Goodin brings up a great point. He was a solid four-star PG with off-the-charts upside, but a little less skilled and mature than Winston. The fact that they ended up getting Simpson probably negates the effect of missing on Goodin, but the situation speaks to the real risks of putting all your eggs in one basket and letting other legitimate targets drift away while waiting for the guy that you want the most. I would argue that they didn’t “have” to slow play him, and arguably the decision to do so didn’t help their chances.
The point is that they offered Quentin Goodin (who, yes, we all know is your favorite point guard in the class) on June 15th as well. They pushed for the early commit with Thornton which didn’t happen and then the 2015 reclassification happened.
From that point on, Winston was the #1 target. (Same situation for MSU prioritizing him)
The point is that there are still always going to be priorities and people aren’t dumb. If you tell a kid that he’s your guy at PG then you have to back it up. If you tell 5 point guards that they are your guy they are going to figure it out.
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For sure.
But then if we had “settled” for Goodin (I like him - not sure he’s really a PG), when we thought we had a great shot at both Thornton and Winston, people would criticize JB for that too.
Similarly, I’ll bet we could have gotten a commitment from Kyle Guy (Indiana kid who camped at UM, went to UVA, top 50-ish player who still played in the McD AA game), but had we done that we likely take ourselves out of the running for Battle and Langford - even though in retrospect, maybe we prefer Guy (or even Huerter) to Ibi Watson (though based on senior year video I think Watson had a chance to really surprise).
At the end of the day I think the talk about offers can be cloudy. There are some schools that text a half dozen AAU coaches over a live evaluation period and have ‘offered’ kids. That is a lot more like an invitation to visit than an ‘offer’.
Lets try to drive this topic back on track though… in terms of second-tier prospects that haven’t been offered and have been listing U-M, who would you like to see in on a visit? And one final thing, whatever happens with the final two scholarships could also have an effect on the priorities for 2017.
You may be right that you need to prioritize, but there is also such a thing as casting too narrow a net. Crean may have a hard time credibly showing the love to all 100 or so guys he’s offered, but I’d expect he’ll be rewarded with at least a few nice pickups from the bunch.
Back to 2017, anyone know if the staff is still looking at Djuricic. I’ll reiterate that I don’t love his game at all, but he appears to have had a big weekend – 24 pts (3/4 3pt, 7/7 FT), 5 rbs, 2 blk in a win vs Meanstreets and 12 pts 12 rbs in a close loss to King James.
Tillman, Tillman and Tillman.
What exactly do you mean by prioritizing Young to the exclusion of all others? If you mean offering Young and letting it play out for awhile before offering others, then that’s certainly risky in terms of Plan B guys, but that has to be balanced against the risk of offering a lot of guys, including those we find less desirable, and having them jump in and accept before the Plan A guys have made up their minds. If you mean not watching, evaluating, and keeping in at least some contact with Plan Bs, then that’s inaccurate, as we’re doing all of those things with guys like Tillman and Livers at Young’s position, and Gaines and Smith at other positions.
There are certainly valid criticisms of Beilein’s recruiting approach and results–Matt mentioned one in this thread (less head coaching direct contact than could/should be the case), and the results over the last few years have been less than optimal. However, simply asserting that having three guys with 2017 Michigan offers isn’t enough (and as you know, it’s actually four–Jordan Poole also has an offer (the first one we gave out in the class and clearly a Plan A priority), which he has accepted) misses nuance. We gave out more offers in the class of '16 than we’ve given out in any class I know of under Beilein–indeed, we gave out more on the first day Beilein gives out offers than we have for some entire classes–and that wasn’t especially successful.
Thus far, guys like Tillman, Livers, Gaines, etc. haven’t gotten offers from teams at our level. If/when they do, we’ll be faced with a choice. This happened last year with Ibi Watson–we didn’t have to offer until IU did, and then we moved quickly. We’ll see how this turns out.
I think this came up before, but the Anthony Gaines/Justin Smith interest is interesting as they would both bring something a lot of people have (correctly) harped on the roster lacking: wing athleticism. As @MHoops1 mentioned, neither is a great shooter (Smith shows more promise probably), but could be a slight shift in philosophy.
Some notes, links and scouting reports from this weekend
Food for thought:
Thanks, MattD. You’ve become a voice of reason on this board!
I sincerely hope that there is mutual interest in Kimani Lawrence. He would be an outstanding get.
Me too, he was always a guy I hope we went after along with teammate Jermaine Samuels. Highly ranked guys (top 50) who never had really impressive lists.
Only thing with Lawrence is he had a foot injury that I believe required surgery.
Video tape for reference
Perhaps watching Jordan Goodwin as well, was looking at Saddi’s Twitter account and noticed he was following Jordan.
Highlights I put together of Donnie Tillman vs. Indy Heat over the weekend
Jackson mentioned Beilein explained to him that he didn’t hear much from him during the season because Beilein concentrates on the players that are currently playing for Michigan. That’s a pretty damning statement. Recruiting has to get better but I don’t know how much better it can get with this type of attitude.
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I seen that - decided to refrain from comment.
I’m not in love with it, but it is important to at least include the whole quote from Jackson. Here it is:
“I didn’t talk to them as much during our seasons because, as Coach Beilein told me, he focuses on the players they have during the season,” he said. “I love their system and their style of play. Coach Beilein is a great coach, so that was no problem to me. If I went there he would focus on me, so what he’s doing is fine.”
The contact has been much more consistent this spring, he noted.
“They told me they don’t offer just anybody, so they must have seen something,” he said. “I liked it there, saw a practice and a football game. I really like the environment and the fans, and I really like the freedom in the offense.”
Again, I think Beilein needs to call more. To some kids, it really matters. I’m not sure it does in this case. And I’m not convinced that he won’t change, given new assistants and the recruiting struggles of the past few years.
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That’s fair maybe it should have it’s own topic and yes it is dedicated towards a 2017 recruit. I just have a hard time understanding how a coach can have this type of attitude to recruiting during the basketball season and certainly staying in touch.
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