This is true. I see Cincinnati at the same level.
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Have to wonder when Matta gets releasedā¦
Donāt want Mack thereā¦
The 2017-2018 season will tell the tale for Thad Matta at Ohio State. I wonāt be surprised if he makes it through to coach in Columbus another 5-10 years. Much has to happen for that to occur. Odds do seem against it.
And yes, I agree on Chris Mack. He exudes quality.
I think Mack has been good, but is he any better than his Xavier predecessors Matta and Miller? And donāt get me wrong, Matta has been (until lately) outstanding. But since Trey Burkeās freshman year, I would say weāve been every bit as good, and probably a bit better.
Miller is an elite recruiter, but hasnāt quite taken that next step.
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I canāt argue your assessment.
Good article. Seems Mich is in the thick of it if not a leader. I like his game and think he could be a better Irvin(more athletic).
From what I gather, I wouldnt say that we are the leader (considering the source of the MLive article probably has a UM slant), but hope that we remain in the thick of things. IU picking up the recruiting scares me more than OSU. He would definitely be a great pickup if we manage it. I just have a bad feeling that he will slip between our fingers.
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For those who feel that being the first to offer means a lot, this is the reality.
Kid can go. Super high ceiling. Hope we can land him.
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I donāt think winning at Xavier and beating teams in the tourny is an easy task. Its a different style then what Matta put together. I like the rosters and style Mack is putting together. Love that he made something out of Sumner, Reynolds and beat us out for Bluiett, Scruggs ect.
Mack seems to be rolling but you put him at Michigan and recruiting goes to a different level, imo. Like Collins too. Give him a Cormac Ryan and Nance and thats an impressive squad.
I generally like your stuff, but I disagree with a lot here.
Xavier plays in a relatively weak conference. I donāt think they would have won the Big Ten, for example, at any point in the past five years. And this year they were an #11 seed. Theyāve won some tourney games, but theyāve never really been a contender to win it all or anything under Mack. So, when projecting what he could do in the Big Ten, itās exactly that - a projection. I wouldnāt say heās done any better at Xavier, for example, than either Matta or Miller, and he hasnāt done any better there than JB did at WVU or heck, than Crean did at Marquette.
I like what heās done, sure. On the other hand, Reynolds has character issues and Sumner was a guy we just didnāt recruit. Also, itās just flat inaccurate to say he beat us out for Blueitt. We moved on from Blueitt when he rescheduled a visit to go to UCLA instead, he committed there, he decommitted, and we took a pass the second time around before he wound up at Xavier.
Mack is, actually, a worse recruiter than Amaker was at Seton Hall. Everyone thinks hiring the young, exciting, āfreshā coach is going to lead to great recruiting. I donāt think it will. To me, Collins would be a far better fit (and would probably be successful) because he would understand the culture, coming from both Duke as a player and NW as a coach. Plus, he probably knows more about coaching than Mack, given that Doug is his dad.
If you give Collins a Ryan and Nance, heās probably got enough talent to finish in the top 4 in the conference. NW was a nice story this year, but there were times (most notably against MSU, and against Wisconsin in the BTT) where they didnāt look like they were at the same level as some of the better Big Ten teams. Sure, they beat us by two in Evanston, but you play that game in Ann Arbor and I think we win by 10. Theyāre an up and coming program to be sure, but Iād be shocked if they are ever a Final Four contender. Time will tell - unless of course Collins bolts first.
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Villanova, Butler, Marquette, Creighton, Seton Hall & even Providence arenāt slouches in the least. I donāt know how āweakā that conference is. Maybe not as strong as some power 5 conferences, others stronger, imo. They came to AA and beat us by 30. Beat Maryland, Arizona and FSU in tourney play. Itās a damn fine program right now. They havenāt been a favorite to win it all, but neither has anyone other then the favoriteā¦Also tough to win a league with a national champion involved.
Sean Miller, John Beilein, Tom Crean & Thad Matta all are power five conference winning coaches after their stepping stone jobs. The latter two have come upon rough times now but comparing Mack to those four isnāt half bad. To outperform them would be pretty remarkable at a non power 5 job in OSU/B1G country.
Iām not saying we recruited Summer. I like that Mack DID recruit him and turned him into a potential pro, same w/ Reynolds. Found talent, used talent. Iām aware of the Bluiett recruitment. Didnāt mean literally outrecruited us for him, just that he has landed the top 50 type kid but has also landed high ceiling/project kids and made it all work.
All in all, both Chris Mack or Chris Collins would be homerun hires for Michigan. I think both would be tremendous recruiters for the program. I donāt know that I have a preference but I think making a case against either one is silly, imo (and no offense 
)
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And btw, Staying on Jerome Hunter topic, Snow still thinks itās UM/Xav out in front for him. Dosent think heās a Duke/UK/Kan recruit at all.
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Iām more sold on Collins than Mack, but either would be good.
With that said, Iām also not the least bit convinced either would become superstar recruiters for us. We havenāt had a McDonalds All American since Daniel Horton, and he was the first since Lavell Blanchard. So two McDonalds All American kids in 18 years.
Three years ago, we both would have said Shaka Smart would be a home run hire for a program like Michigan or Texas. John Groce looked like a great candidate, too, after his 2012 tourney run. You just never know for sure until it happens. Iām not personally convinced Archie Miller is going to be awesome, but weāll see.
I am convinced that Archie Miller is a very good coach at a great basketball school. I just have a hard time seeing that not working out well for IU.
As for Mack/Xavierā¦weāll be recruiting against them for many players in the years to come (and lets not start the Mack replacing Beilein crap that always gets way off topic). Weāre not a blue blood, so we - like the majority of the schools in the country - have to hope to hit on at least one 50-100 guy each year to outplay that ranking. I could see Hunter being that guy in Maize and Blue.
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You mean 16, in a game where we had a higher win probability with 10:00 left in the second half via kenpom?
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They blew the doors off of us. It wasnāt competitive at any point in the game.
Thatās not accurate. The score was 61-59 with just under 10 minutes to go. We led much of the first half, and were tied 32-32 at the under 4 minute TV timeout.They pulled away late. āNot competitive at any point in the gameā is just flat wrong.
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Oh, I guess I consider a game in which weāre expected to win with ten minutes left competitive at some point in the game. Either way, they definitely did not beat us by even close to 30 (Where did you even get that numberā¦)