St. John's basketball 2008 Year In Review Part VIII-Tomas Jasiulionis

Part 0: Opening | Part I: Team stats | Part II: Boothe | Part III: Burrell | Part IV: Cavataio | Part V: Dele Coker | Part VI: Sean Evans | Part VII: Paris Horne

Tomas Jasiulionis

(stats taken from BigEast.org, Statsheet, Ken Pomeroy's Basketball Prospectus, and my own calculations)

2007-2008: Junior
Position: Center
Height: 6-11
Weight: 249 lbs
Age: 22 (01/11/1986)
Home: Utena, Lithuania

Tomas Jasiulionis 2007-2008 Highs

I don’t know why TJ just isn’t very good. He’s tall. He knows he’s tall and keeps his hands up. He tries hard. But his defensive quickness is not quick. He has terrible hands in the post and is an extreme non-shooter, even though his shooting percentage could be worse. He seems to have a semblance of a stand-still jump shot that he hardly takes (though he did attempt 4 threes this year). Jasiulionis can hit a free throw. He’s somewhat active on the offensive glass. Given his limited time, he blocks shots decently.

But when it comes to defense, he has stiff legs. He gets blown by on the regular. He’s not often in good position to use his height to block shots. Tomas incurs fouls by reaching in, or leaping up to show effort, when the effort would have been better served a few seconds before in anticipation and cutting off lanes.

One would have thought that he would have earned more time, even with all the freshmen coming to play on the team. Is it the team’s defensive style that requires the big men to hedge on outside players when they are near the perimeter? Is it a lack of awareness?

Whatever it is, Jasiulionis would give up 7.3 fouls if he played 40 minutes at St. John’s current pace. He commits 1.8 fouls in 9.9 Big East minutes.

And on offense, he’s has improved his ability to catch a ball to "stone" from "composite leather repellent." On offensive rebounds, he still taps the ball up in the air. And he still doesn’t take jump shots. He’s still avoided in the post, even with good position; when he does get the ball, he is unable to take advantage with a turnaround shot. After three years, why is this? Why isn’t he like Luke Schenscher and the other big stiffs that came before him, able to take advantage of his height in limited spurts, like a giant garbageman?

Perhaps his injuries robbed him of some ability; Jasiulionis, in about the same amount of time, rebounded better in 2006-2007, and had a slightly better rate of blocking shots. He turned the ball over more; but with low amounts of playing time, those differences could also be statistically insignificant. I didn’t check them for that.

The Tomas? I just don’t know. But I don’t expect to see a lot of him on the court next year. He’ll be waving the towel from the sidelines and being a good teammate. He had his first double-digit scoring effort this year; I’d bet that he doesn’t get the minutes to replicate that feat in his senior year.