Well, clearly you were right. It would be curious to see how different our fortunes may have been had we landed Bates Diop, who everyone thought we were getting. To date, he hasn’t been awesome (though he showed some signs his sophomore year before getting injured last year). I think he would have flourished in our offense.
DJ intro presser:
I also think KBD would have flourished here, and unless he really really loves Columbus despite playing on team dysfunction, I think he made a terrible choice. He still could be a problem this year, but he’d be in a very different place by now, in my opinion.
We all have 20/20 hindsight…
Why is it 20/20 hindsight if that was my clear opinion at the time?
That would seem a lot more like clear sight.
Not really. It is not “a mistake” to recruit a guy who by his third year in the program could play the 4 or 5 (and defend multiple positions), shoot 3s at a high clip, get some offense by himself, etc., helped the team in a big way to a BTT championship and Sweet 16, and went 17th in the draft. (And who was injured his freshman year, by the way, impacting his development and production year 2.) Maybe it would’ve been ideal (for the program) for DJ to come back for another year – although of course having NBA 1st round draft picks benefits the program too – but that doesn’t mean his recruitment, especially in retrospect, could be fairly viewed as a mistake.
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Diop commited to OSU in November 2012, a few months after OSU went to the Final Four and just as they were starting a season where they won the B1G and went to the Elite 8. De’Angello Russell and Tate were in his class. He might’ve done much better here but it would’ve been hard to see that as a terrible choice at the time.
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In terms of choosing a program, sure, they were achieving a lot of success on the court and that counts for something.
As far as picking an offense to play in, I would have viewed William Buford’s lack of development as a big negative for them. Same with David Lighty. I don’t think Matta is very good at getting much out of his wing players.
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I agree that JB’s offense may have been a better fit and he is a better talent developer than Matta. But Matta had 7 first round picks between the '07 and '12 NBA drafts, the 6 ones before KBD committed. So, again, I think it would have been tough to argue at that time that KBD was making a terrible choice.
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the difference is that Beilein develops borderline 4 star and 3 star recruits into NBA first rounders. Matta have McDonald All Americans play for him before they are eligible to enter the draft. And KBD certainly was not in the second group.
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Agreed. His player development hadn’t fallen off a cliff yet - he was only midway through seeing Aaron Craft leave college as the exact same player he was his freshman year, same thing for Lenzelle Smith, Deshaun Thomas had obviously had a great career and left early, but an all world burger boy ended up the 58th pick in that draft - there was enough information to have started to question Matta’s ability to develop talent. But it was more his choice not to come here that seemed like such a mistake. He was athletic and long, but raw - he needed development that takes you from unfinished to finished, not a program that relies on players ready to star immediately. I believed - at the time, and said so at the time - that he was more likely to flourish in our offense but would also benefit from a program that did career transformation, not just polishing. It is true that singular fiascos like Brent Pettway, I mean Sam Thomas’ career were just getting started.
Dang, Kenny, you read my mind and literally just said exactly what I was trying to say while I was typing. Credit for a much higher degree of efficiency!
Bates Diop was 29 on the 247 composite, pretty similar to guys like Conley and lower than Turner.
Anyway, I think everyone who has an offer from Michigan and doesn’t take it makes a terrible decision. But I can see why others don’t always agree.
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Yes, of course I’m biased. But please give us the credit that this is more than a number in the rankings. I’m sorry, but the kid was raw, whether he was #29 or #76. It feels a little like you’re just looking at numbers. I remember what I thought about his game at the time and I thought he was raw and he turned out to be pretty raw. Heck, Kam Chatman had a national composite of #27, it looks like, and he was raw as hell no matter what you thought about his game.
Also, I don’t know what Conley’s number was - I know Rivals, which was pretty good at the time, had him at 5 stars and #18, but Conley was a burger boy. KBD was not. That usually is a pretty strong tell that there’s a difference between one recruit and another recruit.
LOL. This might be the most honest take ever on this message board.
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I don’t really understand why you guys are arguing about Keita Bates-Diop, but you guys do realize that when he committed John Beilein had only had one player drafted at Michigan, right? Darius Morris in the 2nd round. And really the only four man that he had playing for him up to that point was Zack Novak.
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Do you know know if he had anyone drafted from his prior schools either? I did a very quick search and didn’t find anything.
I mean, fair enough, but he had done a pretty nice job developing guys like Novak, Hardaway (at that stage in his development), and Morgan (same). He’d managed to take a pretty mediocre run of recruits and won a share of the Big Ten title the season before. I think JB had established himself as someone who could get a lot out of talent by that point.
Sure, again I’m not even sure what you guys are trying to bring up with KBD here. I just think it is funny to look back on his decision to commit to what was the most consistent and successful program in the Big Ten as some kind of a grave mistake. Not to mention the Illinois Wolves connection with Evan Turner.
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