Undersized point guard Korie Lucious (#90 Scout, #91 Rivals) managed to keep his team in the game early on against New York City powerhouse Abraham Lincoln, showing most of his strengths as a top-100 prospect, but eventually succumbed to Lance Stephenson and co. and ended up showing us most of his flaws.
Lucious is a severely undersized point guard, standing around 5-10. Hes a good but not great athlete, showing average quickness for a player his size, and looking more like a scoring point guard than a real distributor at the moment. Most of his damage offensively comes off his terrific 3-point stroke, featuring excellent mechanics and elevation and being an outstanding weapon he can utilize from anywhere on the court. Lucious can come off screens or pull-up off the jumper equally well, from mid-range and behind the arc, only needing a glimpse of daylight to get his shot off, and being extremely business-like about the way he creates his shots and scores. He started off the game on a tear, scoring 14 points in the first 7 minutes, but then being extremely streaky the rest of the way, only scoring 8 in the next 25 .
A solid ball-hander, Lucious rarely gets all the way into the paint and finishes, usually preferring to pull-up off the dribble from mid-range or shoot a very pretty floater. He struggles to finish around the rim, due to his average size and strength.
As a point guard, Lucious seems to be a pretty unselfish player on a team that really needs him to score heavily in order for them to have a chance at winning. He looked a little bit single-minded at times, taking a ton of shots and not looking like he was really able to contribute that much once his shot stopped falling. He seems to be able to run an offense, but too way too many risks with the ball, making some low-percentage wild passes that didnt seem very smart. As he grows older, he will likely learn how to value his teams possessions better. Tom Izzo will surely make a point of that
Defensively, Izzo might have some issues with him initially as well. He gambles a little too much, and seems to be somewhat low energy in the effort he extends on this end of the floor. Lucious in general doesnt seem to be the most passionate player in the world, looking very cold at times and not really showing any emotion from anything that went on on the floor, good or bad. He seemed to waive the white flag pretty easily once Abraham Lincoln started making a run, not really seeming to care much when was damn was getting beat badly. Wed like to see better leadership skills out of such a talented player, since his team clearly needed it.
All in all, Lucious looks like a nice guard for Michigan States rotation, a four-year player who should develop into a solid contributor in the Big-10.
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