What are your realistic expectations for Hamga?

It could be argued that no incoming freshman here at UNLV has created as much buzz as 7' center Beas Hamga.  Rivals 5-star rankings, and Youtube clips aside, what are your realistic expectations for Beas in 2008-2009?

Fortunately for UNLV...and for Beas...he walks into a situation in which he certainly won't be relied upon to provide a ton on the offensive end.  Veterans like Wink, Joe, Matt, and Rene will surely provide plenty of offense. 

The consensus seems to be that Beas will make the biggest impact on the defensive end, as well as on the boards.  Offensively, his presence in the middle should open things up nicely for Wink to drive, and for the perimeter shooters to get clean looks.  And because UNLV should have several good options on the offensive end, I look for a lot of Beas's offense to come off of stick backs, follow up dunks, and perhaps the occasional lob pass.

My guess is that we get something along the lines of 9 ppg, 9 rpg, and 2-3 bpg out of the big man next season.  Then again, who knows?  Maybe his offensive game has evolved more than any of us realize.

I would have to think I agree with you river rock with 9ppg 9rpg and the 2-3 bpg. Possible to go as high 12ppg 10 rpg, I would love to see how they work in Australia. I keep seeing Wink getting to the basket and throwing it up for him, kinda like Kansas was doing to everybody in the tourney. The fever is getting bad, I may have to ask my wife if I can fly to Australia for a few days.

River that is one mean dance move on your avatar, should we be looking for you on the upcoming fox series. 

rs,

did you miss type that or was that really 10 bpg, holy smokes, that sounds more like a goalie. GO REBELS!

I think you're absolutely right Riverrock. His presence should mostly be felt on the defensive end and I honetly don't expect more than 8 points per game from him. I think the biggest factor that he brings is his sheer size. We haven't had someone down low that big in a while and he will open things up for everyone else. I think that he has a lot of pressure on him and many think that he is exactly what we need to get to the next level and in some respects they are right.

He will definitely be a force on the defense and our offensive boards should be up from last year because of our size. I think he won't have much pressure to score big, remember that he's technically still a freshman, and since he hasn't faced this level of competition he is going to have to get used to it. He won't have as big of a learning curve because he has experience with the team but I don't think he'll be blocking 10 shots per game. If he did, that would  surpass my expectations.

I'm a bad sounding board, as I have never seen him up close and personal. I'm hoping for numbers along the line "rock" laid out. I'm also hoping in years 2 & 3 the offense kicks in, giving him 15 a game. How's his free throw shooting? Hope we don't see a Hack 'a Shack defense against him if its poor.

At the end of the day, we need that big eraser in there just like we had with Joel Anthony. Everyone says he's a worker, and if he is, LK will bring him along. Don't see many people pushing Massamba around. They could be even better than the tag team of  Anthony/Essengue.