Texas Tech basketball: Scouting incoming 7-foot center Vlad Goldin

Goldin needs to be a more dominant rebounder and needs to be more versatile on offense

There were a couple of areas where I was disappointed after watching these two games.  Most of all, I was expecting the 7-foot-1 center to be much more of a force on the glass.  That’s something Tech desperately needs to improve upon from 2019-20.

How a player of his size can come up with no more than seven total rebounds in two games is baffling to me.  What’s more, two of his three rebounds against Cushing were off of missed free throws when Cushing had set its other four players to the opposite end of the floor.

It wasn’t that Goldin didn’t try to rebound.  Rather, it looks like he needs to learn how to better judge angles and get in the proper position to grab the ball.  Often, he was too far under the rim to get the board, and many times, he simply seemed to go to the wrong side of the floor once the ball was in the air.  Learning how to position for rebounds is something we don’t talk about much as fans but it will be an important aspect of Goldin’s development at Tech.

Also, I wish I could have seen him shoot a mid-range jumper.  That’s because he is going to have to prove to be able to do that at the Big 12 level.

In these two games, he spent about 99% of his time on the offensive end posting up like a traditional center.  That makes sense given his size advantage over his high school competition.  But that meant that I did not get to see if he can shoot from 15 feet or beyond and that could be what determines how much early playing time he can earn.

The modern game of basketball has evolved to the point where even 7-footers have to shoot the ball from outside the paint.  We saw Tariq Owens knock down a few 3-pointers during his one year in Lubbock meaning that even a center with the most elite athleticism imaginable is going to have to be capable of pulling the trigger from distance at times.  It remains to be seen if Goldin has that in his arsenal.

Also, I wish I could have seen more of him playing perimeter defense.  He got beat a couple of times in these two games but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.  Rather, he’s going to have to learn how to get lower in his stance and his lateral footwork will have to improve.  Also, he’s going to have to be more cognizant of when to switch on defense because several times he lost his man when he and a teammate switched defensive assignments.