doj is the second or third best guard we had in transition under barnes. only TJ was clearly better. doj was also as good of a perimeter defender as we’ve ever had. he’d go from locking up michigan state’s PG kalin lucas to putting the clamps on 6’7” big xii poy james anderson like it was nothing. he had an extremely high iq and had one of the best ast/to ratios we’ve ever had. he was also an elite athlete. for as bad as he was at shooting he was equally great at the things he was good at.
the 2009/10 team had two PGs each playing ~25 mpg (iirc) who if combined would have made the perfect PG. take the opposite of everything i just said and you have j’covan brown. totally unathletic, low basketball iq, hated defending, but could really, really score. if you combined their strengths you’d have a first team all american.
still, Doj is one of the most underrated players we’ve ever had because he was such a poor shooter. before that team collapsed it was the best UT team ever, and Doj was the perfect pg for that team turning defense into offense in the blink of an eye. he did so much that wasn’t obvious at an elite level, he just absolutely could not shoot or really score. i’ll always love that guy, and it’s a shame that team collapsed the way it did.