I feel bad for Easley. I bet he’s pissed.
Can’t see what role Easley would really fill for us. He’s physically maxed out and his skill level is really not that expansive. Glad we’ve moved on from him.
Not everyone has ability to play for Michigan. He has like 20 offers. He will be fine.
Just saying that I have some sympathy.
I was at the Elite Camp Saturday. My impression of Easley mirrored that of Dylan and others–I don’t know where he plays at the college level. At this point, he’s not athletic enough to play 3, he’s not big, explosive or physical enough to play 4, and he has no outstanding skill which makes him stick out and makes you say I don’t care what position he projects at, I want him anyway. He’s only going into his junior year in high school, so he has time, but regretfully, because he seems like a great kid who desperately wanted a Michigan offer, I wouldn’t have extended one based on what I saw Saturday. A buddy of mine is fond of saying that you should be able to pick out the high DI prospect(s) on the court in a matter of minutes even if you don’t know who you’re looking at, and if you can’t, well, that raises a lot of questions. In this case, if I hadn’t been aware of who Easley was, he wouldn’t have struck me as being a standout, and I watched him twice.
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Cohill talks Michigan here…
Basically says Michigan isn’t sure it needs a PG right now.
“Coach Beilein called me and told me they took Xavier Simpson in this class and they have a point guard in 2017,” explained Cohill. “He told me that they don’t want to offer me yet because they don’t know what they will need in 2018, and they might not need a point guard. He says they like me a lot as a player, but he doesn’t want to disrespect me by offering and then not really wanting me.”
Cohill continued, “I really respected Coach Beilein for that, and I like that he was honest with me about where things stand.”
Money quotes right there. Bodes well if Beilein ever decides to offer. Means we probably won’t be working from behind.
So is Brooks a point guard? If so, is Eastern still being pursued by M?
Brooks is definitely a PG in my book. I would take Eastern next to him because of his length and playmaking. The catch is that Eastern has made it very clear he wants to be recruited as a PG. Not sure if U-M can sell him on the ‘two guard offense’ sort of thing though.
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Glad Cohill takes this the right way, but implicit in the quote below is that as of now we don’t want him. Situation is what it is, and I’m fine with taking Brooks when we did, but the general rigid feeling of “I need to fill position X in year Y” may be carried out differently and with better options to compare if made to be more flexible (eg PG could be 17 or 18 [which by the way has better options])
“he doesn’t want to disrespect me by offering and then not really wanting me”
Depends on how much you like Brooks, and how comfortable you are with having one point guard on the roster in 17-18.
Also I wonder if they want to take a PG in 2019, i.e. Andrew Nembhard.
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Brooks might be great. 2019 is strong with some in-state talent as well so it isn’t even just Nembhard giving that some merit. Just commenting that history says we are rigid in [position slots] x [years] type thinking. Sometimes this is probably going to save us from things like too much Dakich. Other times it burns us (Winston v Langford). Overall, it sucks to see guys who are high on us get dinged, and I just hope that all/less conservative options (1PG, 2019 doesn’t HAVE to be the PG year, etc) get thrown in for discussion.
And I guess main takeaway beyond me personally wanting the perception of flexibility is that a guy a) many of us were high on, b) wanted to come here, and c) we all thought had an offer coming probably won’t be offered and won’t be coming.
What do u think of brooks, I can’t decide. Dylan have you seen him against high level competition?
Not much to go on re: Brooks. Film is limited. Villanova offer may be the best endorsement.
Important thing is that Beilein has seen him enough. I feel totally comfortable with Brooks step in similar role as MAAR and Spike.
What MAAR/spike role are you talking about? It doesn’t seem to me they had the same role so I’m just curious.
I see him as a backup point guard. We need two PGs at all time. Allows us to sign a top level PG in the 2018 or 2019 class.
Brooks will be backing up Simpson for 3 years with the potential to start his senior year. Him starting his senior year allows beilein to do what he always does, bring in a pg who can be the backup for a year before he starts his sophomore year. I love brooks’ game and think he can be a good big ten pg, much like spike was.
If we’re not sure we need another PG in the class of 18 as talented as Cohill is, than we must have a couple of potential stars in Simpson and Brooks.
How you can not need a talent like that is beyond my comprehension. Especially with his legitimate interest.