I watched him against LCC, I agree with a lot of this.
I'd compare him to more of a Chris Kramer on the offensive end - he does have a lot of "craftiness" to his game but he's probably not going to be a 1,000 point scorer type of guy. On the defensive end, he does do a very good job of keeping his man in front of him/cutting off drives to the basket, far better than, for instance, Noopy Crater - even guys like John Wall struggle with that sort of thing sometimes (or maybe they don't care!), so it's definitely a good sign that he moves laterally well enough to keep his man in front of him. I wouldn't compare him to Kramer defensively, partly because he's a couple inches smaller but also because Craft didn't play with that same reckless abandon throwing his body around all night. He wasn't able to drive to the rim very often against LCC, and he did miss an open layup once when he was able to drive the lane. He can do a little bit of just about everything on offense - he made layups, an elbow jumper and a couple of threes as well as the vast majority (if not all) of his FTs, he created some shots for his teammates and also ran off of a lot of screens to get free for the ball/open shots. He's a good team leader but still turned the ball over several times, often due to making risky passes trying to throw through opposing players' arms - granted, a couple of his TOs were due to miscommunication with teammates, but that doesn't account for all of them. There was one play where he charged into a defender when trying to take the ball up and beat the timeline - he was just going one-on-one there up against a 10-second count and panicked and ran the kid over. He did have to deal with a lot of pressure in the second half especially. There was one play when I think he got credited for an assist that the ball just kind of went right through the hand of an opposing player and his teammate was still able to get the ball and put it in - that was more bad defense than good offense. He made some great passes and some bad/panicky plays as well. He made a couple real nice bounce passes - I think that's one thing he can focus on that will help him at OSU, as he'll be able to use that skill to get the ball in to Sullinger. One thing that OSU fans shouldn't overlook is that Craft has had valuable time in AAU ball to get experience passing to Sullinger, a guy who can post up and be a good target to pass to, experience that he otherwise would be sorely lacking given Craft's HS team. You probably can't really assess his ability to make entry passes from his high school games. I think he made 2 of the 3 threes that he took - he missed the one he took off the pass, the two he made were ones he was able to take his time and sort of dribble into a rhythm before taking the shot. His shot selection was very good, but he was able to get a lot of easy shots over the course of the game. His teammates for the most part weren't very good & were shaky with the ball - he doesn't have a lot to work with, especially in the post - that Craft was the one who did the opening tap for his team speaks volumes, so if you want to see him play before he comes to OSU, you'd better not wait and hope his team makes it to State. He made good decisions with the ball most of the time & played very well in the first half when LB's offense seemed to be clicking, then OK but not quite as well in the second half when it seemed that LCC upped the pressure/intensity defensively.
Just based on one game, things I think Aaron can improve on are his decision-making under duress, his shooting range/shooting off the pass, and his mindset when it comes to rebounding. He certainly is no stick figure, but he's not as physically muscle-bound as a lot of other OSU players have been, either, so he could stand to put on some muscle. There were several times he let his teammates try to rebound the ball (they weren't very good at team rebounding, so sometimes LCC got 2nd, 3rd and even 4th chances) because they were in better position initially, but I think he has to try to take over the rebounding and throw his weight around there (I'm speaking about defensive rebounding a lot moreso than offensive rebounding) more since he's probably the best rebounder on his team. He is an OK ballhandler, he's not one of those guys who has the ball on a string, but he's not fumbling the ball around either. He's able to keep his head up and his eyes downcourt when bringing the ball up. He's probably not going to be able to do much driving into the lane and kicking out to a shooter or dumping off to someone in the paint at OSU, at least not against the better teams, but he showed he can do a little of both.
All in all, I think Aaron might be better-suited to playing the 2 at OSU in the end, but there is a lot to like about his game. I hope you all enjoyed my thesis on Aaron Craft's game vs. LCC :)
