Thank you. That is encouraging on Cain’s end and thoroughly discouraging to hear that Poole is shooting so poorly.
Wouldn’t get too discouraged on Poole, he has the tools to be an upper tier guard in the B10, lack of athleticism prevents him from being an NBA type. The size/speed/comp level clearly impacted him in EYBL though as opposed to the NY2LA league with Playground Elite. That being said, I still think he’s an upper tier prospect. Has to fix shot selection and make better decisions, but the tools are there. ESPN probably has him a bit overrated at 58, while Scout a bit too low at #120. Think he’s probably a 75ish prospect right now based on what I’ve seen.
What players do you like more, Poole/brooks - Williams/Frazier(ill) - Davison/King(Wisc)? To me it’s a no brainier, just curious what you think.
On vacation–just read the flurry of activity in these threads. A few points on some of the things said:
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I agree with Matt that composite ratings are often flawed, especially for kids who are not consensus top 50. For top 50 kids who have been seen multiple times by all of the services included, composite rankings can be useful in reducing the impact of an outlier. For others, the opposite can occur–one or more services never see some lower rated kids, particularly those who don’t play on the big shoe circuits, or see them once, and their rankings can be wildly inaccurate, which skews the composite ranking.
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I disagree with Matt that a large part of Cain’s less than super offer list is that The Family didn’t make Peach Jam finals. Coaches had the opportunity to see him in 16 regular season eybl games, and the consolation Peach Jam tournament was very close in proximity to the finals. By contrast, Eli Brooks played off the grid–not on any of the 3 principal shoe company circuits, not against most of the top ranked kids, and not even at a traditional high school powerhouse–and had a much more impressive offer list. I’m not saying that Brooks will or will not be a better college player than Cain–there’s way too little film out there of Brooks from this summer to make any reasonable guess unless you’ve seen him live (and probably multiple times) and I haven’t. But if Brroks could garner offers from Villanova, OSU, Michigan and NC State playing at the ASU level he did, it’s hard to say that Cain’s problem was primarily lack of exposure.
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I think Matthews does impact on Cain’s ability to contribute at Michigan. Based on the roster, I think Matthews is going to play wing, not guard, at least early, and that’s where Cain would have to play. To change this, at very least Cain would have to be more ready to play early on than Poole, potentially pushing Matthews to guard. With the year at LaLuniere giving Poole experience against much higher level competition than Cain will face, I think that’s unlikely, though certainly not impossible, should both wind up at Michigan.
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Haven’t seen Brooks or Frazier live, so I can’t really provide an informed opinion. That being said, I like Jordan Poole individually more than all of the aforementioned players that I have seen, with Kobe King not far behind at all. I’m not a huge fan of Brad Davidson, but I don’t dislike his game either, but based on my live evaluation of him vs. the limited film I’ve seen on Brooks, I’d rather have Davidson.
Not a fan of Williams’ game, can’t speak on Frazier. Don’t think its a no-brainer at all, but based on my uninformed opinion of Brooks (haven’t seen him live), I’d probably give slight edge to UM because of Poole’s upside, but Wisconsin is right there.
I preface this by saying the lack of multiple upper tier offers for Jamal isn’t due 100% to lack of exposure, but it certainly is a legitimate factor. That being said, coaches did have the opportunity to see him in EYBL, but not for 16 games. Only 2 EYBL weekends were of the live evaluation variety. He broke out on the scene in New York where nobody had ever heard of him prior to that, so unless a coach was intending to watch the opposition, they simply weren’t watching The Family because they had nobody of note that would compel legit high major interest. After EYBL Indiana (the 2nd live evaluation period), he received offers from UM, Marquette, Florida State, Boston College…certainly a nice haul for someone that was literally unknown to anyone outside of Michigan prior to that.
Peach Jam is where the highest concentration of HM coaches were located in early July, followed by Vegas in late July. Jamal did not play in the Peach Jam, and played in Orlando during the late July period rather than Vegas. Literally 85-90% of all shoe circuit teams (Nike, Adidas, UA) were in Vegas during the late July period playing vs one another. That would’ve been a golden opportunity for him to showcase himself in front of HM coaches.
In terms of Matthews, sure it impacts his ability to contribute at Michigan. But where I disagree is that Poole being at La Lu will somehow give him an upper hand over Jamal in college. Jordan already played vs higher level comp the prior year with Wisconsin PGE, so he had a year’s experience prior to running with Mac Irvin this summer. And being frank, Jamal outplayed Jordan by an extremely wide margin in every facet of the game during EYBL this year. And that occurred with literally no experience vs. top flight competition on Cain’s behalf prior to this spring/summer. It’s not hard to see that Cain’s potential is considerably higher than Poole. I love Jordan Poole’s game, but my eyes saw what they saw, and the stats reflect the same. Bottom line for me, is that when both faced elite competition, Cain outperformed Poole considerably despite having a year’s advantage in terms of experience. With proper strength, conditioning, and development, definitely think Jamal can push Poole for playing time as a sophomore if not earlier.
Point taken on the 2 live evaluation periods for regular season eybl versus 4–my bad. It still seems though that coaches considering an offer to Jamal after those games could have gotten to see him later on if they had truly been interested–hence, my Eli Brooks example.
Jordan Poole did not play well in Peach Jam this summer. However, having seen him live at the Michigan camp three weeks ago, I think he’s going to be very good at the college level once, as you put it, he learns to stop his sometimes Stu like shot selection. A year at La Lu, where he will get better coaching than he has gotten, and will learn to play as a complimentary, rather than main, option, should help.
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I’m a big fan of Jordan Poole, but we have to be candid here. Jordan not only didn’t play well in Peach Jam, he didn’t play well for the entire EYBL season, whereas Cain did by all accounts. Playing vs legit comp is probably the best evaluation tool available to anyone.
Much like you though, I think Poole will be a really nice complimentary player at UM. Really like his all around game.
Fwiw. The Mac Irvin fire was an awful team this summer, and for the style of Poole, that doesn’t help one bit. At this point, he is not a drive and create type Of player and the “pg” on the team is Damonte Williams. I’ve seen him play multiple times and he is not a pg by any means. Poole seemed to play pretty well at the ny2la as his numbers are posted in his thread. I thought no he can be a very good player here.
I agree, but you have to account for the fact that Cain’s team (The Family) was not very good either, so any way you cut it, Jamal outplayed him by a wide margin.
The fact that you cite the NY2LA stats seemingly correlates to my point - put up great numbers vs weak competition, relatively speaking.
I’m a big fan of Jordan Poole, and think he will be pretty good at UM once he refines his body and his decision-making/skills.
Actually, this is a reason to credit composite rankings. Sure, one service might not see a kid, but it’s better to trust a system that uses multiple sources when presumably some number of them have seen kids than any one particular source when you don’t know who exactly that group has seen how many times. And presumably many non top-50 kids have similar issues. Of course, it helps for those with time to check the individual rankings to see what’s going on, but you have it backwards. This may be an argument not to use rankings at all, but if you’re going to use them composite ones are a good way to go unless you have a particular guy that you trust.
This is completely flawed logic in my opinion. It’s better to use a system with multiple sources when the great majority of said sources are utilized. But when the applicable pool is limited to a whopping 4, when 6 are available, then the margin for error is VERY HIGH because you’re only utilizing 2/3 of available resources. A composite that is generally considered reliable would not be swayed so easily by including/excluding ONE service or another, but the 247 ‘composite’ would literally swing 50-100 spots for some kids. That is insane.
When we don’t land either of the 5 stars on our radar will Jamal still be a take for the staff or would they rather move on to the 2018 guys? If they do take Cain what do you think the 2018 class will look like in terms of what positions we take?
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Still need another 4, as DJ will likely be given a handshake, leaving Livers as the only 4. Will prob need a 5 as well
Based on the early offers for Class of '18, it appears the staff is focusing on one player at the 2/3 swing position and one player who can play the 4 or at least 3/4 swing.
But I’m with you @tarverine, I’d be interested to see the staff’s evaluations of Cain vs Class of '18 candidates. Personally, the little info I’ve compiled, I don’t have a huge preference either way — I think Cain can contribute over his career, I think the prime '18 targets for the staff should be able to contribute from Day 1
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I’d be shocked if Cormac Ryan was an impact player from day 1, same thing with Johns. Spot minutes perhaps, but true impact is doubtful.
Carmody would be the most likely to be instant impact as of right now
Definition of “impact”?
More than spot duty, think something more than 8-10 mins per game.
As I said, that would be true for guys who are consensus top 50–everybody who is rating them should have seen them multiple times. For other kids though, and particularly late bloomers or kids who don’t play on the major shoe circuits, some of the services don’t see them at all (for example, rivals’ lead basketball recruiting guy nationally acknowledges that he has never seen Eli Brooks), and others may see them briefly once, which can lead to huge swings in a composite rating. It’s one thing if 3 services have a kid at 15 and 1 has him at 50, that changes his composite by about 10 places. By contrast, if a service hasn’t seen, or has barely seen a kid ranked by some in the 70-120 range and doesn’t rank him at all, or ranks him, say, behind 300+ guys they have seen, the impact on a composite ranking can be huge.
You are contradicting yourself a little bit here. If you feel that DJ Wilson is unlikely to earn a 5th year — and that is a reasonable stance — than in the 2018-19 season Livers, entering his 2nd year, will be the only experienced “4” on the roster along with freshman Johns/Hunter/whoever is recruited in the Class of '18 for that slot. By default the “freshman 4spot” will be asked to play 10-15mins/gm off the bat … which you stated in this thread as your definition of “impact player”
I get it, you don’t feel Johns is worthy of near 5* ranking, but if he’s a legit 40-65 ranked recruit, with that sort of depth chart opening, he will absolutely play 10-15mpg.