GodshawGod vs GodMekelGod

[saluki42]

Thought it would be fun to look at the two most hyped recruits on this board. Of course both recruits were blown of of proportions because of posters sick of all the threads. Granted the Shaw bonanza happened before SIU had a message board so there were lots of SIU threads on here.


Matt Shaw Freshman Year
6.4pts 3.6rbs .5assts

Gal Mekel Freshmen
3.8ppg 1.3apg .9rbs

Just goes to show it is hard to tell who will be great in the MVC. Both players obviously still have a chance to be great. Shaw has gotten better every year and I am sure Mekel will be good when he gets more of a chance.

[bcrawf]

If Mekel could play against UNI every game, he would be a friggin' All-American...

[Divergence]

Gal is being held back at WSU at this point. Some of it is because he makes Freshman mistakes, but some of it is because he's a little to independent.

[XSaluki]

I like Gal. He has a bit of arrogance and doesn't played scared. He has a good Bball IQ. I think he will be really something in the next couple years.

[oledawg]

i hope every one knows where the god shawgod nickname came from. there was a player at providence a few years back named god shammgod.

he was a pretty decent point guard. god shawgod was a take off on that.


take out the double mm insert w. it was a joke....a little info on the real mccoy.

His nickname was “The Wizard.”

“That was his handle because he had a crossover like a magician,” says Bobby Gonzalez, God Shammgod’s friend and former coach at Providence College. That’s the same crossover that God taught to Kobe Bryant on a summer AAU squad in 1994. Those are the same handles that took 10-seed Providence to the Elite 8 in 1997. Shammgod’s ball-handling skills and ability to distribute the rock made him one of the best pure point guards in the country, and according to some, maybe even beyond that.

“I think he might have the best handle in the world,” says Ron Artest, Shammgod’s teammate at LaSalle Academy during Shammgod’s junior and senior year of high school. “I don’t know anybody who ever had a better handle than Shammgod.”

He grew up as Shammgod Wells (taking his mother’s surname at the age of five) but reverted back to his legal name before college after he got closer with his father. A Bronx native, Shammgod didn’t find basketball until he moved to Manhattan at the age of 12. He was living on 142nd Street in Harlem at that time, and making a name for himself on courts like the “real Rucker Park” (as he puts it) at 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the LaGuardia House at 116th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

When Tolentine High in the Bronx (home of the late Malik Sealy) closed down, Shammgod chose to attend LaSalle Academy, an independent Catholic school in Manhattan. Shammgod averaged 38 points and 11 assists in his first seven games on the LaSalle freshman basketball team, and was promptly moved up to varsity. He was an honorable mention All-USA Today player after averaging 14.5 ppg his junior year, and went on to earn numerous accolades at several camps that summer, capped off by being named the Most Outstanding Player at the final week of Five-Star camp. “In New York, people knew about me,” says Shammgod, “but after that I was on the map.”

With Lincoln High’s Stephon Marbury receiving most of the press out of NYC at the time, Providence College snuck in and grabbed Shammgod. “He was kind of a sleeper,” says Pete Gillen, Shammgod’s head coach at Providence. “James Madison and us were the two finalists. We liked him because he was really quick, a great athlete who pushed the ball really well and got into the lane. At 6-0 he was wiry and strong and could take a hit. He was deceptively strong, a lot stronger than people thought. He was a pure point guard who made other players better.” “We got him early,” adds Gonzalez. “If we hadn’t, we couldn’t have gotten him. After Five Star he was a household name. It was a huge, great get for us.”

By his senior year of high school, Shammgod had become the second best point guard in New York, behind only Marbury. Shammgod and his LaSalle squad finished with a 24-2 record and National Top 10 ranking, while he averaged a school-record 23.7 points and nine dimes a contest (including a legendary 45 point and 22 assist game against rival St. Raymond’s). Numbers like that propelled Shammgod to First-Team All-City and McDonald’s High School All-American status. Shammgod took part in arguably the best McDonald’s game ever, which boasted Marbury, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Chauncey Billups, Ron Mercer and Tractor Traylor.

Coming to Providence, Shammgod became the star of Gillen’s first-ever PC recruiting class, and just the second McDonald’s All-American in the school’s history. Shammgod was named to the Big East’s All-Rookie Team after averaging 9.6 points, 6.5 dimes, 1.7 boards and 1.4 swipes a game his freshman year, but it wasn’t until his sophomore year that he really took over. With a returning starting five and a pre-season AP ranking of 17, Shammgod was ready.

“He really blossomed as a sophomore,” Gillen says. “He was one of the top six or seven point guards in the country.”

After an up and down season where Shammgod improved in every category (10.8 ppg, 6.6 apg, 2.3 rpg and 2.4 spg), the Friars squeaked into the NCAA Tournament as a 10-seed. “At that point we kind of woke up,” Gonzalez says. “We came in as a new team. Something struck Shamm because the guy played phenomenal. It was like catching lightning in a bottle.” The Friars raced through the bracket, knocking off Marquette, Duke and UT-Chattanooga before losing to Arizona in OT, despite 23 points, five dimes and three steals from Shammgod against ’Zona’s Mike Bibby.

Had Shamm stayed at Providence, he likely would have been one of the top players in college basketball the following season. “We all tried to talk to him,” Gonzalez says. “We all thought if he stayed another year or two he’d be a lottery pick and get guaranteed money. I know he didn’t love school, but he got bad advice. There were guys hanging around telling him stuff, filling his head up with lies. It was sad, guys did that with a lot of kids.”

In the end, with a point guard-rich draft that included Chauncey Billups, Antonio Daniels, Brevin Knight, Bobby Jackson and Jacque Vaughn, Shammgod slipped to the Washington Wizards at No. 46.

[salukibob]

Perhaps it's premature to start with the ChristFayChrist stuff then. :salukis: :clap:

[Log]

Perhaps it's premature to start with the ChristFayChrist stuff then. :salukis: :clap:

How's about a GoshBoneGosh thread? :clap: