College Basketball Open Discussion

I mean if you know how the recruiting world works, most of the time Crystal Balls don’t come from out of nowhere. Every CB was in for Michigan. The kid and/or people around him were telling others that he was going to Michigan. We even had our own @johnmiller receive a report directly from JC’s brother and cousin saying he is coming. He doesn’t owe it to anyone to let them know ahead of time and obviously he chose to do that so he could fulfill his stated intentions of “shocking the world.” But reports were that the Michigan staff was pretty confident they’d land him.

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I hope Josh Christopher does well and has the individual success he needs to make it to the NBA. OTOH, I will not stop myself from laughing when Arizona State loses games they shouldn’t. Bobby Hurley is a boorish donkey that I cannot stand, and that isn’t even tapping into the Duke/Fab Five stuff. He’s just a demonstrative baby on the sidelines.

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So it’s inference, outside of a message board post?

Gonzaga got a late add as this player just graduated early. I have a hard time seeing him contribute to their roster but still interesting. I take it there isn’t anyone that signed with Michigan that could graduate early and be added to the team?

Sure. You can call it what you want. I use the term played if someone tells someone something and does something different. JC viewed it as a fun part of the recruiting process to keep people on their toes and create suspense for his announcement. He is entitled to do that. It’s his life and he can have fun with it. Fans are crazy and I’m sure his intentions were to play the crazy fans and trick the recruiting insiders. But coaches spend a lot of time and energy recruiting you, so it has the likely unintended consequence of tricking those coaches too.

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But there is not story that shows he did that?

I’m not arguing with you, I’m genuinely curious as to the origin of this rather prevalent narrative.

the idea that college hoops excess revenue would be split equally amongst players on all 351 D1 teams is beyond insane. I mean the top 6 conferences include 76 teams. Throw a bone to some others like Gonzaga and BYU and Houston and San Diego State and you probably get to somewhere around 85 teams responsible for > 95% of revenue generation in the sport and they only get like 20-25% of the money handed out? Seems bizarre and poorly designed. Then again, if it went through being the last man on scholarship at somewhere like Arkansas Pine Bluff just got a whole lot more valuable than it used to be.

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I agree with a lot of what’s being said. I wish Christopher all the best and will follow his career because he’s an interesting player who has crossed through my field of view as a Michigan fan. No ill will to him personally and I think he’s a very talented kid.

I do think he “played” Michigan a bit and forced us to scramble some. I guess all is fair in recruiting wars but I do think there’s something to your word. Contrast the way he handled things to Todd. While Todd “committed” to Juwan, they were in constant contact, they talked at his games, he made it clear that he hadn’t made a decision yet, Michigan continued to pursue other players just in case, etc.

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Really? Amazing how people can just lose all critical thinking and/or compassion over this stuff.

Read from that what you will. A ton of respectable insiders that aren’t wrong very often ALL had their CBs in for JC except for one guy who changed his pick less than an hour before he announced.

No recruiting insider is going to bash a kid or their sources after the fact so you take from that what you will. But the good insiders usually don’t put in the CBs until they have good Intel from reliable sources.

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I’m now a middle-aged person, and Josh Christopher kept me up until 11:24pm on a weekday. For that I got a him narratilng his own committment video in a voice had all the thrill and excitement of a voicemail message. So good luck to him and his Big Branding Adventure. DGAF, but I’m sure that given the choice location he picked that his monotone voice will reverberate across the – well not the nation, I guess, or even the west – but perhaps across the Pac 10? If there are that many people paying attention to Pac 10 basketball lately. Dunno; not my problem.

I am totally ok with the laughter towards someone who made so much about building his brand and then goes to Arizona State to play for a mediocre team with almost zero presence in the national basketball scope.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on board with rooting against people solely because they chose a different school (I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m happy to see Jalen Wilson succeed after the injury last year), but this is a bit different. I also don’t think calling him a bad player or whatever makes much sense.

And yes, I 100% admit to being salty about what a perfect fit he would’ve been on this team and the impact that this has on my thoughts.

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Josh Christopher is a fun player, but. . . I dislike Bobby Hurley more.

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Killer contest between Seton Hall & Marquette. A classic.

Kansas got a big win on the road at Texas Tech(yes not as intimidating this year). Still for not a star studded Kansas team they still find ways to grind out games. Better squads have won on the road in hostile territories as well.

Several Michigan targets in that game. Wilson, Burnett, Peavy. Great grind it out game with good defense by both teams. Wilson did not have a good game.

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McLung had a very McClung kind of game. Not intended as a compliment.

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Carton anticipating the pass and finishing @ 1:20 is one of my favorite plays so far this season.

Matt Haarms with a nice bucket, then an immediate fix of the the ‘do for BYU. I guess there are worse habits. I’ll bet that used to drive Painter crazy.

1-3 Iowa State playing #8 West Virginia tough on ESPN U, up 43-34 with about 16 minutes left in 2nd half

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