Preston Phillips, 6'8 PF, Elkhart IN

Who said it was free? I take cash or Turoni’s gift cards.

He does look good in the edited video. He never misses. But. It is entirely him going 1-on-1. I like it but does it fit the “system?” Many here called it selfish when Cunliffe and Curtis did the same thing. Will Lickliter let him do that in the first 25 seconds of the shot clock? The sanctity of Lickliter’s signature system must be preserved, I’m led to believe. Will the usual suspects turn on him when the losses pile up and they suddenly discover that he misses more often than not? Yes, those are rhetorical questions.

The kid's got a nice all-around game, likely the byproduct of his 8" HS growth and adaptive positional phases he's transitioned thru. He's going to be a tough match up for any opponent.

Is this the kid with the skinny arms.
HHhahahaahah

Yeah….it's a video...I get that. But he sure is fun to watch. If anything he seems to have a high skill set. I have commented on him before, but he is an exciting player.

Preston looks like the kind of player that a school like UE needs on its roster. At this point he’s not a power conference type of player but he certainly shows a skill level needed at the mid majors. I like his size and athletic ability along with his basketball skills. All to many times a school like UE gets a big player that is lacking in one or more of these skills to be successful. You have to like his potential with good coaching and work ethic.

When you look across the spectrum of this year’s recruiting class. Personally I think it’s exceptional. We have size and skill at the 6-7 to 6-9 height. No skinny minnies here, no two left feet or hands that can’t catch a beach ball. Add who we got to who we already have as underclassmen and we are going to be pretty solid in the paint. No dominating 7-footer but those are rare in the mid majors anyway.

Our guard play is going to be really good. Boynton is going to be the point guard we see on other good teams that we wish we had. Beauchamp is going to be that shooting guard that will be lights out when we need it. His range is a deep three. We have a returning core of guards that will have two or more years of eligibility if they exercise the Covid eligibility. Without injury or other problems there will be no looking down the bench to see who we can put in.

We will not be where we want to go yet, we are certainly walking down the right road. I think the coaching staff has done their job to bring in the right players to move this team forward.