Capital Classic - A View from the Bench (Part II)

Time to revisit some thoughts I had regarding the Capital Classic.  I'll now discuss Charles Mitchell, and finish Part III with Seth Allen and Sam Cassell, Jr.


Charles "Chuck" Mitchell


Overview: Chuck's already won over a large group of us as a top "character", in the sense of Chuck's positive, talkative, good-natured manner.  I see Chuck being a terrific glue guy for the Terps.  And after watching Charles' interactions with Shaq Cleare, Damonte Dodd, Seth Allen, and Sam Cassell, Jr., at the Capital Classic, I have no doubt a good rapport has already been established between the players.  I think that helped seal Sam Jr's choice of the Terps, and my take is they're going to be a cohesive "Crab 5 (or 6 :)"  

I add the caveat once again as I did in A View from the Bench, Part I:  All-Star games do not nearly tell the whole story of a player's game or skills.  I am relating a few positives and some other areas that may need work.


For a big, wide bodied guy, Chuck has an awful lot of bounce in his step, a Chuck Barkley kind of bounce.  For those of us at the game, we enjoyed the highlight reel move of Chuck switching hands on his dribble, going behind the back down the lane and finishing strong at the hoop while being fouled.  What I liked watching the most was Chuck's tenacity going after rebounds and loose balls.  That is a desire based skill, and Chuck will not need much prodding to go after everything in his reach or on the floor.  Chuck has a soft touch around the basket.  He had mostly little "put back" shots, so I didn't get to witness Chuck's solid shooting range first hand.

Chuck also seemed to know when to give up the ball in the flow of the offense.  I saw a couple of solid passes, but I'll hold out an opinion until I start watching him this fall at the Barclay Center's Inaugural College Basketball tilt with Kentucky ;)

Chuck admittedly needs some strength and conditioning to get him ready for ACC play, even if he logs around 10 minutes per game as a Frosh.  I look forward to watching Chuck progress next season.  There are ups and downs that Frosh go through, but his high flying spirit will help him tackle an obstacle in his way as he progresses.  

BTW, there's a good preview piece on Jake Layman over at Testudo Times:


http://www.testudotimes.com/2012/5/15/3020607/introducing-marylands-incoming-2012-freshmen-jake-layman#storyjump

PS: Jake Layman finally got on twitter a couple of weeks ago (@JakeLayman10).  He seems to be chomping at the bit to get down here with his guys judging by his recent tweets. I hope Jake tweets a bit more than he's currently doing.  And Chuck's twitter handle is @StucklikeChuck1 - follow Chuck - he'll retweet your good "stuff"