Right, Kenny is employing a rhetorical tautology – attempting to prove something by stating the same thing twice, in slightly different ways. It often reflects a lack of evidence.
There probably is a benefit in some recruitments of being a kid’s first offer, getting that “they believed in me when nobody else did” advantage. But the idea that this translates to calling top 10 players to gauge their interest is dubious. Is Kentucky is getting top 10 kids primarily because they are contacting them before other schools. Is JB going to out-Cal Calipari all of a sudden by calling earlier?
If JB gets an official visit, that’s pretty much all he can ask for. And his different approach does appear to appeal to some players and their families.
LA, I don’t think that we have fundamental disagreement over JB’s recruiting as I have no problem of him targeting mostly kids in 50-150 range, and I cheer for players such as JMo, Spike, MAAR, Bielfeldt more than anyone else on this board. What I suggest is that coach Beilein was not well prepared to see the top-tier, can’t miss type of player such as J Brown and Bamba to show interest to his program. And the names you mentioned are mostly at the back end of 10-25 range, not as elite as Bamba and Brown, and McGary at one point. I think that coach Beilein recruits Bamba as hard as everyone once he sees the opportunity, but he could’ve seen it sooner than later.
You’re trying to debate something that you have no possible way of knowing. Unless you have a phone line to Bamba you can’t even make an argument that our passive approach hurt, especially when he literally said he liked our passive approach.
Schools get to know players’ interests in a number of ways. Of course, the kid could reach out to the school and/or hype them on social media. More common ways, though, are attending camps put on by that school and coaches/handlers steering kids to a particular program. Bamba clearly isn’t attending Michigan camps and I can’t imagine there are many prominent coaches or handlers steering kids to Michigan. There are other camps and tournaments that I know Michigan coaches attend, but short of texting, calling, and sending a hand-written “do you like me? check this box” letter to every 5 star kid, I don’t know what’s missing.
LAW is right in that schools have limited resources when it comes to recruiting players, unless the University is cool with siphoning some of that sweet, sweet football travel budget over to basketball.
Thanks for the share. Definitely seemed to sum up all that was already out there on him plus bit extra. A few spots were harder to read, but the content is good
If we have swung and missed on a huge number of guys in the 10-25 range, as you argue, wouldn’t it logically be even more difficult with the uber elite guys in the 1-10 range? In my list of misses, we have not only lost out to Duke and Kentucky, but also OSU, South Carolina, Syracuse, Villanova, Marquette, Purdue, MSU, and Indiana.
If the competition was only Duke, Kentucky and Kansas - which it often tends to be for guys in the 1-10 range - wouldn’t that just make it more of an uphill battle?
Which is a problem but whatever…Beilein hasent made Michigan “cool” again. He dosent relate to kids, promise the program ect so…
Making peace with that fact, I agree with LA that he needs to (and is) focus on the 30-120 kids. I think DeJulius is a top 60-80 kid. Hunter, Ryan, Carmody Johns and even Beinemy are in that range.
I’d say it’s probably more like he doesn’t let assistant coaches supply strippers for players, he doesn’t allow players to sign up for no show classes, and he probably doesn’t want kids who think they’re “the man” the moment they show up on campus.
He went the Sloan Analytics Conference on his own. He isn’t your typical dumb jock. Beilein rarely recruits guys that aren’t in line to be admitted into UM.
In fairness to Beilein, they weren’t looking at 5s after just taking two in the previous class. With Bamba stretching things out so long, it’s of little consequence now. Beilein was involved with Jaylen Brown early but Brown waited a long time to get down to business with his recruitment so nothing much happened until late.
With the way the recruitments of Kennard and Booker went, you can argue that getting in early isn’t all that meaningful anyway.
