All Things 2021 Gophers Basketball Recruiting Thread

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USAF said:
Every year we've had 7 guys ready to compete with the top tier of the B1G??

No.
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It doesn’t take 7 star players. It takes 4-5 dependable role players and an offensive system that features 2-3 guys that produce at an all big ten level. We’ve had enough talent to be way more competitive than we have. Not saying we should have won the big ten, but we’ve underperformed under pitino. That’s my point.
 

EG#9 said:
It's really disappointing to me that the same points keep being brought up as opinions when research I have done and posted on here has shown the opposite. Pitino has done far worse recruiting the state than anyone going back to at least Clem (and I know some about Clem's recruiting to say it was significantly better too but few links are available from that time and most was pre-Internet recruiting sites such as Rivals). If you'd look back through my posts or simply do it yourself through Rivals or 247's databases, you could easily see that the idea that we shouldn't expect better when it comes to instate recruiting is ludicrous. Monson did better under sanctions landing players like Rickert, Humphries, Bauer, and Holman (off the top of my head). Tubby landed absolutely everyone he wanted locally for his first couple years then the state went through a 3-4 year draught where only Joe Coleman (who he also landed) was considered a top prospect. One of the main reasons for discontent with Tubby both here (and internally with the Gopher Athletic Department) was his standing with Tyus, Rashad, and Reid before he was fired in addition to the downturn in his overall recruiting.

Pitino has now missed on every top 100 kid from Minnesota since Daniel Oturu (if he doesn't land Chet...fingers crossed) depending on the site you choose and the qualifications for Minnesota (does Kendall Brown count to you?) that's 8-10 kids. Depending on the site you choose Pitino has landed a grand total of 0 or 1 top 100 kids in those 3 classes (Isaiah Ihnen just sneaks in at 98 on 247)out of his 9 total commitments. The StarTribune published before Treyton Thompson committed that some obscene number of kids from Minnesota (16? 18?...again over doing the research for others look it up) had turned down Minnesota in a row. Again this included people I don't think should count that probably didn't have a committable offer (Roddy) and had extenuating circumstances (Madsen wanting to play with his brother).

Nobody is asking the Gophers to land every top 15 kid that comes through locally regardless of who the coach is. Nobody is asking them to land every kid from Minnesota who is ranked in the top 100. It's fair to expect any coach to win battles for maybe 1/3 of the true big time kids and then not lose kids like Dawson Garcia to Baylor or Jericho Sims to Texas. Again, if you can win another way great. If you can land out of state top 50 kids (many non Blue Bloods do!), great. If you can win with (usually) middling recruiting classes like Wisconsin, great. Pitino hasn't hit big on a lowly ranked kid in his entire tenure.

The 2020 class was much more disappointing to me than this one. Pitino was coming off his only NCAA tournament win, had just received an extension, and had a brand new practice facility to show off. No on Suggs, No on Garcia, No on Dainja, No on Carlson, No on Walton. No top 100 recruits and only Walton landed at a Blue Blood. I am certainly not surprised that now that he's on the hottest of hot seats he's recruiting like he is.

There's no reason to put the bar at Pitino for recruiting success for whoever eventually replaces him just like there's no reason to not hold Pitino to the standards of Tubby and Monson (!) before him.
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EG I enjoyed your history and looking back. My main point though is recruiting is different and more National now. Recruiting local in state kids is not a requirement for success. It’s obviously nicer and easier on your resources When you can land that kid, but recruiting landscape is just different now.
I’m all for criticizing our coach and he his earlier recruiting especially. I just don’t think the local kids not staying home is a valid reason to fire. His record and other things are plenty good enough lol
 



EG#9 said:
It's really disappointing to me that the same points keep being brought up as opinions when research I have done and posted on here has shown the opposite. Pitino has done far worse recruiting the state than anyone going back to at least Clem (and I know some about Clem's recruiting to say it was significantly better too but few links are available from that time and most was pre-Internet recruiting sites such as Rivals). If you'd look back through my posts or simply do it yourself through Rivals or 247's databases, you could easily see that the idea that we shouldn't expect better when it comes to instate recruiting is ludicrous. Monson did better under sanctions landing players like Rickert, Humphries, Bauer, and Holman (off the top of my head). Tubby landed absolutely everyone he wanted locally for his first couple years then the state went through a 3-4 year draught where only Joe Coleman (who he also landed) was considered a top prospect. One of the main reasons for discontent with Tubby both here (and internally with the Gopher Athletic Department) was his standing with Tyus, Rashad, and Reid before he was fired in addition to the downturn in his overall recruiting.

Pitino has now missed on every top 100 kid from Minnesota since Daniel Oturu (if he doesn't land Chet...fingers crossed) depending on the site you choose and the qualifications for Minnesota (does Kendall Brown count to you?) that's 8-10 kids. Depending on the site you choose Pitino has landed a grand total of 0 or 1 top 100 kids in those 3 classes (Isaiah Ihnen just sneaks in at 98 on 247)out of his 9 total commitments. The StarTribune published before Treyton Thompson committed that some obscene number of kids from Minnesota (16? 18?...again over doing the research for others look it up) had turned down Minnesota in a row. Again this included people I don't think should count that probably didn't have a committable offer (Roddy) and had extenuating circumstances (Madsen wanting to play with his brother).

Nobody is asking the Gophers to land every top 15 kid that comes through locally regardless of who the coach is. Nobody is asking them to land every kid from Minnesota who is ranked in the top 100. It's fair to expect any coach to win battles for maybe 1/3 of the true big time kids and then not lose kids like Dawson Garcia to Baylor or Jericho Sims to Texas. Again, if you can win another way great. If you can land out of state top 50 kids (many non Blue Bloods do!), great. If you can win with (usually) middling recruiting classes like Wisconsin, great. Pitino hasn't hit big on a lowly ranked kid in his entire tenure.

The 2020 class was much more disappointing to me than this one. Pitino was coming off his only NCAA tournament win, had just received an extension, and had a brand new practice facility to show off. No on Suggs, No on Garcia, No on Dainja, No on Carlson, No on Walton. No top 100 recruits and only Walton landed at a Blue Blood. I am certainly not surprised that now that he's on the hottest of hot seats he's recruiting like he is.

There's no reason to put the bar at Pitino for recruiting success for whoever eventually replaces him just like there's no reason to not hold Pitino to the standards of Tubby and Monson (!) before him.
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It doesn't make sense, then? Is there some other factor, that is missing?

I know some people hate even bringing it up .... but could Monson and Tubby have been more amenable to letting boosters "use every tool at their disposal, to convince a local player", if you catch my drift? And Pitino has sacked that practice?

Wild guess, no evidence, and likely no evidence could ever exist other than hearsay.
 


tmvander said:
Point isn't to quit trying its just to set realistic expectations. Me and the guys who are part of the problem will watch and cheer for our gopher teams who have been in the top half of Big Ten recruiting 6 of the last 8 years. We'll cheer for our 3 and 4* players. You guys go whine and demand a new coach ever 3 years because our starting lineup isn't all 5* players born and raised from MN.
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tmvander, not trying to be a disrespectful, but I am not a fan of excuses. Anyone one can make an excuse for anything. Better to problem solve and figure a way to not need an excuse. Anything can be turned around with the right approach.
 

benlaur said:
tmvander, not trying to be a disrespectful, but I am not a fan of excuses. Anyone one can make an excuse for anything. Better to problem solve and figure a way to not need an excuse. Anything can be turned around with the right approach.
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I think this thread is derailed enough so this is my last comment on the subject. I don't want to make excuses. I'm in agreement with a few others that this team can be very successful with non top 10 players and they certainly can be successful with players from other states.

I don't like my team losing. I don't like when top MN recruits go elsewhere. However, that isn't why I think this team is struggling, struggled, or will struggle. The problem is with in game management, not making changes, playing guys 40 minutes a game so they are gassed at the end, player development, etc.

Ok last point I'll make is getting Chet Holmgren or any other top MN recruits would be awesome and if it was acceptable I would go to church solely to pray for that to happen.
 


Biggsohnasty said:
Had to know someone would have this response.
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I did so because; it's good to keep the facts straight (I agree with pretty much everything EG#9 typed but felt compelled to point this out), and this fact bothered me when it happened due to what I saw (and see) as an inferior conference, and the fact it's a 'Wisconsin' team...
 
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Zeppelin Gopher said:
I'm sure you've been corrected already, but we showed STRONG interest and recruited Wright, Sims, and John very hard.
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Corrected by who? That’s a false narrative. Late to the party on all 3 and never built the relationship. Wright didn’t come AFTER he decommitted from Dayton.
 

bc2211 said:
A lot of reasonable takes in here. All things considered, however, I don’t buy the assertion that Pitino hasn’t assembled enough talent to win.

Every year, we have had 7 guys ready to compete with the top tier of the big ten, and yet we haven fallen flat for various reasons. If I had to pick one biggest concern, I’d say that almost every year, we have a fatal flaw at one position that costs us multiple games. I think it’s a separate issue than recruiting high level talent, because a good coach should be able to figure out how to develop role players or game plan to shield the weakness.
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I actually think he had enough talent to win last year and underachieved. Now I think the overall talent level of the conference (and college basketball in general) was down last year but Oturu and Carr were the two best players on the floor against Wisconsin and certainly 2 of the best 15 guys in the conference. If they just win their home games against Iowa, Indiana, and Maryland they are an NCAA tournament team. That should have happened. If they get one of the games like at Purdue or at Wisconsin then maybe they end up in the tie for first place. I'd argue that would have happened with a Nate Reuvers, Jericho Sims, or Zeke Nnajii in the front court next to Daniel Oturu instead of Alihan Demir. Again, it doesn't have to be a local guy, but we've had a buch of 4's come through Minnesota in the previous couple years and needed to take a Drexel grad transfer in the Spring to fill that position. Maybe you'd argue that Jarvis Omersa should have been ready to take that spot and point to development which is also a valid point and an interesting discussion/debate to have.

Thanks to Danville for the correction on Dawson Garcia as well. I knew that Garcia went to Marquette, don't know why I typed Baylor.
 

MplsGopher said:
It doesn't make sense, then? Is there some other factor, that is missing?

I know some people hate even bringing it up .... but could Monson and Tubby have been more amenable to letting boosters "use every tool at their disposal, to convince a local player", if you catch my drift? And Pitino has sacked that practice?

Wild guess, no evidence, and likely no evidence could ever exist other than hearsay.
Click to expand...

We've added a practice facility and had more opportunities to land local kids (could get 2 of the top 4 in the state a number of years recently and have everyone excited when that was more of rarity a decade ago). We've also seen a very noticeable downtick in out of state recruiting over the past 2-3 cycles. I am not sure what the answer is, but Pitino had that brutal year in state recruiting right before landing Oturu, then went back to missing on everyone again after Daniel's class. We never get the early commitment. Guys like Gabe and Kerwin stand out as lower ranked (for much of their recruitment) prospects who had offers from Minnesota for a long time, yet didn't commit at all or until later in the process. We haven't had anyone who just wanted to be a Gopher or just wanted to play for Pitino and got us off to a good early start since Oturu. If you look at 2022, I believe like 8 kids just from Minnesota have received offers, they have to know there is not room for them all, yet nobody has jumped to reserve a spot. Now that's not a great example because of Pitino's job status, but they could still commit now and decommit in the Spring if there's a coaching change and have that entire Spring shoe circuit to garner more attention.

I know for a fact Monson was handtied in his tenure at Minnesota with a demand to do everything by the book (including little tedious things) and Pryz was dismissed for a team rules violation that might have resulted in a day or two of early morning conditioning anywhere else. Is it possible Tubby was getting help? I guess so, but then you'd have to ask where the help was when he was going to the NCAA's and having to take Spring fliers later in his tenure or why those helping him land recruits couldn't pressure Maturi to let Mbakwe play or let Royce White remain at Minnesota?

For sure there is "cheating" going on in college basketball. The Gophers even had that relatively shady looking thing involving the Canarias Basketball Academy during Pitino's tenure: https://www.si.com/college/2016/03/09/foreign-tours-recruiting-canarias-academy-minnesota-seton-hall
 

EG#9 said:
We've added a practice facility and had more opportunities to land local kids (could get 2 of the top 4 in the state a number of years recently and have everyone excited when that was more of rarity a decade ago). We've also seen a very noticeable downtick in out of state recruiting over the past 2-3 cycles. I am not sure what the answer is, but Pitino had that brutal year in state recruiting right before landing Oturu, then went back to missing on everyone again after Daniel's class. We never get the early commitment. Guys like Gabe and Kerwin stand out as lower ranked (for much of their recruitment) prospects who had offers from Minnesota for a long time, yet didn't commit at all or until later in the process. We haven't had anyone who just wanted to be a Gopher or just wanted to play for Pitino and got us off to a good early start since Oturu. If you look at 2022, I believe like 8 kids just from Minnesota have received offers, they have to know there is not room for them all, yet nobody has jumped to reserve a spot. Now that's not a great example because of Pitino's job status, but they could still commit now and decommit in the Spring if there's a coaching change and have that entire Spring shoe circuit to garner more attention.

I know for a fact Monson was handtied in his tenure at Minnesota with a demand to do everything by the book (including little tedious things) and Pryz was dismissed for a team rules violation that might have resulted in a day or two of early morning conditioning anywhere else. Is it possible Tubby was getting help? I guess so, but then you'd have to ask where the help was when he was going to the NCAA's and having to take Spring fliers later in his tenure or why those helping him land recruits couldn't pressure Maturi to let Mbakwe play or let Royce White remain at Minnesota?

For sure there is "cheating" going on in college basketball. The Gophers even had that relatively shady looking thing involving the Canarias Basketball Academy during Pitino's tenure: https://www.si.com/college/2016/03/09/foreign-tours-recruiting-canarias-academy-minnesota-seton-hall
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There are very successful programs that do not cheat, have much higher academic standards, very strict team rules and never get their in state recruits. There are several ways to win. One is hiring the right coach. That is the most difficult part. That guy builds a culture , a identity from day one. Evaluation of how recruits will fit your culture, how the fit as a team is the priority. The best evaluators find guys that are 5 star in their eyes, not some internet site that has them outside the top 100. Then please play Defense !
 



SoMpls said:
Corrected by who? That’s a false narrative. Late to the party on all 3 and never built the relationship. Wright didn’t come AFTER he decommitted from Dayton.
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Everything you just said is incorrect, but believe whatever you want.

Wright didn't come after he decommitted from Dayton because we already has Washington in the fold. Wright had his official visit before Washington, the spot was his if he wanted it, and he chose to play it out. This has been covered a hundred times on here.

There are plenty of sticks to beat Pitino with regarding local recruiting. Wright-Washington is not a good example.
 

EG#9 said:
I actually think he had enough talent to win last year and underachieved. Now I think the overall talent level of the conference (and college basketball in general) was down last year but Oturu and Carr were the two best players on the floor against Wisconsin and certainly 2 of the best 15 guys in the conference. If they just win their home games against Iowa, Indiana, and Maryland they are an NCAA tournament team. That should have happened. If they get one of the games like at Purdue or at Wisconsin then maybe they end up in the tie for first place. I'd argue that would have happened with a Nate Reuvers, Jericho Sims, or Zeke Nnajii in the front court next to Daniel Oturu instead of Alihan Demir. Again, it doesn't have to be a local guy, but we've had a buch of 4's come through Minnesota in the previous couple years and needed to take a Drexel grad transfer in the Spring to fill that position. Maybe you'd argue that Jarvis Omersa should have been ready to take that spot and point to development which is also a valid point and an interesting discussion/debate to have.

Thanks to Danville for the correction on Dawson Garcia as well. I knew that Garcia went to Marquette, don't know why I typed Baylor.
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Bolded: wasn't the Big Ten considered to be the strongest it had been in quite a while, last season? I mean in the sense of number of teams in the tournament, and possibly number of tournament games it would win. So then I would hope, if you do think its talent level was down, that you also think overal talent was down everywhere!
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
Everything you just said is incorrect, but believe whatever you want.

Wright didn't come after he decommitted from Dayton because we already has Washington in the fold. Wright had his official visit before Washington, the spot was his if he wanted it, and he chose to play it out. This has been covered a hundred times on here.

There are plenty of sticks to beat Pitino with regarding local recruiting. Wright-Washington is not a good example.
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To bring it back to 2021, if Schetter does blow up, you know we will hear about it, but fact is we already had Thompson, so yes we didn't go hard at Schetter. We obviously wanted either a guard and another Big. More than fair to question the roster construction behind that decision, but you have to allocate resources accordingly. I like Tschetter, but I'm still more in the Treyton Thompson camp.
 

I think we could probably all agree PJ is a pretty good salesman?
Yet, he also misses on the top Minnesota prospects. In many cases
they just wanna go somewhere else. You want guys on your team who want to be there.
 

EG#9 said:
I actually think he had enough talent to win last year and underachieved. Now I think the overall talent level of the conference (and college basketball in general) was down last year but Oturu and Carr were the two best players on the floor against Wisconsin and certainly 2 of the best 15 guys in the conference. If they just win their home games against Iowa, Indiana, and Maryland they are an NCAA tournament team. That should have happened. If they get one of the games like at Purdue or at Wisconsin then maybe they end up in the tie for first place. I'd argue that would have happened with a Nate Reuvers, Jericho Sims, or Zeke Nnajii in the front court next to Daniel Oturu instead of Alihan Demir. Again, it doesn't have to be a local guy, but we've had a buch of 4's come through Minnesota in the previous couple years and needed to take a Drexel grad transfer in the Spring to fill that position. Maybe you'd argue that Jarvis Omersa should have been ready to take that spot and point to development which is also a valid point and an interesting discussion/debate to have.

Thanks to Danville for the correction on Dawson Garcia as well. I knew that Garcia went to Marquette, don't know why I typed Baylor.
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Agree to all of this, especially the roster last year. Sucks that curry went down again last year because demir wasn’t supposed to see the floor as much as he did.
I do fault Pitino for not being able to find 40 minutes where some combination of Jarvis, Demir, and ihnen (I know he’s not a true four, but spot duty) were not exploited for some obvious weakness. that’s a topic for another thread so I’ll stop there.

Re front court recruiting: zeke, reuvers, and sims is probably top 5 front court in ncaa. I don’t know if there’s a scenario where each lands at the same school because of available minutes. Certainly not with Oturu also in the mix.

edit: I know this is a 2021 recruiting thread, but I will not apologize for posting and holding a civil conversation about sports considering the current state of this board. I’ll hold off on non recruiting news from now on, however. Feels refreshing, doesn’t it?
 



Gophers expected to sign 6-11 Minnesotan Treyton Thompson today

When Glenwood, Minn., native Treyton Thompson committed to the Gophers last November, he was fully aware of the criticism surrounding the program for failing to recruit in-state talent.

The 2019 and 2020 classes were absent of players from the Gophers’ backyard, most notably huge misses on All-Americas Matthew Hurt, Jalen Suggs and Dawson Garcia.

Thompson will end that drought Wednesday when he signs his letter of intent to play for Richard Pitino’s Gophers to begin college basketball’s early signing period.

“I didn’t really feel like I belonged anywhere else,” the 6-foot-11 four-star forward said. “Minnesota has been my home for all my life.”

After starting high school in Alexandria, Thompson left to play at La Lumiere Prep in Indiana. That left him homesick, looking forward even more to playing college basketball back in Minnesota. He wants to change the narrative by leading more in-state prospects to stay home.

“I’m definitely going to try and start a movement,” said Thompson, who is joined in the U’s 2021 recruiting class by Sunrise Christian (Kan.) center Kenny Pohto from Sweden. “I’m just extremely excited to be here. I love the energy of the crowd. Been in Williams Arena so many times.”

www.startribune.com

Gophers expected to sign 6-11 Minnesotan Treyton Thompson today

Treyton Thompson, a 6-11 Glenwood native who has been playing at an Indiana prep, will sign with the Gophers.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 


per Shooter:

The Gophers have the ninth-best men’s basketball recruiting class in the Big Ten, according to 247sports.com. Michigan is No. 1, Wisconsin No. 4.

www.twincities.com

Charley Walters: Vikings’ Dalvin Cook was wise to accept contract extension

It turns out that Dalvin Cook’s decision to accept the Minnesota Vikings’ $63 million, five-year contract extension just before the start of the season was the right one. Had Cook, 25, the NFL’s ru…
www.twincities.com www.twincities.com

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shooter:

The Gophers have the ninth-best men’s basketball recruiting class in the Big Ten, according to 247sports.com. Michigan is No. 1, Wisconsin No. 4.

www.twincities.com

Charley Walters: Vikings’ Dalvin Cook was wise to accept contract extension

It turns out that Dalvin Cook’s decision to accept the Minnesota Vikings’ $63 million, five-year contract extension just before the start of the season was the right one. Had Cook, 25, the NFL’s ru…
www.twincities.com www.twincities.com

Go Gophers!!
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Not good.
 


Spaulding!No! said:
Not good.
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As of now, Wisconsin is 7 in ratings points, 8th in average rating. Their average commit is 92.22, ours is 91.53. As far as I can tell, we have no open spots to fill. But we should go out and grab another recruit or 2 to bring up our ranking 🙄
 



bfriedrichs10 said:
As of now, Wisconsin is 7 in ratings points, 8th in average rating. Their average commit is 92.22, ours is 91.53. As far as I can tell, we have no open spots to fill. But we should go out and grab another recruit or 2 to bring up our ranking 🙄
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Not sure it really matters, with COVID there has been such limited exposure this year, I'm not sure I would trust the rankings at all. Assuming Carr leaves we need a PG or Combo guard for next year.
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shooter:

The Gophers have the ninth-best men’s basketball recruiting class in the Big Ten, according to 247sports.com. Michigan is No. 1, Wisconsin No. 4.

www.twincities.com

Charley Walters: Vikings’ Dalvin Cook was wise to accept contract extension

It turns out that Dalvin Cook’s decision to accept the Minnesota Vikings’ $63 million, five-year contract extension just before the start of the season was the right one. Had Cook, 25, the NFL’s ru…
www.twincities.com www.twincities.com

Go Gophers!!
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Maybe Pitino can coach em up, overachieve in 3 years, and get em all the way up to an 8th place B1G finish!!
 

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