Best Class Be player ever

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Re: Best Class Be player ever

Postby ndlionsfan » Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:38 am

Yeah, I will give you that but he was the go to player his Jr and Sr seasons. I just go back to what was said in a previous post "Ultimately I wouldn't put Kraft in the top 5 b/c he wasn't the hardest worker and it didn't seem like he did everything he could to help his team like posting up on the block" and that's why I don't put him in the top 5 either. I think of it this way, would he still have been as good if he were 6' instead of 6'7"? I don't think so, but if you take the talent of some of these 6 footers and give them 6 more inches to work with imagine where their game would be. What if Moser or Singer were 6'7" with their work ethic? We'd be talking about them being the best of all time. Also, I'm just curious, how do you think Kraft and Dufault compare? Has anyone seen both of them play quite a bit and can give their perspective?
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Re: Best Class Be player ever

Postby InTheKnow » Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:18 am

ndlionsfan wrote:Yeah, I will give you that but he was the go to player his Jr and Sr seasons. I just go back to what was said in a previous post "Ultimately I wouldn't put Kraft in the top 5 b/c he wasn't the hardest worker and it didn't seem like he did everything he could to help his team like posting up on the block" and that's why I don't put him in the top 5 either. I think of it this way, would he still have been as good if he were 6' instead of 6'7"? I don't think so, but if you take the talent of some of these 6 footers and give them 6 more inches to work with imagine where their game would be. What if Moser or Singer were 6'7" with their work ethic? We'd be talking about them being the best of all time. Also, I'm just curious, how do you think Kraft and Dufault compare? Has anyone seen both of them play quite a bit and can give their perspective?


I disagree with your statement about being 6' or 6'7 and being as good. He was always brought up as a wing or Guard considering the rest of the players around him on the team. Why would he post up when he has 2 NFL players on his team to post up for the majority of his career. It also was not the style of offense that the coach had (yeah it was his dad but that is irrelevant in this). His strength was bringing the ball up the floor, 2 dribble penetration and draining from the outside. Which brings me to why I disagree. He was an absolute pure shooter! About as good a shooter as I have ever seen in class B. No matter if he was 6' or 6'7 nothing changes that. That is why he went to South Carolina and had a play designed for him to knock off then #1 Florida as a Freshman. The kid could flat shoot from the outside, so why have him post up? So he can get double teamed in the post kick outside to someone who cant shoot nearly as well? As far as hard working I happened to sit by his next door neighbor at an event and he said he couldn't believe the countless hours he spent shooting in the driveway. They said he shot around 3 hours a day outside of practice and 5+hrs during the summer. Did Moser bust his butt in the games, absolutely. But they are 2 completely different style of players. If I remember right Moser had a limited outside game beyond 15 feet and was relentless inside with head fakes and drawing contact to get to the line. Their are different types of hard workers. Just throwing this out there and not to discredit Moser but maybe he didnt work hard enough outside the game setting to expand his game and be deadly from the outside. Just playing devils advocate. Quite often kids get pegged as not working hard when things look effortless because they are just outstanding athletes or do something at an extremely high level.
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Re: Best Class Be player ever

Postby ndlionsfan » Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:47 am

Moser was deadly from outside, too. He was our best 3 pt shooter and still scored most of his points inside.
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Re: Best Class Be player ever

Postby east sider » Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:54 pm

InTheKnow wrote:
ndlionsfan wrote:Yeah, I will give you that but he was the go to player his Jr and Sr seasons. I just go back to what was said in a previous post "Ultimately I wouldn't put Kraft in the top 5 b/c he wasn't the hardest worker and it didn't seem like he did everything he could to help his team like posting up on the block" and that's why I don't put him in the top 5 either. I think of it this way, would he still have been as good if he were 6' instead of 6'7"? I don't think so, but if you take the talent of some of these 6 footers and give them 6 more inches to work with imagine where their game would be. What if Moser or Singer were 6'7" with their work ethic? We'd be talking about them being the best of all time. Also, I'm just curious, how do you think Kraft and Dufault compare? Has anyone seen both of them play quite a bit and can give their perspective?


I disagree with your statement about being 6' or 6'7 and being as good. He was always brought up as a wing or Guard considering the rest of the players around him on the team. Why would he post up when he has 2 NFL players on his team to post up for the majority of his career. It also was not the style of offense that the coach had (yeah it was his dad but that is irrelevant in this). His strength was bringing the ball up the floor, 2 dribble penetration and draining from the outside. Which brings me to why I disagree. He was an absolute pure shooter! About as good a shooter as I have ever seen in class B. No matter if he was 6' or 6'7 nothing changes that. That is why he went to South Carolina and had a play designed for him to knock off then #1 Florida as a Freshman. The kid could flat shoot from the outside, so why have him post up? So he can get double teamed in the post kick outside to someone who cant shoot nearly as well? As far as hard working I happened to sit by his next door neighbor at an event and he said he couldn't believe the countless hours he spent shooting in the driveway. They said he shot around 3 hours a day outside of practice and 5+hrs during the summer. Did Moser bust his butt in the games, absolutely. But they are 2 completely different style of players. If I remember right Moser had a limited outside game beyond 15 feet and was relentless inside with head fakes and drawing contact to get to the line. Their are different types of hard workers. Just throwing this out there and not to discredit Moser but maybe he didnt work hard enough outside the game setting to expand his game and be deadly from the outside. Just playing devils advocate. Quite often kids get pegged as not working hard when things look effortless because they are just outstanding athletes or do something at an extremely high level.


I guess I mostly agree with InTheKnow on most points. I think Kraft would've been awesome even at 6', just not D1 anymore, but I hate it when people make analogies like that. He was 6' 7" so who cares. If Boschee wasn't as quick would he have been at Kansas? No. If Dufault wasn't 6' 8" would he be D1? No. I didn't realize that what I wrote about him not working hard could be taken the wrong way. But if you saw him play, especially his last year, it would be impossible to play like that without putting the time in -- I was strictly referring to his effort on the court. You have one team you can't beat (Hillsboro), you're 6' 7" and their most athletic player is 6' 1"!! OK, I'm putting you on the block at least once, no matter how long you've played the wing. Now I can't put a lot of blame on Kraft himself, I really think thats up to the coaches. Hillsboro knew Kraft's game, held him under average every time and was easily able to hold everyone else on the team in check b/c you don't need to double a guy standing at the 3 point line. Even two guys from that short Hillsboro team would've had trouble with Kraft down low, and he was a good enough passer to find open guys so why not at least try it a couple times to see how it goes. At the very least throw Hillsboro's defensive game plan (their bread and butter) thru a little loop.

Also lets not get off topic by comparing Moser and Kraft. Two great players, but Kraft was a level above him too. A comparison of Dufault to Kraft sounds interesting. I've only seen Dufault play in college, but I would love to see his HS footage. Without it, I would still bet money Kraft was a slightly better shooter and definitely a better ball handler. Honestly, (ndlionsfan is gonna love this) I would rank Kraft as the most talented player ND has ever seen in a tie with Boschee and Nick Jacobson.
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