Marvin Menzies has said on more than one occasion that his top priority this offseason is adding more scoring to the Rebels’ roster. UNLV ranked last in the Mountain West in offensive efficiency last year (0.946 points per possession) and finished 335th in the nation (out of 351 teams) in eFG% at 45.1 percent, and that’s not close to good enough.
Menzies’ quest for offensive upgrades led him to El Reno, Okla., where 6-foot-7 Tervell Beck lit up the scoreboard as a post-grad at On Point Academy last season. Beck, a Cleveland native, committed to UNLV in early March, and as of now it looks like he could be playing a key role for the Rebels as early as next season.
So what kind of skills will Beck bring to the table? I watched three full On Point games from last season to get a better sense of how he’ll fit in at UNLV, and I think I've got a feel for Beck's style of play as well as his strengths and weaknesses.
Offensively, Beck filled a variety of roles at On Point. He played with his back to the basket, he handled the ball on the perimeter, he ran fast breaks and he stretched the floor as a spot-up shooter, and he showed flashes in all those areas. He's an offense-first player all the way.
The coaches made a point of throwing the ball to Beck in the post with regularity, and he showed a real feel for operating on the block. Beck’s superb footwork allowed him to maneuver around defenders with ease, though he wasn’t always consistent finishing in the paint.
Menzies loves post-up players, so it’s easy to understand why he recruited Beck. Beck didn’t finish off enough plays in the games I saw, but his double reverse pivot move is deadly (though one opponent finally caught on when he went to it three times in a row), and Menzies will develop that part of his game. Whenever an opposing team tries to check him with a smaller defender, Menzies will feed him down low and let Beck go to work.
In addition to his efforts under the rim, Beck also had a green light to shoot 3-pointers at On Point, and he let fly without thinking twice. He didn’t connect at a high rate in the games I watched, but his form is good and his season-long percentages seem to indicate that he’ll eventually be an effective shooter at the college level.
As a spot-up shooter, Beck needs to become more consistent. His release varies from shot to shot, and sometimes it seems like he’s reluctant to catch and shoot in one motion, actually preferring to put the ball on the floor and shoot off the dribble.
Beck may love his pull-up jumper a little too much. He likes to get defenders on their heels before using a straight-ahead dribble and rising up. The results were mixed.
The reason defenders back up and give Beck so much space on the perimeter is because they have to respect his driving ability. Beck is a large man, but he’s light on his feet and quick enough with his dribble to dart past man-to-man defenders. Once he gets going downhill, his heft makes it hard to keep him from getting to the rim.
Again, Beck's finishing leaves something to be desired, and his handle needs to be tightened. He loses the ball too often when driving into traffic, but some of that was due to the heavy scoring responsibility he shouldered for the On Point team. Ideally, there will be enough talent surrounding him at UNLV to allow him to be more selective about his driving opportunities.
Beck’s straight-ahead driving style invites contact, so he shoots a lot of free throws. Like, a lot. When he gets on a roll, the whistles come out and games slow down. In the three games I watched, he attempted 36 free throws. It’s not pretty, but it’s an effective way of scoring, especially when you can make 80 percent from the line like Beck seems capable of doing.
When the ball wasn’t in Beck’s hands, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. On Point used him as a screen-setter in occasional pick-and-pop plays, but that was about the extent of Beck’s off-the-ball movement. The rest of the time, he was a stationary spot-up target until he caught the ball. He also wasn’t much of a transition player, only running the floor with vigor when he snatched defensive rebounds and pushed them up the court himself. He’ll have to be coached on some of the nuances of halfcourt offense and playing away the ball.
Defensively, Beck’s best attribute is his size. He’s strong enough to stonewall bigger players on the block, and he’s quick enough on his feet to cut off post moves. When opponents try to back him down, he holds his ground and forces difficult shots while maintaining verticality and not fouling.
Beck’s footwork also comes into play when he switches onto smaller players on the perimeter. In On Point’s defensive scheme, his job was to sag under ball screens and cut off driving lanes — a simple task, which he executed reasonably well. That's important, because if Beck is capable of switching onto smaller players long enough for the rest of the defense to recover, it will give Menzies a lot of options when it comes to Beck's position.
Beck’s on-ball defense will need to improve before he earns a major role with the Rebels. For a player who embraces physicality, he often became passive when tasked with stopping dribble penetration in man-to-man situations. He was easy to drive around, and that definitely won’t work against quicker players at the college level.
Beck also needs to better utilize his size on the boards. In the games I studied, he wasn’t active enough when it was time to box out, allowing his man to slip past him to keep offensive rebounds alive.
Young players don’t often count man-to-man defense and boxing out as staples of their game, so Beck isn’t necessarily behind the curve. Like most guys entering college, he’ll have to improve in those areas in order to round out his game and earn more minutes.
While he’s rough around the edges, there’s a lot to like about Beck, especially if he proves versatile enough to oscillate between power forward and small forward at the Division I level. He projects to be a plus shooter who can stretch the floor as a power forward while possessing the size and craftiness to post up small forwards. If he improves his finishing around the rim — a huge “if,” especially for UNLV fans who watched the Rebels clank an inordinate amount of layups last season — he’ll be tough to defend.
Defensively, he's got a lot of work to do, both in terms of effort and technique. If he's going to be a power forward, he's got to commit himself to being a rebounder. It's great that he's big and agile enough to defend the post, but that won't get the Rebels very far if Beck's man is constantly tipping out offensive rebounds. And if Menzies is planning to go big and use Beck to pound on small forwards at the offensive end, Beck has to get down in a stance at the defensive end and guard them at a passable level.
It's risky to expect much production from freshmen, but Beck isn't a typical first-year player. His post-grad year, plus his 6-foot-7, 230-pound frame indicate that he's physically mature. He should be ready to bang with college players next season. A lot of his skills are intriguing, and for a team that was starved for offense last year, Beck looks like an upgrade. This is a clear case of Menzies taking a talented player and hoping to coach him into a winning player.
Editor’s Note: As the UNLV roster turns over in Marvin Menzies’ first full offseason, the Sun’s Mike Grimala will break down each new incoming recruit.
Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.
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