@silverblue: I mentioned the camp thing above. Important grain of salt to consider about camp… none of us were there looking for Cole Bajema, and probably hadn’t even heard of him. At a camp with 8 teams playing at one time and no rosters, if someone doesn’t jump out at you it is hard to necessarily notice them.
Long time Michigan fan, been following your forum for a while, recently signed up as a subscriber. One of the reasons I signed up because your forum is the best there is when it comes to Michigan hoops. Contributions from people like @silverblue makes it interesting to follow. I will pay for a 3 months subscription for @silverblue and hope he keeps going afterwards. Let me know how to pay for his subscription.
Dssstar, I appreciate your generous offer! I must decline because I WILL be signing up, hopefully today! I’ll send you a PM with further info! Thank you SO much! Right now I’m on the golf course, walking, trying my darnedest to stay ahead of a gentleman in a cart trying to run me down from behind! I refuse to believe anyone can play faster than this old coot (me)!
I was at Final Four… still recovering from loss. If we only could have hit our open 3 point shots against Villanova, we may have stayed in the game.
I love Nunez shooting form (high release point). Bajema release point is not as high, so may be more susceptible to blocks or needing to change his form in college. Would love for Dylan to do a comparison/assessment of Nunez’s 3point form versus Bajema’s.
Frankly, this is one of the reasons I’ve hesitated to sign up. I’m guessing the word “looser” is just a misspelling of the word loser. If that’s the case, and you’re not just poking fun, it might be wise to think before you post. Perhaps you did. Perhaps you feel that for your four bucks a month you’re entitled to say rude and unproductive things like this. It’s not usually a good idea to make judgements about others’ situations. And name calling is usually not a nice thing to do. If you WERE just poking fun, typically a smiley face helps to make that point.
I was just feeling really good about the wonderful and generous offer by Dssstar. He’s the kind of guy I would love to associate with at a Michigan Basketball event, or on the golf course, or over a few cocktails, or on a sports forum. Again Dssstar, thank you.
I was just about to join as a premium member because I really do appreciate Dylan and the outstanding content he provides. I also appreciate his sending me (us) the video clips above. I agree with those who say this is the best site in sports. So, thank you Dylan. I will send you a PM to get instructions as to how to “join” as I really do appreciate (almost) everything this site has to offer.
As for you, JJ3, if you were serious in calling me a loser, I guess I just have to remember the advice of Dr. Wayne Dyer, “What you think of me is none of my business.”
Finally, since this is the Cole Bajema thread, any further conversation I need to have with JJ3 I’ll do via PM. Sorry for taking up your time guys.
Yeah, Dot, I was just commenting as to what Sam said. He also said a lot of great things about the young man that I tried to mention. I appreciate your info and your insight as I think you know a whole lot more about what’s happening than most folks do. I’m guessing you were at the college practice camp, or know those insiders who were. Thanks!
Golf, drinks, talk about Michigan Basketball? That sounds like Heaven on Earth!!!
I’m in CT. Lot’s of golfers and drinkers here. Not as many Michigan Basketball crazed fans who want to talk about Bajema or Jalen Wilson or watch Iggy’s games from last year here!
Worries if we offer Bajema, do we still have room for Cole Anthony? He is a once in a decade type of player that I think Michigan has a shot at.
My speculation is that most recruiting shuts down for 19 if we get a commit from Bajema and focus on 20. We still maintain recruiting for the 19 studs though - i.e Anthony or others that might come out of the wood works. It’s how we essentially operated with Bamba, Brown and Barrett. We will find room for one of those guys
Yeah, at this point we should probably disregard those tweets. For all I know he might have been trying to drive traffic to his Twitter page.
BTW, for those who couldn’t watch the video posted by the Des Moines Register, try a different browser. Firefox didn’t work for me, but Internet Explorer did.
Yeah, I thought it might be a browser problem. I tried to open it in explorer but I’m just not very adept at that sort of thing. I’m pretty computer/internet illiterate so…well, I’ll keep trying. Thanks, man!
Yeah, you always have to fight confirmation bias when evaluating commits and recruits you think you might get, but I actually think that the converse of what you described is true in this case. I think the initial lukewarm reactions from some could have been influenced by his nonexistent ratings and lack of scholarship offers. I, for one, was immediately intrigued by what I saw and actually signed up here mainly to watch Dylan’s Bajema footage and read up on him. I thought to myself, “This looks like a kid who, in three years, is going to put up 38 points in a tournament game to upset a 3 seed and everybody’s going to ask how everyone missed the boat on him.”
That said, it can be difficult to have confidence in your evaluation of a player when the people who do it for a living seemingly all disagree with you. Now that schools like Virginia and Xavier have offered, and recruiting analysts have chimed in, it validates what some of us were thinking to begin with: that this kid can play.
I think the concerns about his athleticism are overblown, at least on the offensive end (not sure about defense). He’s not vertically explosive at the moment, but that’s bound to improve with maturity, and his length will help offset any residual deficiency in that area. His all-around athleticism seems pretty good to me. I think “fluid,” a word others have used, is a good way to describe him. He seems pretty agile in the way that he knifes into the lane and makes adjustments around the basket. His first step seems to be somewhere between fine and good, especially in the most recent videos, and I think his skillful ball-handling allows him to play quicker than he might actually be.
I will be really surprised if Beilein passes on him and I hope he doesn’t unless a blue chip suddenly falls in our lap. I’ve actually reached the point where I’m a little nervous that he could. It could be Larry Nance Jr. all over again, which was one of Beilein’s biggest recruiting mistakes. He did well to discover Nance, but ultimately made the wrong call in offering Bielfeldt over him. As each day passes without us offering Bajema, I fear that it could happen again. Dither too much and it could open the door for other schools, especially Virginia, although Beilein’s offense should be much more attractive than Bennett’s for a kid like Bajema.
Anyway, we’ll see. Maybe I’m getting a little carried away based on limited footage and a small sample size against quality competition. I’m fascinated to see what Beilein does.
