Queta has proven himself vital to Aggies’ success
“He wants to be special, and not only does he have such great character and the physical tools, he’s got the mental makeup and the character as a person where truly the sky’s the limit.”
That’s what head basketball coach Craig Smith had to say about true freshman center Neemias Queta after Saturday’s 76-67 win over Weber State. Queta is not only spending his first year at Utah State as a freshman, but also his first year in the United States having come over from Portugal in the summer.
It’s hard to keep a guy who’s 6’11” a secret for very long, but as soon as he got to Logan he made an immediate impact. Even though Queta is just a freshman, he’s become one of the leaders of this team, letting his play on the court speak for him.
Saturday was another great performance from Queta, even having fallen into foul trouble in the second half and fouling out with 4:03 left in the game. To go along with a team high on court plus/minus, Queta had 15 points, five rebounds, three blocks, and two assists. Through ten games, Neemias has now bumped his average up to 9.8 points per game to go along with 8.5 rebounds and is on pace to set an all-time record at Utah State with 2.3 blocks per game.
Back-to-back games with 15 or more points is a good sign from a young big man, but it’s not just the scoring that drives his game, it’s the little things he does so well. This shows in Queta’s outstanding 23.9 player efficiency rating on the season, a measure which tracks positive contribution and subtracts the negative. For reference, 23.9 would be good enough for 19th in the NBA right now.
For all the positives he has shown, Queta knows he needs to really improve on is his fouling discipline.
“He got a couple silly fouls early in the half, kind of wrong place, wrong time,” Smith said.
This is a common problem for prolific shot blockers early in their careers, because they’re so hungry to make a play on the defensive side of the ball. While blocking shots at a historic rate, Queta has recorded four or more fouls five times, two times fouling out.
Adjusting to the college level will be a learning curve for the big man coming over from the Euroleague, where he played with grown men and could get away with a little more physicality. Just ten games into the season, he will have plenty of opportunities to get better in this area.
What Queta does have this early in his career, however, is a great feel for the game of basketball. For true fans of the game of basketball, his passing is something almost poetic. It was abilities like this that had coach Smith so intrigued when the Portuguese big man first showed up in Logan.
“He is such a force but people don’t understand how skilled he is. That’s what really shocked me when he first came here,” Smith said. “We would run some screen and roll stuff, we’d find him, and they’d over-help, and he’s skipping it opposite. Today again, he had a couple really good passes.”
One of those passes was a beautiful bounce pass from the top of the arc right into the hands of a cutting Dwayne Brown Jr. at the basket. There’s a certain ease with the way he reads the game, impressive for someone who himself admits has only been playing competitively for a couple of years. But this seems to be routine in the eyes of the coaching staff according to coach Smith.
“He’ll do some things in practice and the whole practice just kind of stops and look around like did that just happen?” Smith said.
Queta is only a freshman who just played in his tenth collegiate game, and he still has a world of improvement to make over the course of the season. But the flashes of his potential is what excites Aggie fans. Some may draw a comparison to Joel Embiid, a big man who is just as comfortable under the basketball scoring and protecting the rim as he is out on the wing creating for his teammates.
“He’s got a chance to be really really special and he really anchors us on the defensive end but he’s a talented offensive player that’s only going to keep rising so to speak,” Smith said. “No pun intended.”
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