UNC Basketball: Jeremiah Francis scouting report for 2019-20 season

Passing Acumen: Patience, Awareness, & IQ

Passing is more layered than just “vision” and “accuracy” and a ton of other vague buzzwords that are often used to describe even the most visionary and imaginative of playmakers. There’s a lot more to passing than simply seeing holes in the defense or delivering spot-on dimes to teammates.

Vision, touch, manipulation, spatial awareness, recognition, anticipation, feel, patience, timing, creativity, craft — so much goes into passing that makes it somewhat difficult to quantify in terms of raw skill and ability, especially whenever you only have a couple of three-year-old games and highlight reels to use as your sole guideposts for analysis, with no database with assist or turnover totals that could possibly backup the eye test.

There’s just not much available that we can use to analyze Jeremiah Francis’ passing acumen, since a lack of stats such as assists per game or assist-to-turnover ratio prevents us from having a real baseline feel for him as a passer, and a shoddy two-game sample doesn’t entirely encapsulate how a player — nor team — typically performs in terms of playstyle.

But, with all that said, hedging on the side of optimism in regards to Francis’ abilities as an intelligent playmaker isn’t unwarranted given what he showed in Pickerington Central’s motion-heavy offensive scheme. It wasn’t necessarily a scheme that was conducive to advanced passing opportunities — it primarily used traditional weaving/motion sets with multiple guards/wings initiating handoffs and pick-and-rolls, so Francis wasn’t always tasked with running plays — but Francis did show time and time again that he possessed a number of the aforementioned playmaking traits that go into being a talented passer.

There isn’t enough there to believe that he’s an upper-echelon passer, since he doesn’t exploit — or create — high-difficulty windows/angles with regularity, nor does he possess a level of creativity such as fellow 2019 classmate LaMelo Ball, but he’s undeniably an intuitive playmaker with enough patience and anticipation to poke and prod a defense until he’s either created a scoring chance for himself or his teammates.

On a number of occasions throughout the two games available online, Francis would make intelligent reads in the halfcourt, showing sound court awareness when attacking downhill or navigating the pick-and-roll, using both his eyes and the threat of his shot to manipulate the defense in order to free his teammates up.

With Advanced Prep’s Terrance Ferguson (who now plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA) defending him near halfcourt, Francis feigns a retreat before bursting past the unprepared Ferguson, getting the defender on his hip and darting toward the free-throw line and into the teeth of the defense. With the primary defender in jail and in an inopportune spot, this forces a Prep defender to slide over, leaving Francis with an open teammate and open window to squeeze a bounce pass to the shooter.

Once more, Jeremiah Francis uses his trusted lefty in-and-out dribble to create separation to burst past his defender, driving into the lane before attracting the attention of fourdefenders, utilizing his scoring gravity to free up a pair of teammates on the wing. He drills the skip pass to the corner, but his teammate unfortunately refuses to shoot the open jumper, with this string of events ultimately ending without a shot attempt.

He makes a pair of nice decisions here, using the threat of his pull-up to draw defensive attention toward him and freeing up his teammate in the corner who he hits cleanly, and, following the team’s offensive rebound, attacking the scrambling defense and using a jump stop to get a defender in the air, giving him enough space to deliver a quick dump-off to his cutting teammate.

His feel for navigating the pick-and-roll and his synergy running sets with high school and now college teammate Sterling Manley was notable, too, as he would use the threat of his drive/floater to bring defenders into the paint to free up kick-out scenarios…

…or he would weaponize Manley’s roll gravity to perfection, selling the action with his eyes in order to get a help defender to tag the roll, freeing up the corner.

There were also instances of possessions where Francis would use his speed as a means for maximizing scoring chances, both as a downhill driver, adjusting mid-air to hit the corner shooter here…

…and also making plays while running at a full sprint in transition, delivering a flawless crosscourt bounce pass, here…

…and a soft lob, here.

Jeremiah Francis’ ability as a passer and offensive floor general shouldn’t be overlooked. His scoring may be what led to his recognition as a legit high-major recruit, but it’s how he uses his own scoring gravity and on-court IQ to make the most of offensive possessions that is truly valuable. He’s capable of producing points, both as a scorer and passer, which is innately valuable from the point guard position. The passing itself isn’t elite by any means, but it’s undeniably strong, another facet of Francis’ game that makes him such an intriguing player and prospect.