Versatile Aaron Scott

Aaron Scott was without question a key part of our success this season. I'm not going to assess him critically because in the morning after the biggest loss of their lives, none of our kids deserve that. They played their hearts out all season, and there are a lot of reasons they won 31 games. You don't win 31 games with smoke and mirrors.

You win with grit and guts. You win by never quitting. You win by giving up your body again and again and again. Aaron Scott is a gamer. My seats were close enough to the court to see his facial expressions. To know he was in pain. There's a difference between guys who get knocked down and stay down to catch their breath and a rest, and a kid who gets up slowly, hobbled but won't come up. Jammed thumb? Nope, he's staying in. Groin injury he's staying in. Slammed to the ground diving for a loose ball? Don't even ask how I feel, coach. I've got a job to do.

Yesterday, after one nasty spill. He got up gingerly, and limped badly. Instead of trying to walk off the pain or test it, he started jumping up and down before play resumed. The way kids do before the opening tap, trying to limber up and get his blood going. Except Scott was doing it to say F you to his obvious pain. Shook it off, limped up court, and stayed in.

Yes, there are moments of watching him launch guided missiles that found only net, so on target that from the moment the ball left his hands, the surging crowd roared in anticipation. Yes, among starters he was our best shooter.

But more than anything and as much as any johnny who ever put on a St. John's uniform, Aaron Scott is a warrior, a go to battle guy, who does all the little things any team needs to win consistently.

Aaron wore number zero, a theoretical number that really doesn't exist. But Aaron was anything but nothing, and his toughness and talent meant everything to our success.

In one stunning season, he made his mark. He will be missed and not forgotten. A tough Texan who in just 35 games became a New Yorker who embodied everything great about Queens. Thank you, kid. You already know what it takes to be successful - carry it with you everywhere.
 
Aaron’s injury in some respects was more damaging than the infamous one to Ty Grant on Elite 8 team. On a shooting deprived team this year, Scott was at least a guy who could get hot from three occasionally. After his injury, you could see he struggled to get into any level of shooting consistency.

Ty Grant’s team had better shooting options and his injury really only effected his rebounding and banging bigger players down low.

Really appreciate all the little things Scott did at both ends of court, a warrior & team first guy who had a huge impact on all the success we had this year.
 
Scott when he was warming up for the Omaha game missed almost every 3 he took. I was watching him more closely bc I knew he wasn’t healthy. You can see he was frustrated and the thumb was bothering him a lot. He’s the type of guy every good team needs. His size, grit and defense will be very tough to replace.
 
Johnnies317 said:
Scott when he was warming up for the Omaha game missed almost every 3 he took. I was watching him more closely bc I knew he wasn’t healthy. You can see he was frustrated and the thumb was bothering him a lot. He’s the type of guy every good team needs. His size, grit and defense will be very tough to replace.
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Love Scott and agree he was and is a warrior. But he missed most of his threes in game time even when his thumb was healthy.
 
Boo Harvey said:
Love Scott and agree he was and is a warrior. But he missed most of his threes in game time even when his thumb was healthy.
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Agreed that his shooting % was lower than we thought but the number of open 3s he took was very low. He had fight for almost every one of those 3s.
 
Boo Harvey said:
Love Scott and agree he was and is a warrior. But he missed most of his threes in game time even when his thumb was healthy.
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Don't think there's a bigger Aaron Scott fan on here than I am but agree that he never really got going from three all year other than a few games where he was hot. But what I like about him so much is he never let that affect the rest of his game. He was 1-10 shooting yesterday but played his usual great defense and had some monster rebounds. The definition of a warrior imho.
 
We had someone similar last season, Glenn Taylor Jr.

And this is not to insult Scott. Loved him. Left it out there.

Just pointing out that this loss stings so much and we have been through so much misery as a fan base, that we can’t even begin to think that we will have any type of sustained success and be in the tournament next year.
 
His combination of size and versatility isn’t that easy to find. He profiles much bigger than a guy like Taylor (who I really liked) and it was important in terms of helping inside on switches and rebounding. At that size he was still able to keep up with guards and wings. More often than not, getting the better of them.

We can find some versatile forwards but to find guys like him as willing to do the little things and fit in so smoothly has got to be a challenge.
 
Amaseinyourface said:
His combination of size and versatility isn’t that easy to find. He profiles much bigger than a guy like Taylor (who I really liked) and it was important in terms of helping inside on switches and rebounding. At that size he was still able to keep up with guards and wings. More often than not, getting the better of them.

We can find some versatile forwards but to find guys like him as willing to do the little things and fit in so smoothly has got to be a challenge.
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Exactly. Scott is a guy who can shoot 1-10 and still have a good game because he never puts his head down just keeps on pushing as the great Curtis Mayfield sang.
As much as I loved Glenn Taylor he would hang his head sometimes when he got the quick hook.
 
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