2016 Point Guard Recruiting (Xavier Simpson)

Recruiting
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A recruit see’s the name MICHIGAN & the block M.

A recruit see’s the current coaches achievements in his past and present coaching stops.

A recruit looks at facilities and academic support.

Sometimes location

And how many players are current NBA millionaires. This is the most important, and what you hear the most of when the elite players give interviews. The kind of players the head coach and his staff produce.

Michigan has been relevant in hoops now since most of our recruits were in 5th grade. We are in no way a gimmick and/or trying to prove ourselves. We did that with Darius, Trey, Tim, Nik, Glenn, Mitch, the Fab 5 30 for 30, a final four run, a national championship game appearance followed by an Elite 8.

Are we on a level of Duke, UK, UNC or Kansas? No. Are we on the level of a Syracuse, Florida or MSU? I would give that a strong yes. Are they trying to prove themselves? Nope.

A good portion of folks don’t think we will be relevant in the future? We were just voted in the top, what, 9 (for some silly reason MSU came in 8) in future basketball success in the country by ESPN.

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“A recruit sees Michigan and the block M” - no offense but that’s laughable as it applies to basketball. We are not considered a storied program in basketball by anyone. Football yes (which explains why we recruit at an elite level year in and year out despite producing a shitty product), basketball no.

We have not been relevant to most recruits since the 5th grade, that is pure exaggeration. We didn’t arrive on the national scene until 2 years ago. If we’re recruiting 7th graders let me know.

You compare us to Syracuse, MSU, Florida - I mean seriously we’ve been good for 2 years while all those programs have been consistently good for the past decade or more while winning national championships. Those teams aren’t proving anything because they’ve reached the Apex repeatedly. Us, not so much. I love UM but to place us on that level is misguided at best in my opinion.

How are we not trying to prove ourselves? So a measly 2 years is the standard for national relevance nowadays? If that’s the case the Arkansas teams of the 90s have to be included as an all time great…

I think there is a faction of posters that want UM to be great so bad that you actually persuade your conscious into thinking we are better than we actually are as a program.

Im sorry, but I have to call it how i see it - we are a good program right now, but in now way, shape or form are we considered a powerhouse/elite program by anyone outside the UM fanbase. Let’s get real here people - it seems we’re on the rise, but we still have some strides to make

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I think that MattD is underestimating just how much respect Beilein gets among the dads and coaches of these kids. Two years ago, a high school coach who has two sons who were/are D1 players told how much he thought of Beilein as a coach and person. When we lost Trey and Tim to the draft, I said it looked like a rebuilding year. He said, no, you watch, Beilein will have them playing very well by the B1G season. Not sure what you mean when you say that recruits might see Michigan as a “gimmick”, but I guarantee that the Michigan program is highly regarded by recruits, their dads and coaches.

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I’ll say this - apparently we’re not regarded enough to land our plan A or Plan B recruits in many instances. So if you want to say we’re highly regarded, that’s fine, but there seems to be a gap between that level of regard and the respective college choices of the recruits/dad.

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What you’re trying to say isn’t too far off. Just using the word “gimmick” is…puzzling.

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Matt, I love how you claim we can’t land our Plan A and Plan B recruits. Apparently you missed those two years when we got Robinson, Stauskas and McGary, then followed that up with Walton, Irvin and Donnal (and Hatch, who the staff loved). Those guys were all Plan A recruits. And we managed to get Spike and Caris as late signees.

Sure, 2014 didn’t meet expectations. You know why? Because when Booker and Blackmon were deciding, they saw Stauskas, Irvin and Levert ahead of them on the depth chart, and the Harrisons (for Booker) were presumed to be one and done players. Same thing undoubtedly with Brunson - he looked elsewhere because he sees Walton ahead of him.

I’d also say Chatman and Wilson were still Plan A guys. So was Doyle, just like Teske, even if neither is the star big man you may want to target.

Let’s see how 2016 shakes out.

As far as whether Michigan is considered an “elite” program, you act like the past 10 years is all that matters. It’s not like people have forgotten about the 1989 team, or the Fab Five - most of our recruits’ dads no doubt grew up watching the Fab Five. We’re not Duke, or Kansas, or UNC, or UK, but we’re not Io

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Sorry, not sure what happened to the end of my post - “we’re not Iowa State, either.”

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Guys, I think we’re all guilty of taking this thread someother than originally intended…so this will be my last comment regarding perception.

In an effort to kind of summarize this, I’m going to oversimplify this without a bunch of detail, but the premise is very easy to understand…its called reputation.

When a given program is irrelevant for the better part of 15 years, without a tournament appearance for 11 straight years, without a sweet 16 appearance from 94-2013, while only being a nationally ranked team for a total of 8 weeks from 1998 until 2011, with sanctions imposed…I think its safe to say that we established a reputation among the general public for being a downright bad basketball program.

That being said, we’ve started to turn the corner the past 3 years, with 2011-2012 being an above average year, and the last 2 being downright great. But in the totatlity of the circumstances, I think its fair to say that 2 years of being nationally relevant is most likely not engough to overcome 15-20 years of bad history that have been ingrained into the minds of the basketball public. We still have a presumption against us in my opinion due to being so bad for so long. 2 years doesn’t supercede 15-20 in my view.

My definition of a stable, nationally relevant program is determined by this question - can the given program withstand having a bad year without long term negative impact? As it relates to UM, I would say no. If we have a down year in 2015-2016, I think there are possibly long term consequences. The UKs, Dukes, UNCs, MSUs, ULs, UAs can all have a bad year or even 2 without any long term negative impact in terms of recruiting and overall perception. I don’t think UM has reached that platform.

I think you need a solid 4-5 year run to overcome the negative perception in any given sport, but especially college basketball because turnover is so high and thus there will always be questions because the faces are new. I use MSU in football, 2 years ago they still had a certain stigma of being a bad football program despite the fact they had strung together a solid 3 year stretch. Now, I think it is generally accepted that MSU is a nationally relevant football program after 5 consecutive years of “good” football.

We are certainly on our way up the top, but work still needs to be done.

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Sophmore highlights:

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MattD, I guess you would need to define a “bad year.” It would have to be REALLY bad to give the impression that the last three years were an aberration, a better word perhaps than “gimmick” to capture your meaning.

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LAW nailed it regarding playing time and minutes. The kids who have never sat on the bench are not coming to UM or any other school to sit and watch. In their minds they are losing a million dollars a year on the bench because it delays entry to the league. I think that’s why Blackmon went back to Indiana…he’s going to play this year. He would see reduced minutes similar to Irvin last year. I can’t blame them as it’s a business decision they have to make.

Booker is in a similar situation, I saw Calipari mentioned running two 5 man rotations. The bench is full of talent, not enough minutes to go around.

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Sounds like it’s an increasingly popular opinion that Isaiah Briscoe is going to UK. That certainly can’t hurt with DT.

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Im with you, hopefully Briscoe to UK. 1 less obstacle for DT

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But going back to playing time, if we’ve got a senior Walton, what’s the more favorable situation from a PT perspective?

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I wouldn’t put us on quite the same level as teams like MSU, Florida and Syracuse. We’ve been equal to or better than them for the last couple years, but all of those teams have had a longer stretch of consistent success than we have. That said, if a recruit is so fussy that he’ll only consider teams that make the elite 8 two or three years in a row, he’s probably going to have a very short list to choose from. Heck, Kentucky didn’t even make the tournament in 2013, and lost in the first round of the NIT.

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I think if you’re an incoming player such as DT, playing behind a senior in Walton is much less worrisome because you have to wait a max of 1 year prior to taking over. On the other hand, I could see a Dozier commitment influencing DT, although to what extent I don’t know. Don’t think it really matters much, because I’m not inclined to believe Dozier is coming here.

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I think if you're an incoming player such as DT, playing behind a senior in Walton is much less worrisome because you have to wait a max of 1 year prior to taking over. On the other hand, I could see a Dozier commitment influencing DT, although to what extent I don't know. Don't think it really matters much, because I'm not inclined to believe Dozier is coming here.

I think a Dozier commitment would pitched as a replacement for Caris. He’s a guy who could also be one or two and done.

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Agree with Sane that Dozier looks very much like an one (or two) and done.

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Assuming that Walton stays for his junior year (2015-2016), he likely would not be making a decision on whether to stay for his senior year until after signing day in 2016, so Thornton won’t be able to base his decision on whether he’d be playing behind Walton for a year or stepping right in as the #1 guy as a freshman.

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Duke bringing full staff to watch Thornton today.