That’s what I’m hoping for. As a Michigan fan I’m just setting my expectations low. It’s tough to recruit late, there are only so many players we’ll take available and in our timeline.
For some recruits NBA > “exposure” > Championships. In addition, in opportunity terms, for some recruits playing time > player development. As BP3 pointed out, Larranaga has sent a decent number of wings to the NBA and he’s been successful in a tough conference. He’s no slouch. Why get caught up in ranking coaches? It’s no different than getting wound up about ranking recruits. For every Caris, there’s an Ibi. If it were all about the coach, they’d all be Carises. Identifying talent and landing it is much more than half the battle.
If Beverly can play the two - and presumably we think he can, because we have plenty of guys at the 3/4 positions - then there’s a starting job waiting for him at Michigan, on a team that just went 30-7, no less. Beilein has never been shy about starting talented freshmen and playing them extensively - see Manny Harris, Tim Hardaway, Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson, Trey Burke, Derrick Walton.
If four draft picks (two second rounders) in eight years is your definition of “decent,” I won’t quibble, I’ll just say Beilein’s track record is much better.
Larranaga is fine - he’s done a pretty good job at Miami, but again, we’re talking about maybe the 7th or 8th best program in his own conference (Duke, UNC, Virginia, Louisville, ND, Syracuse, FSU - all arguably better).
I think Beilein does a far better job of showcasing talent for the NBA, for several reasons - (1) our offense is exceptional; (2) he really stresses fundamentals, and encourages kids to shoot the ball; and (3) he runs a lot of pick and roll, which translates to the NBA game.
Miami is fine. Michigan is a far better option. And frankly, if you posed that question to college basketball fans who didn’t root for either school, I’ll bet they would conclude the same.
At this point I’ll venture to say your argument is a lot more interesting to you than most anybody else.
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A recruit wasn’t prioritized by a school. It’s not unthinkable for that kid to feel hesitant about going there, regardless of their track record. He may feel like he’s a last resort. Might feel that the school will recruit over him in the next class. Or that he won’t be given a fair shot at playing time as the staff obviously don’t like his game as much as others considering they didn’t prioritize him. None of these feelings are illogical IMO.
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I could be wrong with my history because at this second I don’t want to research it, but Xavier Simpson possibly had the same argument when he was a HS senior–not to contradict your point, bacon, but to provide context. It just falls where it does. It always seems to be convergences of events, timing, emotion, family, greed, fit, ego, aspiration, advice, and intangibles.
Simpson was still a late summer/fall commit before the first signing day. Not a kid where we pretty much waited til the postseason to turn up the heat. The staff was also to tell Simpson “we are offering you and we will take you over Cassius Winston right now.”
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Dude would debate if the sky is blue. It is quite tiresome.
But we also didn’t have room for Beverly until
now, which is hardly an insignificant detail.
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Absolutely. I’m not critiquing Michigan for not offering him. They didn’t have room. I just think fans thinking Beverly should just push us right to his list of contenders after we start showing serious interest is way more illogical than a recruit going to Miami over Michigan when the latter hasn’t been prioritizing him until the end of the process.
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Some of this hair-splitting seems unproductive when we know so little about Harlond’s thought process, family needs, and the dynamic between him and other coaches offering. Loved his game, though.
This. Technically, Michigan still doesn’t have room for Beverly. Yet some would rather post in this thread every time there is news on Beverly to crap on Michigan for letting him get away.
FWIW, I prefer Poole, myself. If Poole stayed (or if Poole does the unthinkable and comes back), then this whole conversation post-Bajema signing is moot.
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How sure can Beverly be that Poole isn’t coming back?
Would he even be Michigan’s preferred option then or is he #2 behind Quinones and would have to wait until he visits?
The way I see it is Beverly could take an offer he likes right now or prolong the process and hope for something even better. But the even better part is at least somewhat subjective and is not guaranteed.
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I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in this thread cramping on Michigan? I’ve seen a lot of people trying to explain the mechanics of what happened in Beverly’s recruitment.
Fact will always be that Michigan had multiple chances to make a run at Beverly early in the process. It never did. That apprehension early in the process probably cost UM at least a chance of trying to get an OV scheduled and Beverly ended up finding a spot he was comfortable with.
Some people really liked Beverly’s game and are disappointed he didn’t come but that is basically what happened.
One other thing I would add is that being an instate kid hurts a bit here. If Beverly was from Tennessee or something there would be no reason that Michigan would know about him so it would make more sense to come in late.
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It is possible to hold two thoughts:
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Michigan sensibly didn’t offer Beverly months and months ago because they preferred other players (we will see if they were right to do so) and understandably didn’t anticipate the potential loss of both Poole and Brazdeikis
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Michigan passing Beverly over for other recruits conceivably alienated him somewhat, but certainly gave other programs a head start on his recruitment
As to the rest - I’m not going to conclusively declare a school choice a kid makes as “wrong” given that they and their family have thought longer and harder about it than anyone here.
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The way I look at his game and the way Miami want’s to play faster I could see this just being a case of better fit/offense to showcase what Beverly can do. Seems a good fit for him and I hope he lights it up and kick’s Duke’s butt each time he plays them.
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Pretty much reiterates what I said. The style of Miami and many of the teams in the ACC fit him. He plays better in high tempo offenses because he’s a really good athlete and finisher. And outside of Virginia I think most teams like to really get up and down in that conference. So the overall tempo every game is good for him. He loves playing out of pick and rolls in the half court which does fit Michigan, but Michigan doesn’t run nearly as much as Miami so stylistically I think Miami was a better fit.
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I think this is a good argument.
None of us know what the Michigan coaches have told him.
If the message is, “We want you to come visit, and we may be able to offer you, but we need to see how some things play out first,” I wouldn’t blame him at all for committing to Miami - too much uncertainty in that message.
If the message is, “We want you to set up a visit, we’re going to offer you, and we now have a starting spot open at the two guard that we think you would be perfect for,” I think he made a mistake by not at least visiting, hearing what the coaches had to say, and clearing the air about the lack of a prior offer if that’s indeed an issue for him.
Whatever, it’s done at this point. I certainly echo the post below hoping that he kicks Duke’s butt every time they play.
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A. His goal is the NBA. I know this for a fact. Miami does zero to achieve that.
B. UM didn’t have room until now. Particular situations dictate particular scopes of thinking & reasonings.
C. Beverley didn’t show he was a top, top recruit until this past year. He was always a nice top 100 type of kid. Now he’s, I’d argue, a top 25-40 kid. That’s new. Why would UM offer if they had better options in Watts, Bajema ect…? If Beverley played like a top 20 kid all junior year, I assure you he would have been offered.
If he felt comfortable with Laranaga, cool. Loved the campus and wanted warm weather, awesome good for him. But the style of play, conference stuff is straight silliness.
Miami, in no way, can go up against Beilein in a scheme, development, pro production, style of play argument and come out on top. Who cares if a team runs if the overall production of the players and program isn’t beneficial to becoming and NBA player?
I’m happy the kid is happy. He did what he wanted. But some of the reasoning on here, true or not, is extremely flawed.
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He may think that Miami and many of the teams in the ACC play high tempo offenses, but it’s not actually true. Here are the adjusted tempo rankings of the teams in the ACC:
North Carolina 6
Duke 20
North Carolina St 39
Florida St 121
Wake Forest 179
Boston College 192
Louisville 199
Pittsburgh 206
Miami 208
Georgia Tech 225
Clemson 252
Syracuse 257
Notre Dame 298
Virginia Tech 334
Virginia 353
Apart from Tobacco Road, the ACC is not packed with pace-pushing programs. Now it’s understandable that people might confuse Duke and UNC with the entire ACC, since Duke alone gets about 95% of ESPN’s college basketball coverage.
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