Scott Rich

Justin Pippen played last year at Michigan.

He was one of the first big recruits that Dusty May was able to pull in.

He was a very highly thought of top 50 guy.

Wasn't able to crack his way into the Michigan rotation.

Actually left the team even while the NCAA tournament was going on to enter the transfer portal, which was a little bit weird, but that is the world we live in.

He was known even in his limited minutes at

Michigan as a defensive specialist.

He's carried that over in DeKalb.

He's one of the top players in the country in terms of things like steal rate and block rate.

He's got decent positional size at about 6'3".

So he is a very solid defensive guard who has turned it up offensively now that he is playing significant minutes at Cal.

He's really good at attacking the basket.

He draws fouls at a very, very high rate.

He doesn't shoot it particularly well, though.

Even though he's attacking the basket and drawing fouls, he only shoots 42% from two.

He takes a lot of threes, but only shoots it at around a 34% clip.

So this is a very high usage player, a player who, by all accounts, is good at getting to the rim by the amount of fouls that he's drawing.

He's just not converting at the rate that you would like.

If I'm Duke, I'd much rather Justin Pippen have to beat us than Dede Ames.

Dede Ames is a multi-transfer guy.