Iowa State men’s basketball preview: Looking at Sherron Dorsey-Walker

Iowa State men’s basketball is already preparing for the season, and we are too. Because the team is expected to great things this year, we’re kicking off our coverage in September and we’ll be taking a look at every player individually. Let’s kick it off with looking at sophomore guard Sherron Dorsey-Walker.

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As a freshman, Dorsey-Walker didn’t set the world on fire with his production. He received playing time early on in the season, but it dwindled in December and really evaporated during Big 12 play. There was only one conference game where he saw double-digit minutes (at West Virginia) and it was also the only game where he took shot attempts. He missed all three, hit two free throws, and collected three personal fouls.

In total, Dorsey-Walker played 115 total minutes last year, went 6-of-28 from the field (3-of-15 from the 3-point line) and had as many assists (9) as personal fouls, and had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio (10 turnovers).

With Monte Morris being the unquestioned freshman guard trail blazer last year, it was hard to Dorsey-Walker to really get a chance. Since his shot wasn’t great early on, and he didn’t adjust well to the speed of college ball, he would have to spend some time working on his game. Even Matt Thomas who came in with lots of expectations couldn’t match Morris.

But Dorsey-Walker has a year under his belt and has potential to step up when needed. It’s his third season with the team (redshirted his first year) and he’s very smart — he duplicates that in the classroom as he was on the Academic All-Big 12 second team in 2014. The sophomore was one of the top prospects in Michigan back in 2012 and was ranked 125th overall at Rivals. He was also in the top 25 nationally as a shooting guard.

It’ll be tough for him to get a lot of playing time, especially competing with Thomas, Kourtlin Jackson, and Bryce Dejean-Jones, but it’ll be exciting to see how much he improves from his first season on the court.