Tracking a Transfer: Andrew Rohde

We now reach the last and, judging by my communications with many of you, likely the most anticipated of my four pieces reviewing our four transfers incoming to the program this season; Andrew Rohde. If you’d like to review the others, Dante Harris, Jordan Minor, and Jacob Groves, can be found following their respective links. This will be a mix of different video types and apologies for the quality of two of the four games below as it was a bit of a track down/duct tape kind of situation. That being said, it was a solid sample size including his first collegiate game, starting as a freshman, at #9 ranked Creighton on the road, and then a sample of games to close the season at North Dakota, the Summit League Quarterfinals against Western Illinois, and then the Semifinals against a very good Oral Roberts team that went on to make the NCAA Tournament as a 12 seed.

Rohde is a 6’6″ guard. I say guard but he can probably play any of the 1-3 for us, if needed. He was listed as the PG for St. Thomas and, on average, he did bring the ball up the floor more often than not and regularly took the lead pushing the ball in transition, but St. Thomas didn’t really play with a true PG in that sense and any number of players would bring the ball up the floor/get them into their offensive flow. Rather, St. Thomas would often try to flex Rohde into the most high leverage situations both offensively and defensively, depending on what was needed. His skillset would allow them to play around with his role and create mismatches.

Reading the interwebs, there are probably higher expectations for Rohde than any other player in this incoming recruiting class. He’s the player I’m asked about most, I’ve seen him predicted as a starter much more often than not, etc. We’ll see him against Ryan Nembhard on Creighton, who recently transferred to Gonzaga, we’ll see him against Max Abmas (pronounced “Ace-mus” for those who didn’t watch much of the Summit League) on Oral Roberts, who recently transferred to Texas – in every game he felt like either the best player on the court or at least like he could compete on level with the best players on the court. This review is going to be a tale of excitement but also some caution given the soaring expectations.

First A Word About St. Thomas

This past season was only St. Thomas (MN)’s second season at the Division I level. Previously, they had been in Division III, winning the championship there in 2016 and being among the favorites to do so again in 2021 before COVID cancelled their season. They Leapfrogged Division II and, along with some big money pouring into the program, landed an incoming recruiting class this past year that was ranked better than you probably realized. So, this year’s team was made up of some talented but young freshmen, like Andrew Rohde, married with some players who were still around from the DIII times. In fact, their second best player this year was probably the 6’6″ Parker Bjorklund who was their de facto center and who they literally plucked off of an intramural team (but, to be fair, he was a solid player). The picture I’m trying to paint is that, while the program itself seems to be on the rise, the combination of talent to experience ratio often put the burden on Rohde to make something happen when the rest wasn’t working. We’ll get into some of this, but it did cause him to press at times and showed up in some of his efficiency numbers. He did normally rise to the occasion, in our featured clips leading St. Thomas to the lead vs. Creighton with under 10 minutes to go, completely taking over the game on both sides of the ball against Western Illinois in the Summit League Quarterfinals to lead his team on a 12-2 to close the game (there was a garbage time bucket at the end), and helping to keep St. Thomas within 5 of Oral Roberts, who went undefeated in Summit League play, in the Semifinals.

Offensively, St. Thomas mostly ran a 5-out offense that functioned more like a glorified three-man weave with some pick and roll action. They would run some screen actions off the ball around the wings on occasion, but they were heavily reliant on the three-point shot, and were solid at it, shooting 35% across the team. Increasingly so as the season progressed, this gave Rohde both a lot of freedom and responsibility to create offense and he was a very high-volume player, averaging 33 minutes per game, and just under 14 shot attempts per game. This maximized during the post season, though, as he hardly ever left the floor, logging 36 minutes against Western Illinois and 39 against Oral Roberts. There was no shortage of opportunity to watch Rohde at work, and I’m sure I will be struggling with what to cut out of this (and now you’re thinking – he has clips he doesn’t use for these? Yep.) – but I’ll be focusing a lot on what I think will translate, what won’t, what he was offering that was wasted given his situation and what probably came more easily given his situation.

Defensively, St. Thomas played a fairly traditional man-to-man system the majority of the time. The only main thing of note I would point out here is that most of their guys were pretty interchangeable defensively so they were not hesitant to switch screens. Rohde was often defending the opposition’s most dangerous ball handler but, when he wasn’t, he was usually taking a quality wing or St. Thomas would often aggressively switch him when he was off of the ball so that he would remain defending the closer offensive players to the opposing team’s ball handler. Namely, working to keep him around the ball/action so that he could be disruptive, which he was to the tune of almost 2 steals per game. Sometimes they would even switch him to guard problematic Power Forwards, on several occasions, talented 6’8″ players with shooting and ball skills. He was an improvement for St. Thomas in all of these instances.

Alright, let’s dive in…

Offense

At 6’6″ Rohde’s size and length stand out when watching film, especially when acting as the primary ball handler (and also when guarding the opposition’s PG). He uses his length well, and will alter his offensive approach to attack his specific defender. The best part about running him at PG, is that it forces a lot of matchup adjustments from the opposition, because their starting PG will likely struggle with his size and how he plays. That being said, while he’s probably good enough to run point for us, I wouldn’t necessarily be thrilled with that at the ACC level. Players like Beekman and Harris are just much quicker and more explosive and have a tighter handle. So, if he does spend most of his time at the 3, as I expect he probably will, that could negate some of those mismatches. But, let’s go ahead and get into some of it before drawing conclusions.

Shooting

One of the more misleading aspect of Rohde’s statistics, in my opinion, is his three point shooting percentage. On the season he shot only 32% from outside, which was under his team’s average and isn’t great for a guard. A few things to consider – for the last two months of the season he shot over 40% from deep and he shot 50% (8-16) in the conference tournament. A marked improvement from earlier in the season as he got increasingly more comfortable and leveraged within the offense. Secondly, a lot of these looks he was taking were toward the end of the shot clock, or trying to get something going off the bounce, or firing over quality contests. These weren’t bad or selfish shots, they were often either desperation looks, looks that were the best St. Thomas was getting at the time, or trying to find a spark. That’s not to say his decision making was perfect, and one trend we’ll see is that he sometimes would press given his situation on his team, but he wasn’t often getting good, quality, open looks where he could catch and shoot, because he was typically the main focus of the opposition’s defense. Let’s take a look at what I mean here:

This first look is from the Creighton game. St. Thomas was down 26-11 at one point and went on to actually lead as late as under 10 minutes to go in the game. Rohde, in his first collegiate game, played passively early, deferring to the more experienced guys. When that clearly wasn’t looking, something changed and he started playing much more aggressively (and didn’t really look back the rest of the season). But it also caused him to aggressively hunt his own shot when the opportunity was there. Here’s a look with them running their weave. He uses a ball screen to get a moment of space dribbling to his left. Creighton’s Center, the 7’1″ Ryan Kalkbrenner (#11), dives to protect the paint and the 6’4″ Trey Alexander gets caught momentarily on the screen. This is not the cleanest look but is an open shot, one he can make, and one he was encouraged to take.

On this next play, we see Rohde running the point and taking a ball screen to get into the middle of the lane. Kalkbrenner is there to meet him so he passes it back out to the wing to Riley Miller (#10 on St. Thomas). Rohde, takes the ball back, offers an aggressive jab step that makes Ryan Nembhard react, then takes the ball screen from Miller and launches a step back three over the late contest of Alexander. This is a difficult shot, and one he’d almost never be allowed to take here with regularity as early in the shot clock, but it WAS a fairly good and standard look from the St. Thomas offense and was a result of how much the rest of the group was struggling to create. This IS the kind of look he will get for us and probably would be encouraged to pass up earlier in the shot clock but would probably be comfortable taking toward the latter half.

He was actually 3-6 from three in this game until the very end of the game where he chucked up two desperation shots trying to close a late lead, and finished 3-8; which was a good microcosm for why his shooting percentage is likely misleading. Here’s one of those shots, just to see how rushed and not open I’m talking about:

Fast forward toward the end of the season, this was their last regular season game @North Dakota with the teams jockeying for post season positioning. Rohde also went 3-8 in this one, and here’s another of these kinds of looks. There’s 10 seconds left in the shot clock here so he doesn’t need to take this shot, but he uses the jab step to get a little space and bombs away to no avail. The way his defender reacted to his jab, it’s not unreasonable to think that this could have been the best quality look they were going to get on this possession.

Here’s one against Western Illinois in the Summit League Quarterfinals where he finished 4-7 from deep. This was one of his three misses and you can see he gets his defender on the back foot, actually taking a hop backward toward the basket before having to recover to contest the step back three. A good move, good space, but a tough shot.

And there are two more from the Oral Roberts game in the Summit Semifinals in which he went 4-9 from outside. This is just an early step back three in the corner that doesn’t fall. It’s not the kind of shot he’ll likely have the freedom to take for us, but it did serve a purpose of making his defenders realize they had to respect the step back.

And this is a good look below after a baseline inbounds play with 8 seconds left on the shot clock, he doesn’t have many options but to attempt another step back three from the baseline, this one with a bigger step back and a better contest and he airballs it.

Now, some of these I think it would be fair to question the shot selection but, again, keep in mind that often St. Thomas wasn’t going to be getting a much better look. At the least, hopefully it’s illustrating how he was often put into inefficient positions and asked to create. Now, of course, he did miss open looks too, it’s not like ALL of his misses were like this, but it was enough that it certainly pushed his shooting % downward.

To contrast, he was a quality, knock down shooter when those opportunities DID provide themselves, and he was also able to just plain create some of those “wow” opportunities, as well.

Here is in the clip below just spotting up for a while from the extended wing. He eventually gets the pass and there’s a good contest from the 6’7″ Arthur Kaluma, but he’s had time to measure it and the shot is pure. Worth noting, that’s a DEEP shot, well beyond the arc.

This time it’s the 6’7″ Baylor Scheierman following him around. Creighton rotated a lot of length onto Rohde because they couldn’t keep Nembhard on him due to his size. Scheierman wasn’t as quick or able to get around the screens, though, and gets caught on a pin down here. Rohde has an open look and actually has enough time to take a dribble to get himself into rhythm before knocking down the shot. I like this clip because it’s the first of several we’ll see where Rohde creates mismatches. Creighton couldn’t match up with him with their 6’0″ PG so now they have a bigger but slower player on him, so St. Thomas runs him off of off ball screens as a very effective counter.

This last look vs. Creighton this time with Nembhard back on him. Rohde just moves without the ball and makes himself available for the kickout in the corner. Nembhard loses visibility on him and is late to recover and can’t bother him with the late contest. Quality movement to space and a quality catch and shoot. I think he’ll have a lot more of these kinds of looks in our offense with Reece drawing help on drives and with IMK drawing the most suffocating shot denier.

Moving on to the North Dakota game, he pushes the ball, takes a ball screen, and gets ND to switch defenders. Their post defender here, the 6’9″ Mitchell Sueker (#35) is caught playing too far back, being too worried about the drive. Rohde actually fumbles his dribble a little but still has plenty of time to rise up and knock down the three pointer.

Here’s another look, below, similar to the last of the Creighton game above, where he dives quickly to the corner when off of the ball. His man, the 6’4″ Jalun Trent gets caught ball watching a bit. He’s sagged off of Rohde a bit, possibly thinking he’ll need to play the middle of both St. Thomas players if his teammate sinks to double. He attempts to recover but looks concerned about the blow by as he’s recovering and Rohde just catches, elevates comfortably, and knocks it down.

This look against Western Illinois is another similar look where his man looks to position himself up the line from Rohde in an attempt to deny the pass to the wing. Reading this, Rohde again dives to the corner, his teammate leads him there, and he catches and immediately gets into his shot and knocks it down. What I like most about this look is how his man doesn’t even really lose track of him at all or leave him to help the ball handler. He just gets caught thinking he’s going to deny the ball and that puts him out of position to be able to recover because Rohde reacts so quickly and has such a quick release/high release point.

This one, below, is a good look at his range and confidence. It’s simply the age old tale of primary defender going under the ball screen and shooter taking that opportunity to launch… but Rohde does it seamlessly and shows off his range in so doing; that’s a good few feet beyond the arc from almost straight-away.

Here’s the first of two big threes during a 12-2 run, St. Thomas went on from just under 7 minutes to go to around the 1 minute mark. Rohde completely took over this one on both sides of the ball during that stretch. Here’s a three off of a baseline play where he attempts to curl around a screen and draws the post defender. He literally just backs up to the three point line, creating space as he does, and then elevates into the shot. Shades of Ty Jerome backing out from the free throw line against the Syracuse zone here, I love so much about this play. The awareness of the switch and forcing the bigger defender to play in increasingly more space, but also the confidence to just keep backing into and take that shot in such a big moment.

But, for as much as I love that last shot, this next one was even better. Up three with just over two minutes to play, Rohde is clearly in charge of the offense and the main focus of the Western Illinois defense. His teammates are entirely deferring to him. He gets the ball in the pick and roll, draws two defenders and finds Brooks Allen (#14) at the top of the three point line. Allen doesn’t even think about taking this shot and instead uses the slight advantage created on the recovery by driving right back toward Rohde and feeding him on the wing. Rohde, who has quickly backed out to the wing from his drive and now has the 6’8″ Vuc Stevanic on him, catches while retreating and immediately fires away despite the lengthy contest right on him. Just a great look at how much of a focal point he was and how much confidence he was playing with to close the season.

A couple of more looks against Oral Roberts, this next one off of a broken play where his team scraps for the rebound and he’s able to slide in and spot up from deep and shoot over the contesting Max Abmas.

One more, below, just to reiterate how rare these kinds of open looks were for him and how he was quality when they were provided. This one was only possible because of a broken play:

But he also showed his more difficult shot making ability in this one as well. This clip, below, is a good look both at how much space Vanover occupied in the middle and also how much attention Rohde received. Once again, the ball is in his hands at the end of the shot clock without any advantage having been created by their offense. You may recognize this kind of step back baseline look from some of the misses above, but this one is pure and illustrates where he was going with those. He has this kind of ability to get a look to fall when there really isn’t much there.

Potentially saving the best for last, this was my favorite shot of the entire bunch and is just dirty. He inbounds the ball, runs his man hard at the man with the ball as if he’s going to set a screen while holding it. Instead, his defender is let through, Rohde stops on a dime and goes back the other way, takes the short pass from his post player, and absolutely rips the net. I love how intentional this was, how savvily he used the screen and how just completely purely he hit such a difficult shot.

There are going to be those hand wringing over his incoming shooting percentage from outside. He very likely won’t finish ahead of someone like Isaac McKneely, or maybe even Jacob Groves when the season closes in this area. But, I do think he’s a quality shooter who will see his percentage increase as he should have more open looks in our offensive system like we saw via broken plays at St. Thomas. His shot should benefit a lot from playing alongside point guards like Beekman and Harris who will have a much better time forcing the opposing defense to react to what they’re doing. As he WAS that guy for St. Thomas and there really wasn’t anyone else consistently effective in that way to pull defenders and get him clean looks. Additionally, he won’t be the player with the ball in his hands at the end of the shot clock as often – although I expect we’ll still see some of that and he probably will be our best option from beyond the arc off of the bounce/in situations where we have to get a shot up.

All of that should amount to higher efficiency from outside and a player opposing teams won’t want to sag off of, will need to contest hard, and will have to play to be able to rise up off of the dribble. I strongly doubt it will be a situation where our opposition is willing to live with him shooting open looks from out there and, if anything, he should help with both our spacing AND our ability to penetrate off of it. Speaking of…

Around The Rim

Rohde attacks the basket in a variety of different ways. He’s quicker than most big wings and forwards and bigger than most guards and is very smart and aware about how to utilize those advantages depending on the match up. Let’s jump right into some examples:

This first clip is part of the St. Thomas comeback against Creighton (they’d end up leading 57-56 with 10 to go before eventually losing by 12) and is a big reason Creighton ended up pulling Nembhard off of him. Rohde comes down from the perimeter to secure the long rebound and then looks to push in transition. As he gets isolated against the 6’0″ defender, his teammates all stick around the perimeter in a 5-out, giving him space to operate inside. He simply uses his size to bully Nembhard inside with his back to him, lands a drop step and finishes the layup before Kalkbrenner can rotate down.

You may remember this kind of look from last year as we would often do the same thing at the beginning of our possessions/secondary breaks last year before getting into our base offense. Remember this? The team staying out while the opposition was still getting their defense set and our PG exploiting the one-on-one.

Kihei used his quickness while Rohde used his size in the clip above, but this kind of look in transition was the kind of thing we designed to exploit last season and I could see any of Beekman, Harris, or Rohde playing this role depending on who had the biggest mismatch in open space.

Okay, back to Rohde clips because that’s what we’re here for… this one doesn’t lead to a direct bucket, but shortly preceded the Creighton defensive switch. Rohde is playing off of the ball but when he gets it on the wing, is determined to attack the smaller Nembhard. He is patient on his drive but forces the issue, eventually drawing the non-shooting foul. I think it’s also worth reiterating here that this was Rohde’s first ever collegiate game against a team that was ranked in the top 10 in the country at the time and against a very quality player… and he had the confidence to believe in the mismatch and determinedly go after it.

This last clip vs. Creighton, below, shows off his touch around the rim and some of the tricks he has in his bag. They’re still pushing his drive whenever Nembhard is on him, this time putting him in a pick and roll with Kalkbrenner. It was a good strategy because Nembhard could struggle to get back into the play and Kalkbrenner is not a mobile player. Here, Rohde gains an advantage coming down hill but Kalkbrenner, who is 7’1″ has sagged and is his face again. This time Rohde lands the sweetest little floater half-way down the lane, dribbling to his left and pushing the shot up with his right.

Rohde “only” had 15 points against Creighton because he wasn’t yet the feature of the offense and was still getting his feet wet, but, in my opinion, he played like the best player on the floor in that game. He forced Creighton to alter their defensive strategy and take Nembhard off of the primary ball handler while, on the other end as we’ll see later, guarding Nembhard and mostly taking him out of the game. It wasn’t enough to grab the upset, but it illustrated that he belonged and could make an impact on the bigger stage.

Now here are some looks at North Dakota, who were obviously not the same level of competition – but they still have some quality players and won this game. The Summit League was the 22nd ranked conference in the country in terms of NET out of 32… where when we were looking at clips of the Northeast, that was the 32nd ranked conference.

Here Rohde shows off his hook shot in the lane. We’ll see this shot a few more times as it’s one of his go-tos when he has a size mismatch. He shoots this one from half-way up the lane and his defender is the 6’4″ Jalun Trent, who has decent size and athleticism. Rohde doesn’t really have to create much of an advantage off of the bounce here against a game Trent, he gets to his spot methodically and then uses his skill/size to get off a shot that’s hard for Trent to bother.

In the next clip, Rohde grabs a rebound and pushes the ball despite being the last man down the floor. The aggression keeps the ND defense from setting and they’re still locating their assignments. Rohde uses his momentum and body to shield Trent on his left-handed drive, gets into the lane pretty deep, stops, and makes a nice left-handed layup. It’s worth noting that Trent mostly stays in decent defensive position here, at one point being about even but positioning himself in between Rohde and the basket by the time Rohde comes to a stop. But Rohde’s driving angle and good use of his size makes it so that that brief advantage he did create is enough that Trent isn’t going to be able to do anything to bother his shot despite getting back into the play. All he needs is a little big of positioning against a defender like this to be very dangerous close to the hoop.

This next one is a very similar thing against poor Jalun Trent, who actually does a better job of widening Rohde’s angle on the drive this time. Rohde boxes out, grabs the rebound, and is immediately out the other way. This time he is ahead of some players, but really only one of the Fighting Hawks is behind the play. He gets Trent on his hip, pushes a diagonal drive through the lane, Trent keeps him outside of the protected area, but, again, his length is too much and he’s able to get a fairly easy looking layup here as a result. It’s calm and methodical, getting to his spots and punishing a size mismatch that, really, shouldn’t be this bad at just two inches.

Here’s another look, this time against the also 6’4″ Elijah Brooks (#1) on North Dakota. Rohde inbounds from the baseline and immediately calls for the ball, posts Brooks up, works his way to that right-handed hook shot, and knocks it down. Brooks is in solid defensive positioning the entire time here, but there isn’t much he can do.

Under control and methodical Rohde is normally the best Rohde, and here’s a last clip against North Dakota, this time with Trent picking him up full court. He calmly works the ball up the floor, runs Trent off of a screen, gets the ball deep onto the block where he’s met by the 6’9″ Tsotne Tsartsidze. It’s pretty; with the jump stop he gets into Tsartsidze’s body just enough to get him slightly on his back foot, and then he jumps backward, fading away to shoot the clean bank shot over him despite the good contest.

A few looks against Western Illinois. This one, below, he gets the switch on the pick and roll, realizes the 6’8″ Vuc Stevanic has switched onto him. With his back to Stevanic and dribbling toward the rim, he gives just the most subtle hesitation dribble like he’s going to go back away from the hoop, only to use that opportunity to turn the corner on Stevanic and finish with the reverse layup on the other side.

Generally speaking, it’s a good sign when so many clips end with an excited “hoo!” from the commentators!

This next one, below, is similar to some of the clips we saw against Jalun Trent above. This time it’s the Leathernecks J.J. Kalakon who is a fairly imposing 6’5″, 200lbs. But Kalakon is not comfortable with his quickness and concedes too much ground. Rohde is able to isolate him and get the ball in deep enough to take that shielded right-handed layup attempt. This one misses, but Kalakon has faded to the side attempting to bother the shot and Rohde is able to go right up and put back his shot. Again, the struggles of containing such a big guard with ball skill despite having solid size on him.

We’ll finish these, as always, with the Oral Roberts clips. These were very interesting because Connor Vanover on the Golden Eagles (#35) is every bit of 7’5″ and influences much of what happens around the rim. But in this first clip we see St. Thomas put him in the pick and roll, and Rohde’s hesitation dribble creates confusion on whether or not they were switching. Vanover attempts to get back to his man and Rohde has the clear path to the bucket.

This next one is at the end of the first half with the game close (scoreboard says tied but they’re actually down 1) and Rohde needing to create something. It’s also the opening picture of this post. This is just a nice split of the attempted hedge by Vanover, using the screen, setting him up, and then pushing the ball through in a straight line toward the hoop. You’d have loved the finish here, but he draws (and makes) the foul shots. What I like most about it is the body control. He could have just barreled into Abmas, and he did, but he adjusts his angle on take off so that it’s not a direct line right into the defender, leading to the blocking call as opposed to it becoming a charge.

Okay, the last of these, and I think this one’s really subtle and shows his feel for the game. He accelerates around a ball hand off screen and catches it with his defender trailing. At that moment, there are two Oral Roberts defenders, Isaac McBride (#10) and Vanover who could be in position to help on the drive while Carlos Jurgens (#11, 6’5″) attempts to work his way back into the play. Rohde waits until Jurgens is back on his hip and does that neat hesitation dribble that makes it look like he’s stopping his forward progress and momentarily making the help defenders relax (and confusing Jurgens). He then shifts gears and explodes back toward the basket, taking advantage of the lull and finishing with the ball well out ahead of him with the right hand before anyone can help.

Hopefully these past two sections have illustrated the challenges opposing teams face when marking Rohde. If you put a smaller player on him, he’ll work his way into the lane and shoot over them. If you put a larger player on him, he can punish them off the ball from outside or off of the pick and roll. But he’s also good at creating opportunities for his teammates through this context and the attention that he gets, averaging almost 4 assists per game.

Passing

Here we are against Creighton where they’ve moved Nembhard off of him and are now covering him with the 6’4″ Trey Alexander (#23) – who is basically the same size as most of the Summit League defenders we saw on him earlier. Rohde runs the pick and roll, presses his advantage into the lane, and leaves a very nice dump off pass to his rolling teammate, fellow freshman Ahjany Lee (#13). Lee misses the dunk through the contest but, bonus, Rohde is right there to quickly clean it up with the layup.

Here’s another slick look to Lee and, again please note, both of these should have been assists but will not show up in the box score. St. Thomas is running their weave action and Rohde gets the ball with momentum toward the hoop, forcing Kalkbrenner to step up to deter him as Creighton has gotten some of their switching mixed up. Lee, who Kalkbrenner was guarding, cuts across baseline and Rohde immediately hits him with a nifty little pocket pass in stride. Unfortunately, by the time he gathers and attempts to go up to dunk, Creighton’s help defense has sunk and is able to get the block. This was a great opportunity created by Rohde around the rim though, that should have led to two.

And this next clip is a much simpler play but does highlight a couple of things. He would often push the ball up the floor in these situations, as we’ve seen earlier, in an attempt to test the defense before it set. Here he just threatens the drive, draws the sag, and kicks the ball out to his teammate on the outside for the open three.

A few more looks in conference play, here against North Dakota, this is a blown layup that, again, did not lead to an assist… but I really love this pass. Rohde gets the switch on the pick and roll and the touch on that pass over the top to his rolling teammate is placed perfectly. On our team, this might be a lob, but in this situation the placement of the pass is top notch.

Another look from this game, and notice a trend of me picking some clips that highlight very good passes that DON’T actually yield in an assist. The rebound here is pulled down by another freshman with potential, the 6’6″ Kendall Blue, who outlets the pass to Rohde who catches it, takes a couple of dribbles toward the center of the court, and fires a one-handed pass on a dime across the court, leading his teammate into the corner so that he can catch and immediately launch into the jumper. The shot misses but, again, the accuracy of this pass on the move is fantastic and think about how much pressure this play just put on the North Dakota defense to get back in good positioning.

A final example, below, this one against Western Illinois. Rohde has the ball on the wing and tosses this beautiful leading pass to his cutting teammate off of the back screen. Again, his teammate doesn’t collect and go right up, stops to collect himself, allows the defense to get back into the play, and ultimately wastes the opportunity – but the play and the find were there and incredibly clean.

So, yeah. Rohde is a very good passer both out of the pick and roll and, in general, with very good court vision and touch. There aren’t many passes that he can’t make and, again broken record, his size often helps with his vision in this regard.

Forcing The Issue/Playing Too Fast

The most consistent area of improvement of Rohde’s game, and I would say by a considerable margin, was the tendency to press. It’s probably the biggest challenge, on the whole, for talented freshmen who play a volume role on their teams and Rohde was no exception. I noticed this most often after he’d conceded something on the defensive end, where he’d try to immediately get it back on the offensive end, but I also noticed it when the team would start to fall behind considerably or when his teammates were really struggling to create any quality looks. It’s also at these times where you realize that, while his handle is solid, it’s not as tight or developed as most top-level point guards, and he can get a little loose with the ball when he tries to do too much. Fortunately, I think this is the biggest opportunity for improvement coming to UVa – he won’t feel the need to be THE guy or to try to take what isn’t there. If anything, the worry might become that he’ll defer too much. But let’s take a look at what I’m talking about:

Interestingly, the game where I found the fewest example of this was his first, which makes sense because he wasn’t as ball-dominant or as much of a feature in the St. Thomas offense as he was later in the year, but also could indicate what he might look like playing for us. Here’s the only example that stood out in that one where he just gets going a little too fast driving in the paint and loses the handle after beating Nembhard when Kalkbrenner shows.

When we fast forward to North Dakota, we see that the full burden of creation has shifted to him. Remember that nice little hook shot he has in his game from before? This isn’t a bad shot and is pretty similar to those, but he loses his rhythm several times on this drive and probably would have been better served to kick it back out and reset. There was still a lot of time left on the shot clock here and this one felt more like he shot because he felt like he had to.

Here’s a look, below, with him needing to make something happen toward the end of the shot clock. He loses his footing coming around the screen and rather than collecting himself, he tries to cross-over while he’s going down to save it, and just loses the ball while staggering into the defender.

This one, below, is just him playing too fast and trying to do too much. He knows he wants to push the pace in transition on this play but he doesn’t come up with a great idea, gets in too far, is out of control and loses his footing, and attempts to pass it back outside while he’s falling – but just can’t really get anything on the pass leading to the turnover.

One of the more glaring of these, in this next one below, he’s had such success isolating this matchup that he gets stopped too far under the hoop and attempts a reckless wraparound layup that isn’t remotely close. My least favorite part about this one is that if he gathered and turned back, he has two teammates outside of the three-point line who he could pass it to, likely that would either lead to a shot or would allow the team to run more offense, but he doesn’t look. This kind of an attempt would be much more understandable after not finding anywhere to go with the ball.

Here’s one against Western Illinois where he’s pushing the ball in transition but doesn’t really have anywhere to go. The Leathernecks (kind of just like saying that nickname) are all there with the ability to help. He’s loose with his cross-over and just loses the ball.

Here’s a shot that probably wasn’t needed against Oral Roberts. It’s kind of reminiscent of the shot he made against North Dakota, but it’s farther out, without the same advantage, and the fade is much more extreme and awkward. This one’s him trying to force the issue, likely due to it being a rare moment when Vanover isn’t on the floor.

More from the Oral Roberts game, this time it’s late so there is some more desperation, but he’s trying to jam the fast break in there when there really isn’t an advantage to be had. Jurgens is in good position and strips the ball away, another example of the handle getting loose.

A final two examples with him struggling to account for Vanover’s size when in the lane/passing. This first one he sees the backdoor cutter but tries to force it in despite the angle not being there, leading to the pass being stuffed and stolen.

And this last one, the St. Thomas offense is just out of ideas at this one. After the offense stalls out, Rohde makes himself available and attempts to drive baseline. He draws both his man and Vanover and is cut off deep under the hoop. He anticipates a vacancy and turns and fires blind back out to the wing, but the Oral Roberts defense has rotated and easily steps in for the steal. In his defense, it appears he thought that Lee would have been diving to the rim here, which he probably should have been as he’s not an outside threat.

I’m not really worried about Rohde forcing the action or trying to do too much at UVa, really at all. It will be nice to have a player who has experience, and who may actually be our most comfortable outside of Beekman, making something happen at the end of the shot clock. But there may be some growing pains along the way this season, figuring out when to press the accelerator and when to trust his much improved teammates. I do think that while his handle will be good enough to pressure any opponent, it is not tight enough yet to avoid the occasional turnover. He had a full turnover per 40 minutes more than Beekman did last year; and although I would say his load/burden was higher, his competition wasn’t nearly as tough night in and night out. So, this will be a key thing to keep an eye on; I don’t think Rohde will play much primary point for us with Beekman back and Harris (ideally) backing him up. But how much he can be utilized as that secondary ball handler role as a creator will likely depend on how much he improves that handle and tightens up his ball protection. Given his most likely matchups of bigger ACC wings, I feel optimistic about his ability to execute that role well. At the very least, he should regularly be able to get a shot that he can make against most defenders. What will be key is how being much less ball dominant and playing primarily off of the ball translates for him playing against much better talent on a game-by-game basis (and having a much better supporting cast)

Defense

So how is Rohde as a defender? Confidently, I can say solid with room to grow. There are some good examples that I’ll get into below which highlight his defensive ability on quality players. The caveat that I’ll add is that, on St. Thomas, there was very little incentive for the opposition not to find a path of lesser resistance than attacking Rohde. There were times where talented (and mostly very quick) offensive players had some success against him, either through their own merits or from him being overly aggressive. But, by and large, similar to Dante Harris at Georgetown, the opposition didn’t need or want to directly test him as often because there were much easier players to target. So much so that, often, Rohde would be off the ball and St. Thomas would have him aggressively stay as close to the ball as possible, proactively switching screens to keep him around the action. On the plus side for St. Thomas, though, by switching Rohde around to matchup against players who were having good games, they could most often get the team to go away from that player (although then normally someone else would get going). So, let’s take a peek and then regroup.

On Ball

Rohde uses his length well to give cushion to drivers while still being able to contest shots and get his hands on the ball. He can be very aggressive, especially against bigger players where he can use his agility and active hands to disrupt the dribble. It’s here, also, that his size is very visible.

Against Creighton St. Thomas rotated between him covering the 6’7″ Baylor Scheierman (#55), a tall wing who averaged close to 13 points per game on the season and shot over 36% from deep, and the quick 6’0″ PG Ryan Nembhard, who averaged 12 points and just under 5 assists per game. This was a good luxury to be able to put him on either player throughout, and he actually took Nembhard almost entirely out of the game, with his only bucket from the field being a buzzer beating three at the end of the first half (he was 6-6 from the line, some of which were intentional fouls late).

Here’s a good look at him both on and off the ball while primarily guarding Nembhart on a possession where St. Thomas would force a shot clock violation. There’s some solid help side defense here, deterring a pass to Kalkbrenner on a back door cut, but mostly notice how disinterested Nembhard is at trying to make something happen off of the dribble on Rohde. Rohde has solid buffer throughout, gets over a screen and recovers at one point, but is mostly just deterring Creighton’s ability to run their offense through their point.

As promised, here he is a little later against Scheierman with Nembhard off of the floor. On this one, he is able to cut under two screens while still remaining a threat to contest a shot, and then pretty easily beat Ssheierman to the spot on his drive; cutting off his dribble and forcing him to stop, pick it up, and kick the ball back out to the perimeter. This play might not look that impressive and may seem fairly routine, but think about the different elements at play here. He’s keeping a good, tall, shooter, from shooting the ball from outside despite two ball screens, and he’s much quicker so anything off the bounce for Scheierman seems fruitless.

This next one, below, is a great look at that length and awareness in action again. At the end of the half, Creighton inbounds the ball to Nembhard and looks to pass the ball to Kalkbrenner in the high post. Rohde has sagged off and makes that pass difficult enough so that Kalkbrenner has to retreat out near the three-point line to catch it, disrupting the intent such that he immediately looks to give it back to Nembhard. Rohde slides to deflect the pass back and forces the deflection/ball out of bounds in what almost certainly should have been ruled a turnover. Very bothersome with his hands.

One of the few times he wasn’t on either Nembhard or Scheierman, here he is defending Trey Alexander on the perimeter. Kalkbrenner attempts to set a ball screen for Alexander but watch the feel of Rohde playing this. He jockeys between remaining behind Kalkbrenner to keep him from rolling cleanly to continually lunging at Alexander, keeping him from feeling comfortable shooting. Eventually, he’s able to hand Kalkbrenner back to his man and resume coverage on Alexander, offering a proactive contest as he does so without giving up position or a drive. Good feel here of how to navigate the screen, help keep his overmatched teammate from having to deal with a clean roll by Kalkbrenner, while making Alexander think twice about the shot.

This next one I really like as he starts on Nembhard and then as soon as Scheierman gets the ball on the wing he aggressively switches to him. This is with the game tied 49-49, and he’s trying to make as much of an impact on the ball as possible. Scheierman attempts to back him into the lane, and continually hooks him with his arm, but Rohde remains physical and doesn’t give an advantage. Eventually Creighton does get a clean look from outside that misses, but that’s do to the poor rotation from the other St. Thomas players. This is just Rohde going where the ball is and defending well.

Moving ahead to North Dakota, this is a great example of his active hands and his ability to be disruptive while he slides. His man attempts to take him to the bucket and Rodhe slides with, stays in front, but doesn’t even let him go up for the shot, reaching in and knocking the ball away. Bonus content for that collection and slick outlet bounce pass on the break the other way leading to the run-out jam.

Here’s a look against Western Illinois’s Trenton Massner (#5), who is a quality player; averaging 19ppg and is currently on the Miami Heat’s Summer League roster. Rohde switches onto him after a duo of ball screens, does a good job of cutting off his driving angles, and dislodging the ball as Massner spins back away from the lane.

As St. Thomas went on their 12-2 run and took over this game late, Rohde guarded Massner and took him out of the game, keeping him from being involved in the offense, and primarily holding him to 10 points on 4-13 shooting in the game. Here’s a look from a neat baseline angle at how much space Rohde takes up and how intrusive his contest is on a Massner step back fadeaway:

And here he is swiping at the ball multiple times on the drive, disrupting Massner’s control (he probably could have been called out of bounds at one point) and forcing the travel/turnover. Massner was exasperated at this point (and we’ll see more in the off-ball section later).

A couple of more examples, below, against Oral Roberts. Now, Oral Roberts had two very quick and capable scorers off of the bounce in 6’0″ Max Abmas (#3) and 6’2″ Isaac McBride (#10). Here’s a great look, below, at how that most often unfurled. Rohde picks up Abmas in transition and does a really good job of deterring a drive, keeping space, while swiping at the ball/being active with his hands. Abmas thinks better of forcing the issue and, instead, sends the ball to McBride who creates a much easier path to the bucket for the score.

That clip is a microcosm of why we don’t have a ton of great on-ball clips from Rohde, because opponents would more regularly take the path of least resistance.

But these are TALENTED players (reminder from earlier that Abmas transferred to Texas this offseason), and here’s Abmas trying to get it going. This time it’s in transition again and Rohde really does a good job of staying home here and when Abmas attempts the three, Rohde’s contest is so intrusive that it forces an airball.

Now, when Rohde did struggle on the ball it was normally against quickness or as a result of him being overly aggressive. Let’s keep it with Oral Roberts for a minute as most of our examples are here given their guard talent. This first clip is very early in the Oral Roberts game and McBride just surprises Rohde with the quickness of his first step on the blowby. He takes up all of the space, gets by him, and finishes out in front.

Here’s a look against Abmas, who gets a running start and forces a foul on the cross-over…

And here’s another against Abmas where he gets hedge help on the pick and roll but relaxes too much after it retreats which allows Abmas to slip by too easily for the midrange jumper.

Now, I’ll add as a caveat to the most recent two clips above: Rohde played 39 minutes in this game and the pace was fast, at times without whistles for long stretches. Both of those two were the result of long stretches, you even hear after the first “finally we get a whistle” and Rohde was visibly winded. So, the noticable worse effort here on defense vs. what we’ve seen previously was certainly a result of that and, more, both our pace of play and the minute he’ll likely get shouldn’t put him in many of those situations. That being said, it doesn’t discredit the plays as you still have to be able to perform when winded.

Here’s one more vs. McBride in isolation toward the end of the game where McBride just hits him with a really nice move. His hesitation fools Rohde enough into thinking he might shoot, causing him to jump forward, erasing his cushion and allowing McBride to get around him, into the lane for the floater.

We’ll move backward chronologically now, here’s one of the first plays against Western Illinois before he locked in. This is early in the game and he just kind of lets his guard down a little. It’s a crafty and prolonged dribble by Massner who lulls Rohde with the stop and start enough that he gets around him for the finish.

There really weren’t any great examples of him getting beaten badly off of the bounce in the North Dakota game, and here was really the only blatant one against Creighton. This one is just him recovering too aggressively on the pass back to be able to contest and taking up too much space/not being able to change his momentum enough to react to the drive the other way. This is also bench player (6’3″) Francisco Farabello (#5), so it’s likely Rohde didn’t respect the drive as much as he should have here:

All-in-all, very effective on the ball as both a deterrent and as a disruptor. Something that he was able to leverage very consistently across some very talented players. That being said, the incentive to test him was not often there. It was pretty easy to play around him (aside from Western Illinois who really relied on Massner to get offense). Now, the flip side of this is that he probably will almost never be asked to guard the opposing team’s BEST creator off of the dribble. That will almost assuredly always be Beekman or Harris, but there are enough teams in the ACC with multiple players like this that he will get tasked with covering a plethora of talented secondary creators. And I still expect that in most of our lineups either he or McKneely will be challenged the most often, so I expect we’re going to have a lot more tape on his ability to hold up on the ball in the years to come. But, so far, I’m encouraged that he can more than hold up, and in most matchups he’s likely to be given, will still be a plus matchup on the defensive end. I should finalize this piece with just a note – he’s incredibly competitive and rises to the occasion on defense (as well as on offense) when the game is close late. He wants that assignment and seeks it out, so that bodes well.

Off Ball Defense

I think Rohde is an intuitive off ball defender who has been very aggressive trying to create turnovers. As I’ve mentioned a few times, St. Thomas would often allow him to proactively switch when help side to stay closer to the ball, and sometimes he would just shadow a key player for the opponent. There’s going to be a lot to learn here for him, as St. Thomas didn’t play team defense the same way we do (few do) so his help and double team action mostly appeared to be intuitive free lancing and he wasn’t always aware on plays – but this was the element of his defensive game where he had the most practice given the approach of opposing offences and I do not think he’ll have a problem learning new responsibilities.

Let’s give a first look at the Creighton game. This first play is quality action from Creighton, designed to create opportunity for Nembhard and/or Kalkbrenner. Nembhard fakes as if he’s going to set a ball screen on Trey Alexander’s (#23) man and then dives down the center of the lane, attempting to threaten the back cut and then use Kalkbrenner as a screen to get out to the corner for a shot. Rohde is able to deter the pass over the top to Nembhard, reads the play, and stays high over the Kalkbrenner screen, shading and discouraging the pass to the corner. Alexander thinks better about going to the corner there and turns back where he has some high-low action to chose from. Kalkbrenner is being fronted in the low post while Arthur Kaluma (#24) offers a target in the high post. Kaluma gets the ball and looks for the high-low lob, but Rohde recognizes this as well and sags down from the corner to deter the lob pass to Kalkbrenner. Kaluma uses this adjustment to send a skip pass to the corner (a good read of the play), but Rohde recovers with a hand up and Nembhard misses the shot. His recovery to the corner probably could have been quicker, but he still forced the miss and used his awareness and positioning to three opportunities for better looks ahead of this.

Here’s another look on Creighton where they have Rohde on Kaluma. Kaluma is 6’7″ and they switched him onto later occasionally to break up his rhythm. He had a game high 17 points and was the only other viable answer for best player on the floor that night. Again, this speaks to the versatility of who St. Thomas was willing to put Rohde on. On this play, Kaluma cuts through the opposite side of the lane with Kalkbrenner being double teamed in the opposite post. Kalkbrenner attempts to throw a skip pass to the opposite corner, but Rohde has his head around and is able to go up and deflect the pass. It gets deflected to his man and the effort takes him out of the play, but the defense is much better able to recover and force the turnover on the block-to-block pass from there. Had he not had the length and awareness to get his hand on this pass, it would have been a wide open look from the corner.

Here’s an example of the force switching against North Dakota on the first play of the game. Rohde’s man cuts through the lane and attempts to set a back screen on the corner, taking Rohde away from the play and bringing another man into the play (or open for the back cut). Rohde communicates and switches this, initially fronting the post but then playing straight up behind the 6’4″ Brady Danielson. Rohde gives a good contest, boxes and seals the rebound.

Here’s another look against North Dakota that wasn’t the hardest play he’ll have to make, but illustrates solid awareness as the ball goes to the opposite post and is doubled, Rohde is tasked on the back side with reading the pass and recovering (or trying to steal the pass) from two players. He is aware of the role quickly and rotates off of his man to easily intercept the weak pass. This weak side defender role is a core part of our defense, especially when we double the post, so it’s good to see Rohde read and react to it.

One more look against North Dakota and this one shows a lot of different exciting qualities. Firstly, they’ve moved him onto the 6’8″ B.J. Omot who had been having a nice game and finished with 17 points. Rohde did not guard him much but, another look at a player who was hot and considerably bigger where St. Thomas turned to Rohde to stop the bleeding. Omot was athletic, was shooting well in the mid-range and was getting fouled and going to the line. In this clip, Rohde attempts to jump the passing lane from the wing out to Omot up top and doesn’t actually deflect the ball, but the action makes it so that Omot doesn’t catch it cleanly and Rohde’s hands are super quick and coordinated here. He not only gets his hand on the ball as he’s getting back into the play, but he deflects it out ahead to himself, chases it down, accelerates in transition, and finishes at full speed between two defenders, one being Omot who was a threat to block this. Just a really coordinated play that also showed off his decent speed and very good finishing in transition.

The Western Illinois game provided some of my favorite of these moments. Tell me this next clip isn’t shades of Jordan on Malone (and please don’t think I’m comparing in any way other than the play itself)! Rohde is staying like glue to Massner, making his life difficult, but while he’s in the paint under the hoop and the ball goes into the opposite post, he ad libs and comes in blind from the baseline side, swiping at the ball and forcing the steal. Great opportunism and knowledge of where he could impact the play. The reaction to leave for that steal was incredibly quick.

Here’s just another opportunity that came from quick hands and the effort/awareness to be in the right place. Western Illinois is attempting to reset their offense and Massner is floating way out top near half court in an attempt to collect and reset. Rather than resting on his laurels and waiting on Massner, Rohde follows the play and when the Western Illinois post player collects the pass, not realizing Massner is back there, Rohde strikes, ripping the ball, starting the break the other way, and drawing the foul on the return pass. Down 10 at the time, this was a big momentum play for St. Thomas.

This next one is easily my favorite of all of these plays. This is the point in this game where Rohde just took over. We’ve seen his scoring during this stretch earlier as well as his on ball defense guarding Massner, but this play was something different and was a clear sign that Rohde had just taken it on himself to take Massner out of the equation. It starts with a St. Thomas shot that’s blocked. Massner approaches the ball as if he’s going to bring it up the floor, but Rohde jumps the passing lane and denies the attempt, forcing the Leathernecks to opt for the easier option of having someone else bring the ball up the floor. Rohde then shadows Massner all the way to the corner, staying above him so as to deny the pass his way. You can see Massner directing traffic from the corner as normally he’d be ball dominant on this play but has been moved off of the ball. After Western Illinois stalls a little bit, Massner attempts to use a screen to go and get the ball, but Rohde fights through it with intensity and VERY aggressively over plays the passing lane, determined not to let Massner get the ball. Massner attempts to juke back and then go and take a dribble hand off, but Rohde stays glued to him and keeps that from happening. Meanwhile, flustered, the post player not used to having the ball so far away from the basket for so long, gets tied up by his man for the jump ball and turnover. This was the beginning of the run in earnest and if you read the play by play you’d have read this, “6:57 – Parker Bjorklund Steal.” Technically true, but this play was caused entirely because of Rohde’s determination to keep Massner from even getting the ball and how disruptive that was to the Western Illinois offense. Absolutely loved what this showed about his mindset!

Against Oral Roberts we have a couple more looks. This one below he gets a little lost at the end, running in circles trying to figure out where he should go, but it’s really good and quick help from the weak side to be there to shut down the open Abmas driving lane and, again, aggressive hands to even make passing out of that spot tricky.

And this last one is on an inbounds play where Oral Roberts just underestimated his ability to get around and up for this lob pass:

Overall, I’d say Rohde has a great foundation here on which to build. His court awareness and his instincts on when to leave his man, where he can be impactful, along with his great hands, are all boons. In fact, really the only glaring clip I could find where I’d have offered some legit criticism was this one, below, where he doesn’t drop down to intercept the block-to-block pass when the post man leaves his defender. He needs to identify that guy as the closest/most dangerous threat and dive to try to steal that pass or at least keep it from happening and forcing the pass to go outside.

But, yeah, given that was the only glaring clip I could find where he got caught out of position off the ball, at least where it cost his team, and how often he made an opportunistic steal or rotation or deflection, this area is a strength. I expect his learning curve on the Pack Line will not be as steep as others.

Rebounding

I didn’t pull many rebounding clips because there really weren’t a lot that jumped out. Most of his boards were on long rebounds that he’d come back for away from the bucket. There are a few clips of him hitting the glass above where I highlighted a different element of his game. I did pull this one from the North Dakota game where he’d gotten switched onto their Center, the 6’9″ Tsartsidze (#10) and gave a good box out before grabbing the board.

He averaged almost 4 rebounds per game, which is nothing to sneeze at especially considering he mostly played point. He didn’t often hit the offensive glass except on occasion on his own misses where he could be a problem when smaller defenders got out of position exerting themselves trying to stop the shot to begin with. I’d confidently say that he’s no slouch in this area and the lower the number of the role he plays on our team, the more of a differentiator he’ll be on the glass. For example, at the SF/3, he should be able to hold his own. At SG/2, I imagine he’ll be a significant plus in this area for our team rebounding.

In Conclusion

Rohde is easily our incoming transfer with the most upside, especially on the offensive side of the ball. And, really, I don’t think his floor is very low either; he’s too good of a player who has the skill and mental game to do succeed in most settings.

Given our roster composition and experience, I do not anticipate that we will use him as the primary Point Guard very often. Now, he’ll still be an effective player in most of the same ways (especially in transition), but that means he won’t often have that same size mismatch or force the same difficult matchup positions. He’ll probably be a 2 some but a 3 most of the time he’s on the floor; which will mean he’s just a pretty normal sized SF by ACC standards with an above-average handle for the position and a scorer’s mentality. His movement off the ball, his catch and shoot, his ability to take his man off of the dribble will all still be there, but that post-up, mismatch exploitation, won’t be as often. In Sides, he’ll be crafty off the ball and could compliment IMK at times at being two real threats getting open from outside, he could fit into any role within the Inside Triangle, he’d be a fantastic fit in 5-out style looks, as he could potentially punish some slower-footed players that might be on him or use his size inside with rim protection pulled away from the rim. The biggest thing to watch (along with IMK’s development in this area) is whether or not his ability as a secondary ball handler satisfies that preference by CTB so as not to feel the need to play Beekman and Harris together very often. I think that it can, should, and will (although I’m sure they’ll still share the court some, it likely won’t need to be at such a heavy minute share).

His defense should be solid all-around and similar to the above, he’s less likely to be guarding the types of players who gave him the biggest challenges because we’ll have Beekman, or Harris, or even Gertrude on those guys. If there’s a really problematic, skilled 3 with size, I imagine we’d shift Dunn onto him as well and Rohde could hold his own against most stretch 4 type players. That being said, he and McKneely WILL probably be the players who are targeted and tested the most defensively just based on the quality of our other defenders, so we’ll get to see him have to guard the ball more often during his time on the floor. His flexibility in who he can defend effectively should be a boon in the Pack Line as will the mental aspect of his game defensively.

I’ve seen the comps that his upside is a slightly more athletic Ty Jerome, and I get where that’s coming from. I could see Rohde at the 3 this year having a similar feel to when Ty was moved off the ball in 2018-2019. But Ty ballgame was a much better knock down shooter from outside and shot almost 40% from deep that season. While I DO think Rohde’s percentage will climb in our system given fewer reps but more quality looks, I wouldn’t expect him to hit at that same clip and I would advise caution with regard to expectations for this season. He has been a ball-dominant player for most of his young career and no small portion of his advantage came from playing that over-sized PG role. He forced so many mismatches that way, making his opponents put defenders they wouldn’t normally on the primary ball handler while playing their traditional PGs off the ball. He was able to bother most teams’ best offensive player, really 1-4, but was also not often challenged on many possessions per game by that player because of the St. Thomas supporting cast.

I may sound like a wet blanket there given how there really wasn’t much not to like from my review and he was always one of the best few players on the floor in his games, if not the best. To be clear, I am not feeling that way, I think Rohde is going to be a good player for us on both sides of the floor. I just think there’s going to be some adjustment to what he’s asked to do, how he’s asked to do it, his role on his team, the quality of his teammates, and the quality of his competition. I’ve seen a lot of expectations that he’ll be our plug-in starter at the SF before the season’s over, could be our leading scorer, etc. While those are in the range of possibilities, and may well be his long term outlook, I’d suggest that the more likely outcome this season is that he fluctuates between secondary or tertiary scoring option, or even role player, depending on the matchup. Keep in mind that, even in his final season, Ty Jerome only averaged 13.6ppg, and I don’t think that Rohde will be as much of a focal point of the offense or as polished of a finisher as Ty… at least not yet. So, I’m just trying to calibrate expectations. Let’s say Rohde finishes around 10ppg, is a quality secondary ball handler, and plays good team defense… that wouldn’t be a disappointment; that would be a success and a good jumping off point for future growth. That’s more aligned with what I’m expecting this year. Rohde is a transfer who is going to pay dividends in the future as well as the present… and as we see the departure of Beekman, and possibly (cringes) Ryan Dunn, we will likely start to see Andrew Rohde become that offensive focal point that he has been in future seasons. I just wouldn’t, and think we shouldn’t, count on that version of him immediately.

My next piece will be putting all of my offseason musings together into some thoughts about what I’d like to see around playing time an team utilization this coming year. But, as it relates to this piece, I have a hunch that we’d be best starting Leon Bond at the 3 (but ultimately playing fewer minutes than Rohde). This would mean that he has shown enough offensive development to do so, would add a potentially lock down defender at the position, and could allow Rohde to come off of the bench in a Manu Genóbili-esque role; to provide an offensive spark and to hopefully increase the chance/timing of his insertion causing a mismatch while adding some energy/juice. It would also allow for the potential of using Rohde to relieve IMK if he was having any defensive issues to, theoretically, put a longer better defender on the floor without giving up as much offense as if you had to turn to someone else. This is all speculative as we’re in the offseason, but I like the idea of using Rohde as a versatile solution to plug into the lineup to address a variety of needs that could manifest.

Either way, I’m very excited about this addition to the roster and think that Rohde will be very fun to watch for the next (hopefully) three seasons. He’s different than most of our transfers in over the last three cycles in that he’s both a long-term investment and both his ceiling and floor are high. I don’t see many risks or downsides to what he offers especially given how flexibly you can use him. That being said, there’s a growth and maturation factor baked into this. If you’re expecting him to come in and immediately be offensive napalm in his first ACC season, you probably will be disappointed. But if you’re expecting him to come in and offer a variety of valuable skills while providing an offensive spark, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you’re just flatly skeptical about his shooting or how his game will translate against ACC competition, I think you’ll be thrilled.