's past when it came to scorers. Hatfield's shots per game went up to 18 where he made nearly 60% of his attempts - again, even more efficient. He shot over 70% in the fourth quarter as well. Says a lot of his talents offensively. Comments like: "Can't be much fun playing with a player like that. Might be why they almost took down CC without him. Good scorer and will get his individual recognition when they announce the all region team, but he will be in street clothes for the photo and not wearing a jersey for a reason" and "I know I will get trashed but I just can not believe in a class B game a player shooting 30 times. I get it he made half of them and put points up in the game but he shot more times than the rest of the team combined...." are bashing and not what this site is all about. This isn't being objective or adding to a discussion, it's very hurtful and no kid should have to stumble across something like this and see his/her name used in such a way. No doubt about it, I'm a big OG fan and always will be. I'm also a fan of Hatfield! He's a tremendous talent and performed each and every game this year; doing exactly what he was told to do, score the ball and be a good leader, which he was. Not perfect, no one is but he did what was expected of him. Watching the game on "Your Life Events", even the commentators mentioned that the ball needs to go through Hatfield on every possession. Why was that comment made? Probably because it was evident that his teammates were struggling last night on the offensive end of the court and he (Hatfield) is capable of carrying a team offensively when he gets hot. Don't think he shot the ball 30 times however but I know he made over half his shots but was cold from 3 land (2 of those were in the last minute and one was a half court shot). Take those 3 shots out of the equation and he still shoots 30% from 3 land, which isn't great, especially for Hatfield's liking for sure. However, if he didn't shoot last night, where would the points have come from when their 2nd leading scorer had only 4 and they don't really have anyone else that can put up consistent points other than Johnson who had 10? If you watch the game and watched it without out hate for a kid, you would have seen him making nice passes to his teammates who just couldn't put it in the basket last night. I counted at least 6 assist that he should have had if his teammates would have just finished or made the open shot. That's basketball and life. Not always going to go your way but keep the posts free of negativity about a kid, they are borderline bashing and uncalled for, especially for adults. I know there is at least one writer on here that has skin in the game at OG. Hopefully that person can post what kind of kid Hatfield is off the court. There's a reason why all the younger OG's look up to him. He spends a lot of time with them and is a good example of a young man off of the court - If you knew some of the stories about this kid, maybe you might change your opinion about him. Please be respectful and know no kid deserves this type criticism or comments about them - might be different if he wasn't a great kid, but he is. Much deserving of making the All-Region 1 team, which I hope he has an opportunity to do.
