Jeeze, that’s lame. He is now on a really struggling team with not a real bright future ahead. Maybe his dad shouldn’t have pushed him away from us.
Of coarse Beilein has been wrong, just like every other coach in college basketball. It happens occasionally.
5.7 boards a game. Not bad, but not awesome. He’s pretty unathletic, too.
Not athletic at all
Not lame, different people have varying opinions is all.
With regard to Beilein, he’s been wrong more than occasionally the last 3 years. His hit rate is less than 50%. Being candid, he’s wrong more than he’s correct these days.
First of all, I just reread my comment and “great” was meant to be “greater.” My bad there. Secondly, I’ve watched 'Cuse play a couple times this year and while I think he has the physical tools to create inside baskets for himself more than he does, he sure isn’t out there creating for anyone else. I don’t really know how much he’d help us this year, especially since he’s aided by two players in the top 40 (and one in the top 5) for assist rate in the entire country. I’d still obviously rather have him than Ibi though.
I guess it’s a little bit of justice given how he screwed us that the school he chose over us has practically zero chance of making the tourney, graduates 2 of their top 3 players, and has a very mediocre recruiting class coming in. I bet Nebraska fans are laughing (and sorta crying) at Andrew White for jumping from a 9-11 team all the way up to a 12-9 team.
True.
But Wagner and Wilson may turn out to be big gets.
And I do like the 2017 class a lot going forward.
2018 will be very important. I like DeJulius. Let’s see who else we can get.
Matthews and Bluiett can create their own shots…of course they’d be useful
What difference does that make? The staff was aware of him, and there are bunch of B1G schools within a 3 hour drive of Kalamazoo, if that even matters. None offered. Maybe they didn’t evaluate him well or maybe it was academics. Who knows?
Not with any degree of efficiency. Zak Irvin and Derrick Walton can create their own shots too if you’re willing to live with 40% from the floor and 30% from three. Obviously, one of those guys would help us right now, but only because we’ve had so many recruiting misses over the years. Most of the top guys we targeted at the wing position from 2014-2016 would be way better options - Booker, Blackmon, Dozier, Kennard, Langford, Battle, Seth Towns, and I’m probably missing a few names.
If we had signed Mathews in 2014, everyone would have argued we had settled for a lesser player.
Small sticking point with Matthews/Bluiett as HS prospects. I certainly wouldn’t have argued that we settled, as I was huge on Bluiett out of HS, and thought he was the better prospect notwithstanding my preference for athleticism.
Just for fun decided to look up Damien Jefferson. Putting up 5.5pts, 2rebs, 1asst, 49.4% FG and 21.1% from three on 12 minutes per game at New Mexico.
Assist rate of 15.6. I’d kill to have Ibi putting up those numbers right now.
He had academic issues though, so this one I understand.
Walton would not be a 40/30 guy on Bluiett/Matthews volume and I’m not talking ball screen offense. Don’t think Zak would, either.
I mean I don’t even know how to take this question seriously
Who knows. Mathews isn’t exactly facing stellar competition at Rhode Island. I’d have to see what he’s done against the 4-5 good teams he likely faces every year. Without first looking, I’ll bet it’s not awesome.
No, I agree, Blueitt was always a top target, as was Vince Edwards for awhile (who I think is OK, nothing awesome).
I know that we all have opinions and that we can analyze aspects of this program independent of recent on-court results, but the animosity on this board across several threads since the win last night surprises me. I certainly understand it after the loss at Illinois, but just a bit surprised at it over the past 9 hours.
Can’t use this excuse for Sumner or Daniels, however. Wonder what the narrative will be if guys like Elliott and Haurdy blow up.
Animosity? The posts have been rather mild and almost friendly in nature. You should’ve been around a few years back if you think this is bad.
My surprise is more based on timing than intensity.
Those two guys are good, for sure.
But come on, hindsight is 20/20. It appears no Big Ten program offered Daniels. I think it’s fair to say everyone missed on him. Nice find for Utah.
You’re on record saying we should offer Elliott, right? But would you say the same about Hardy? The reality is there are a LOT of talented high school players, and talent evaluation is an inexact science at best. Our staff has a tremendous record of finding gems that other teams overlooked. That’s not even remotely debatable, right? They’re not going to get every one right. No one does.
As I see it, you can only spend so much time scouting and recruiting players. We focused on a lot of elite guys from 2014-2016. Our evaluation of Plan B guys no doubt suffered. I think we’re now back to our sweet spot - the top 50-100 with an occasional run at a recruitable five star - and it should pay dividends.
And while the past two years have been rough at times, last night was at least a reminder the program isn’t on life support just yet.