All Things Class of 2020 Recruiting Thread

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Is this the best in-state class in MN history?
 

Jaykay said:
Is this the best in-state class in MN history?
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Its gotta be!! Crazy! In all honestly I would be happy with any 1 of these top guys! But lets get 3 of these big dawgs!
 

Jaykay said:
Is this the best in-state class in MN history?
Click to expand...

Probably in depth, but wasn't the year with Tyus Jones and Rashad Vaughan a little better at the top? I was thinking Trent was in that group as well but I am sure I am wrong on that now. I thought there was a third who was really high. Reid Travis? Are guys who transfer to prep schools considered part of the MN class?

This is a great group, and one that could launch the program on the court and hopefully with elite MN recruits if it goes well.
 

This class is deep with at least two NBA type players. Probably the best of all time.
 


Holy Man said:
Probably in depth, but wasn't the year with Tyus Jones and Rashad Vaughan a little better at the top? I was thinking Trent was in that group as well but I am sure I am wrong on that now. I thought there was a third who was really high. Reid Travis? Are guys who transfer to prep schools considered part of the MN class?

This is a great group, and one that could launch the program on the court and hopefully with elite MN recruits if it goes well.
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Travis was the third. You could make the argument that class's top three was better than this top three (if you can decide who the third is beyond Suggs and Garcia), but I think this has to be best top to bottom.
 

Jaykay said:
Travis was the third. You could make the argument that class's top three was better than this top three (if you can decide who the third is beyond Suggs and Garcia), but I think this has to be best top to bottom.
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That class also had JP Macura who turned out to be a high level player and has appeared in the NBA.

2009 would also be in the conversation with Royce White, Rodney Williams, Sam Dower, Mike Bruesewitz, and also Mike Muscala who has had a decent professional career. The others were definitely solid college players though.


Overall this years class has the best depth but a few others have rivaled the top end talent.


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GopherND725 said:
That class also had JP Macura who turned out to be a high level player and has appeared in the NBA.

2009 would also be in the conversation with Royce White, Rodney Williams, Sam Dower, Mike Bruesewitz, and also Mike Muscala who has had a decent professional career. The others were definitely solid college players though.


Overall this years class has the best depth but a few others have rivaled the top end talent.


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Was Nate Wolters 2009 too?


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GopherND725 said:
Good catch yes Nate Wolters was a 2009 grad and definitely helps make a case for that class. I was looking at 247 sports class rankings and he wasn't listed so that's why I missed him. They have state rankings dating back to 2003 I believe.

https://247sports.com/Season/2009-...ankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


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Yeah... those get tricky with prep school transfers now. Vaughn’s not listed as a MN recruit for 2014. Kyle Washington is CT, etc.


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GopherND725 said:
That class also had JP Macura who turned out to be a high level player and has appeared in the NBA.

2009 would also be in the conversation with Royce White, Rodney Williams, Sam Dower, Mike Bruesewitz, and also Mike Muscala who has had a decent professional career. The others were definitely solid college players though.


Overall this years class has the best depth but a few others have rivaled the top end talent.


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Click to expand...
Wasn't Walters in the 09 class as well?

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So this weekend with all the official and unofficial visits and recruits attending the football game, should we hear at least one verbal commitment?
 

This is going to be long and negative, so fair warning.

With the news today on Ben Carlson scheduling his visits, it sure seem like the writing is on the wall that Pitino has missed out on yet another local recruit. Carlson is going to unofficially visit the "U" with a bunch of his D1 Minnesota teammates for the football game and then officially visit Wisconsin for 2 days that same weekend. He also has officials set up to Xavier and Stanford and an unofficial to Iowa State. This will be the 4th top 100 recruit in the past two classes from the state that will go elsewhere without even officially visiting Minnesota. If Jalen Suggs to Gonzaga happens, that will be number 5 and the 4th to leave for a non Blue Blood (Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, Duke, etc).

Now, Ben Carlson will be officially visiting Wisconsin and Pitino previously lost Nate Reuvers to Wisconsin. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Wisconsin offer to officially visit Minnesota? I honestly cannot remember a single player that fit that criteria. Pitino previously lost Theo John to Marquette. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Marquette offer to officially visit Minnesota? I thought you had to go all the way back to Wally Ellenson to find a player that fit that bill, but neither Rivals nor 247 shows a Marquette offer for Wally out of high school. So there might not be a Wisconsin player with a Wisconsin or a Marquette offer that has even officially visited Minnesota, much less committed to the Gophers, in over a decade and certainly never in the Pitino era. If you want to throw in the weird "offers" to Brad Davison and Tyler Wahl that Pitino made after he was sure they would go to Wisconsin this even looks worse. And what exactly was the point of those offers? Are you thinking that helps your relationship with Pulley or D1 to say you offered these kids? It devalues a Minnesota offer and allows the press to pile on you for even more "misses" than you've already had.

Steven Crowl has also scheduled official visits to Wisconsin and Iowa and is "considering an official" to Minnesota per Ryan James. I have heard conflicting reports on whether Crowl is a take for Minnesota, so this isn't really about Crowl. How many Minnesota kids have officially visited Iowa or Iowa State in the past few years? We've never actually lost a Minnesota kid with a Minnesota offer to either program, but Vaughn and Joe Coleman visited Iowa State, Crowl is visiting Iowa, and Iowa State might be getting a visit from Kerwin Walton. Who was the last Iowa kid with an Iowa or Iowa State offer to officially visit Minnesota? I don't think there has ever been one. Tubby was on the very outer edge of the Harrison Barnes recruitment. Pitino had AJ Green up for a game or two, but he was always going to play for UNI where his dad is an assistant coach and never took an official.

My point here is that you absolutely cannot lose recruiting battles to these schools for Minnesota kids if you don't ever return the favor and take kids they wanted out of their own backyard.

The one kid this staff was in really early on was Kerwin Walton. He's set up a visit to Arizona and is looking to set up a visit to Miami. For a year or more, Kerwin just had two high major offers in Minnesota and Purdue. There was a nice window to lock up a kid early that you believed in that was under the radar nationally. Either the staff was slow playing him and didn't really want a commitment at that time or they couldn't close the deal. Hopefully they still get Walton, but this is the type of recruitment you hope you have wrapped up before he breaks out this Spring given when you offered. This could still work out like Gabe who had the Minnesota offer and not much else forever and finally pulled the trigger, but Gabe never really broke out like Kerwin did.

If we review the current staff, there is not a lot of reason for optimism. When Rob Jeter was hired he was supposed to help in the Midwest and was specifically supposed to have some strong ties to the Phenom Hoops program out of Wisconsin that is currently loaded. So far, there hasn't been word of any real interest from any players off that roster. Kyle Lindsted had the strongest ties possible to Sunrise Christian and lost kids to Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Wichita State and didn't even get a visit from the best kids out of that program like Malik Hall. Before this past Fall/Winter, we had never even received a visit from an Ed Conroy recruit in the entire time he was on staff. There were literally so many swings and misses on officials during this time that he might have had one or two by now as I think Kobe Brown was a Conroy recruit. Regardless, he's been non-factor on the recruiting trail since his hire which is fine if you have a big time recruiter or two on staff which nobody in this group has shown to be yet.

If you can win while recruiting this poorly this wouldn't bother me that much, but it's now 5 of 6 seasons we've had a losing record in the B1G under Pitino. His best players have consistently been his higher rated recruits. Amir Coffey was a consensus top 100 kid and Jordan Murphy was like 116 on Rivals when they were the industry leader by a wide margin. Daniel Oturu was a consensus top 100 recruit. In his entire tenure, the only clear hit on a lightly recruited kid was Gabe Kalscheur. If you look at kids outside the consensus top 200 per 247 it's a laundry list of kids who you simply cannot win with from Gaston Diedhiou and Ahmad Gilbert to Josh Martin and Jamir Harris. Even Michael Hurt ended up outside the top 200 (I seem to remember him being ranked higher so they might be doing some Chad Ford esque revising on 247), so this has been an amazingly consistent theme for Minnesota. The best result Pitino has gotten from a player outside the top 200 is one or two years of adequate backup center play from Bakary Konate (I am obviously being very generous here) while taking up a scholarship for four years.

Something has to change, because the status quo isn't working.
 




EG#9 said:
This is going to be long and negative, so fair warning.

With the news today on Ben Carlson scheduling his visits, it sure seem like the writing is on the wall that Pitino has missed out on yet another local recruit. Carlson is going to unofficially visit the "U" with a bunch of his D1 Minnesota teammates for the football game and then officially visit Wisconsin for 2 days that same weekend. He also has officials set up to Xavier and Stanford and an unofficial to Iowa State. This will be the 4th top 100 recruit in the past two classes from the state that will go elsewhere without even officially visiting Minnesota. If Jalen Suggs to Gonzaga happens, that will be number 5 and the 4th to leave for a non Blue Blood (Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, Duke, etc).

Now, Ben Carlson will be officially visiting Wisconsin and Pitino previously lost Nate Reuvers to Wisconsin. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Wisconsin offer to officially visit Minnesota? I honestly cannot remember a single player that fit that criteria. Pitino previously lost Theo John to Marquette. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Marquette offer to officially visit Minnesota? I thought you had to go all the way back to Wally Ellenson to find a player that fit that bill, but neither Rivals nor 247 shows a Marquette offer for Wally out of high school. So there might not be a Wisconsin player with a Wisconsin or a Marquette offer that has even officially visited Minnesota, much less committed to the Gophers, in over a decade and certainly never in the Pitino era. If you want to throw in the weird "offers" to Brad Davison and Tyler Wahl that Pitino made after he was sure they would go to Wisconsin this even looks worse. And what exactly was the point of those offers? Are you thinking that helps your relationship with Pulley or D1 to say you offered these kids? It devalues a Minnesota offer and allows the press to pile on you for even more "misses" than you've already had.

Steven Crowl has also scheduled official visits to Wisconsin and Iowa and is "considering an official" to Minnesota per Ryan James. I have heard conflicting reports on whether Crowl is a take for Minnesota, so this isn't really about Crowl. How many Minnesota kids have officially visited Iowa or Iowa State in the past few years? We've never actually lost a Minnesota kid with a Minnesota offer to either program, but Vaughn and Joe Coleman visited Iowa State, Crowl is visiting Iowa, and Iowa State might be getting a visit from Kerwin Walton. Who was the last Iowa kid with an Iowa or Iowa State offer to officially visit Minnesota? I don't think there has ever been one. Tubby was on the very outer edge of the Harrison Barnes recruitment. Pitino had AJ Green up for a game or two, but he was always going to play for UNI where his dad is an assistant coach and never took an official.

My point here is that you absolutely cannot lose recruiting battles to these schools for Minnesota kids if you don't ever return the favor and take kids they wanted out of their own backyard.

The one kid this staff was in really early on was Kerwin Walton. He's set up a visit to Arizona and is looking to set up a visit to Miami. For a year or more, Kerwin just had two high major offers in Minnesota and Purdue. There was a nice window to lock up a kid early that you believed in that was under the radar nationally. Either the staff was slow playing him and didn't really want a commitment at that time or they couldn't close the deal. Hopefully they still get Walton, but this is the type of recruitment you hope you have wrapped up before he breaks out this Spring given when you offered. This could still work out like Gabe who had the Minnesota offer and not much else forever and finally pulled the trigger, but Gabe never really broke out like Kerwin did.

If we review the current staff, there is not a lot of reason for optimism. When Rob Jeter was hired he was supposed to help in the Midwest and was specifically supposed to have some strong ties to the Phenom Hoops program out of Wisconsin that is currently loaded. So far, there hasn't been word of any real interest from any players off that roster. Kyle Lindsted had the strongest ties possible to Sunrise Christian and lost kids to Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Wichita State and didn't even get a visit from the best kids out of that program like Malik Hall. Before this past Fall/Winter, we had never even received a visit from an Ed Conroy recruit in the entire time he was on staff. There were literally so many swings and misses on officials during this time that he might have had one or two by now as I think Kobe Brown was a Conroy recruit. Regardless, he's been non-factor on the recruiting trail since his hire which is fine if you have a big time recruiter or two on staff which nobody in this group has shown to be yet.

If you can win while recruiting this poorly this wouldn't bother me that much, but it's now 5 of 6 seasons we've had a losing record in the B1G under Pitino. His best players have consistently been his higher rated recruits. Amir Coffey was a consensus top 100 kid and Jordan Murphy was like 116 on Rivals when they were the industry leader by a wide margin. Daniel Oturu was a consensus top 100 recruit. In his entire tenure, the only clear hit on a lightly recruited kid was Gabe Kalscheur. If you look at kids outside the consensus top 200 per 247 it's a laundry list of kids who you simply cannot win with from Gaston Diedhiou and Ahmad Gilbert to Josh Martin and Jamir Harris. Even Michael Hurt ended up outside the top 200 (I seem to remember him being ranked higher so they might be doing some Chad Ford esque revising on 247), so this has been an amazingly consistent theme for Minnesota. The best result Pitino has gotten from a player outside the top 200 is one or two years of adequate backup center play from Bakary Konate (I am obviously being very generous here) while taking up a scholarship for four years.

Something has to change, because the status quo isn't working.
Click to expand...

What has to change is Pitino needs to get more active in recruiting instead of relying on his assistants. When Gonzaga comes to see Suggs it’s Mark Few. When Duke comes it’s Coach K. You never here about Pitino being at a practice, an open gym, a game. It’s always an assistant. He had to build relationships with local guys. Assistants can only do so much. He missed on players he hardly recruited (M. Wright, Sims, John, Davison), while striking out with outstate players. Not a way to build trust with local players. I have strong feeling Pitino is going to stoke out on every high major in the 2020 class.
 

SoMpls said:
What has to change is Pitino needs to get more active in recruiting instead of relying on his assistants. When Gonzaga comes to see Suggs it’s Mark Few. When Duke comes it’s Coach K. You never here about Pitino being at a practice, an open gym, a game. It’s always an assistant. He had to build relationships with local guys. Assistants can only do so much. He missed on players he hardly recruited (M. Wright, Sims, John, Davison), while striking out with outstate players. Not a way to build trust with local players. I have strong feeling Pitino is going to stoke out on every high major in the 2020 class.
Click to expand...

I seem to recall reading several pieces this summer about Patino meeting with suggs, he has had all of the instate offers on campus watching practice and hanging out with the team multiples times. He has offered many in this class early and has given more effort than you give him credit for. Not surprised carlson didn't schedule an official, he has visted campus so many times already there is no need. That goes for the other recruits as well. I'm sure there is merit to what you are saying, so it would seem he is trying to change his methods as of late at least. It seems he is giving all of the in state offers a ton of access to the program and does keep in touch with them on a regular basis if what is being reported is true.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
I seem to recall reading several pieces this summer about Patino meeting with suggs, he has had all of the instate offers on campus watching practice and hanging out with the team multiples times. He has offered many in this class early and has given more effort than you give him credit for. Not surprised carlson didn't schedule an official, he has visted campus so many times already there is no need. That goes for the other recruits as well. I'm sure there is merit to what you are saying, so it would seem he is trying to change his methods as of late at least. It seems he is giving all of the in state offers a ton of access to the program and does keep in touch with them on a regular basis if what is being reported is true.
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People are going off what they remember on twitter. People naturally remember reading Ryan James say Few or K are at an open gym. It doesn't get reported each time that Richard or gopher staff is out because they are the local guys. Also part of Pitino's strategy is to get kids the U often. They get to talk to him a ton and I bet kids don't feel bad if Richard doesn't go to East Ridge when they are getting free tickets to games and the opportunity to come to practices whenever they'd like. Coach K and Few recruit a smaller number of guys because they are coming in as closers.
 

EG#9 said:
This is going to be long and negative, so fair warning.

With the news today on Ben Carlson scheduling his visits, it sure seem like the writing is on the wall that Pitino has missed out on yet another local recruit. Carlson is going to unofficially visit the "U" with a bunch of his D1 Minnesota teammates for the football game and then officially visit Wisconsin for 2 days that same weekend. He also has officials set up to Xavier and Stanford and an unofficial to Iowa State. This will be the 4th top 100 recruit in the past two classes from the state that will go elsewhere without even officially visiting Minnesota. If Jalen Suggs to Gonzaga happens, that will be number 5 and the 4th to leave for a non Blue Blood (Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, Duke, etc).

Now, Ben Carlson will be officially visiting Wisconsin and Pitino previously lost Nate Reuvers to Wisconsin. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Wisconsin offer to officially visit Minnesota? I honestly cannot remember a single player that fit that criteria. Pitino previously lost Theo John to Marquette. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Marquette offer to officially visit Minnesota? I thought you had to go all the way back to Wally Ellenson to find a player that fit that bill, but neither Rivals nor 247 shows a Marquette offer for Wally out of high school. So there might not be a Wisconsin player with a Wisconsin or a Marquette offer that has even officially visited Minnesota, much less committed to the Gophers, in over a decade and certainly never in the Pitino era. If you want to throw in the weird "offers" to Brad Davison and Tyler Wahl that Pitino made after he was sure they would go to Wisconsin this even looks worse. And what exactly was the point of those offers? Are you thinking that helps your relationship with Pulley or D1 to say you offered these kids? It devalues a Minnesota offer and allows the press to pile on you for even more "misses" than you've already had.

Steven Crowl has also scheduled official visits to Wisconsin and Iowa and is "considering an official" to Minnesota per Ryan James. I have heard conflicting reports on whether Crowl is a take for Minnesota, so this isn't really about Crowl. How many Minnesota kids have officially visited Iowa or Iowa State in the past few years? We've never actually lost a Minnesota kid with a Minnesota offer to either program, but Vaughn and Joe Coleman visited Iowa State, Crowl is visiting Iowa, and Iowa State might be getting a visit from Kerwin Walton. Who was the last Iowa kid with an Iowa or Iowa State offer to officially visit Minnesota? I don't think there has ever been one. Tubby was on the very outer edge of the Harrison Barnes recruitment. Pitino had AJ Green up for a game or two, but he was always going to play for UNI where his dad is an assistant coach and never took an official.

My point here is that you absolutely cannot lose recruiting battles to these schools for Minnesota kids if you don't ever return the favor and take kids they wanted out of their own backyard.

The one kid this staff was in really early on was Kerwin Walton. He's set up a visit to Arizona and is looking to set up a visit to Miami. For a year or more, Kerwin just had two high major offers in Minnesota and Purdue. There was a nice window to lock up a kid early that you believed in that was under the radar nationally. Either the staff was slow playing him and didn't really want a commitment at that time or they couldn't close the deal. Hopefully they still get Walton, but this is the type of recruitment you hope you have wrapped up before he breaks out this Spring given when you offered. This could still work out like Gabe who had the Minnesota offer and not much else forever and finally pulled the trigger, but Gabe never really broke out like Kerwin did.

If we review the current staff, there is not a lot of reason for optimism. When Rob Jeter was hired he was supposed to help in the Midwest and was specifically supposed to have some strong ties to the Phenom Hoops program out of Wisconsin that is currently loaded. So far, there hasn't been word of any real interest from any players off that roster. Kyle Lindsted had the strongest ties possible to Sunrise Christian and lost kids to Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Wichita State and didn't even get a visit from the best kids out of that program like Malik Hall. Before this past Fall/Winter, we had never even received a visit from an Ed Conroy recruit in the entire time he was on staff. There were literally so many swings and misses on officials during this time that he might have had one or two by now as I think Kobe Brown was a Conroy recruit. Regardless, he's been non-factor on the recruiting trail since his hire which is fine if you have a big time recruiter or two on staff which nobody in this group has shown to be yet.

If you can win while recruiting this poorly this wouldn't bother me that much, but it's now 5 of 6 seasons we've had a losing record in the B1G under Pitino. His best players have consistently been his higher rated recruits. Amir Coffey was a consensus top 100 kid and Jordan Murphy was like 116 on Rivals when they were the industry leader by a wide margin. Daniel Oturu was a consensus top 100 recruit. In his entire tenure, the only clear hit on a lightly recruited kid was Gabe Kalscheur. If you look at kids outside the consensus top 200 per 247 it's a laundry list of kids who you simply cannot win with from Gaston Diedhiou and Ahmad Gilbert to Josh Martin and Jamir Harris. Even Michael Hurt ended up outside the top 200 (I seem to remember him being ranked higher so they might be doing some Chad Ford esque revising on 247), so this has been an amazingly consistent theme for Minnesota. The best result Pitino has gotten from a player outside the top 200 is one or two years of adequate backup center play from Bakary Konate (I am obviously being very generous here) while taking up a scholarship for four years.

Something has to change, because the status quo isn't working.
Click to expand...

That was quite the vent session. We've been to the tournament 2 out of the last 3 years. You can't force kids to commit (Walton). Jeter and Linsted had their first real full season to recruit for this class. Last years they started late and we originally had a commit from a Sunrise kid, but he ended up at Mi$$ouri for some reason instead. Give this staff some time as the incoming staff has a purpose and can all defend, have high characters, and will be a little below the radar. Jeter made a living doing that for Wisconsin for years. If we strike out with MN kids, but end up with Mashburn Jr., Muscadin, and then go into spring where Pitino has proven to be quite adept at finding quality players (Murphy and Mason come to mind) we will be fine. MN kids get plenty of attention from the staff here. They work way harder and rebuilt a ton of relationships that the previous staff had ruined. I wouldn't panic quite yet.
 

SoMpls said:
What has to change is Pitino needs to get more active in recruiting instead of relying on his assistants. When Gonzaga comes to see Suggs it’s Mark Few. When Duke comes it’s Coach K. You never here about Pitino being at a practice, an open gym, a game. It’s always an assistant. He had to build relationships with local guys. Assistants can only do so much. He missed on players he hardly recruited (M. Wright, Sims, John, Davison), while striking out with outstate players. Not a way to build trust with local players. I have strong feeling Pitino is going to stoke out on every high major in the 2020 class.
Click to expand...

This just isn’t true.
 

Behind much of what you say here, hard to argue. If recruiting isn't getting stronger after 6years, or at least having stronger relationships being built, than I am not fond of the direction of how things are going.
 

EG#9 said:
This is going to be long and negative, so fair warning.

With the news today on Ben Carlson scheduling his visits, it sure seem like the writing is on the wall that Pitino has missed out on yet another local recruit. Carlson is going to unofficially visit the "U" with a bunch of his D1 Minnesota teammates for the football game and then officially visit Wisconsin for 2 days that same weekend. He also has officials set up to Xavier and Stanford and an unofficial to Iowa State. This will be the 4th top 100 recruit in the past two classes from the state that will go elsewhere without even officially visiting Minnesota. If Jalen Suggs to Gonzaga happens, that will be number 5 and the 4th to leave for a non Blue Blood (Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, Duke, etc).

Now, Ben Carlson will be officially visiting Wisconsin and Pitino previously lost Nate Reuvers to Wisconsin. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Wisconsin offer to officially visit Minnesota? I honestly cannot remember a single player that fit that criteria. Pitino previously lost Theo John to Marquette. Who was the last Wisconsin kid with a Marquette offer to officially visit Minnesota? I thought you had to go all the way back to Wally Ellenson to find a player that fit that bill, but neither Rivals nor 247 shows a Marquette offer for Wally out of high school. So there might not be a Wisconsin player with a Wisconsin or a Marquette offer that has even officially visited Minnesota, much less committed to the Gophers, in over a decade and certainly never in the Pitino era. If you want to throw in the weird "offers" to Brad Davison and Tyler Wahl that Pitino made after he was sure they would go to Wisconsin this even looks worse. And what exactly was the point of those offers? Are you thinking that helps your relationship with Pulley or D1 to say you offered these kids? It devalues a Minnesota offer and allows the press to pile on you for even more "misses" than you've already had.
Click to expand...

In the 2020 class, Johnny Davis was a Wisconsin kid with both Minnesota and Wisconsin offers, and he never took an official here, or to Wisconsin or any other school for that matter, but honestly before that, I think Henry Ellenson was the last Wisconsin kid with offers from both the Gophers and Badgers. Henry took some unofficial visits to Minnesota, but no official. Riley LaChance was a top 150 recruit who took an official visit to Minnesota, but did not have offers from either Wisconsin or Marquette. Matt Thomas in 2012 took an unofficial to Minnesota and had offers from both Wisconsin and Marquette. I think the reason it's been so long since this happened is that Minnesota just hasn't recruited the state of Wisconsin very heavily, and the Wisconsin kids we have offered (Terrence Lewis, Tyrese Haliburton, and Jordan McCabe off the top of my head) don't have offers from the Badgers. I think the Badgers just don't extend as many offers in general as our staff does, and there have been multiple top 150 and even 4 star recruits in Wisconsin that never get offers from the Badgers. Wisconsin also hasn't produced as much high major high school basketball talent as Minnesota has lately. Wisconsin's 2019 high school class doesn't have a single player playing high major ball. David Skogman appears to have turned down multiple high major offers to play at Buffalo however. The 2018 Wisconsin class had 5 players to go high majors, only 2 of whom had Wisconsin offers. 2017 class had two players commit to high majors, only one had a Wisconsin offer.

So to sum it up:

Minnesota doesn't recruit Wisconsin as hard as Wisconsin recruits Minnesota
Wisconsin produces fewer high major basketball players than Minnesota does
Wisconsin doesn't even offer about half of the high major players that the state produces

EG#9 said:
Steven Crowl has also scheduled official visits to Wisconsin and Iowa and is "considering an official" to Minnesota per Ryan James. I have heard conflicting reports on whether Crowl is a take for Minnesota, so this isn't really about Crowl. How many Minnesota kids have officially visited Iowa or Iowa State in the past few years? We've never actually lost a Minnesota kid with a Minnesota offer to either program, but Vaughn and Joe Coleman visited Iowa State, Crowl is visiting Iowa, and Iowa State might be getting a visit from Kerwin Walton. Who was the last Iowa kid with an Iowa or Iowa State offer to officially visit Minnesota? I don't think there has ever been one. Tubby was on the very outer edge of the Harrison Barnes recruitment. Pitino had AJ Green up for a game or two, but he was always going to play for UNI where his dad is an assistant coach and never took an official.

My point here is that you absolutely cannot lose recruiting battles to these schools for Minnesota kids if you don't ever return the favor and take kids they wanted out of their own backyard.
Click to expand...

I can't think of a Minnesota kid that has gone to Iowa, nor can I think of an Iowa kid that has gone to Minnesota. I don't think the Minnesota or Iowa programs recruit the other's home state very hard. Alex Illikainen did officially visit Iowa before committing to Wisconsin after Minnesota's scholarships were all accounted for. I think Iowa also put some decent effort into Jalen Suggs, but yeah, they're not getting him.

Iowa State on the other hand, has recruited Minnesota fairly heavily, they just never get a commit from anyone from here. They went hard after Rashad Vaughn, Jarvis Johnson, Amir Coffey, Race Thompson, and I didn't even remember Joe Coleman visiting them, but I didn't follow recruiting as much back then. Of course Royce White ended up there for a season after the dust settled a little with him.

So it seems we aren't losing kids to the Iowa schools, and likewise Iowa isn't losing kids to us, because outside of Iowa State unsuccessfully courting a number of Minnesota kids, it's largely a mutual disinterest as far as recruiting goes.

EG#9 said:
The one kid this staff was in really early on was Kerwin Walton. He's set up a visit to Arizona and is looking to set up a visit to Miami. For a year or more, Kerwin just had two high major offers in Minnesota and Purdue. There was a nice window to lock up a kid early that you believed in that was under the radar nationally. Either the staff was slow playing him and didn't really want a commitment at that time or they couldn't close the deal. Hopefully they still get Walton, but this is the type of recruitment you hope you have wrapped up before he breaks out this Spring given when you offered. This could still work out like Gabe who had the Minnesota offer and not much else forever and finally pulled the trigger, but Gabe never really broke out like Kerwin did.

If we review the current staff, there is not a lot of reason for optimism. When Rob Jeter was hired he was supposed to help in the Midwest and was specifically supposed to have some strong ties to the Phenom Hoops program out of Wisconsin that is currently loaded. So far, there hasn't been word of any real interest from any players off that roster. Kyle Lindsted had the strongest ties possible to Sunrise Christian and lost kids to Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Wichita State and didn't even get a visit from the best kids out of that program like Malik Hall. Before this past Fall/Winter, we had never even received a visit from an Ed Conroy recruit in the entire time he was on staff. There were literally so many swings and misses on officials during this time that he might have had one or two by now as I think Kobe Brown was a Conroy recruit. Regardless, he's been non-factor on the recruiting trail since his hire which is fine if you have a big time recruiter or two on staff which nobody in this group has shown to be yet.

If you can win while recruiting this poorly this wouldn't bother me that much, but it's now 5 of 6 seasons we've had a losing record in the B1G under Pitino. His best players have consistently been his higher rated recruits. Amir Coffey was a consensus top 100 kid and Jordan Murphy was like 116 on Rivals when they were the industry leader by a wide margin. Daniel Oturu was a consensus top 100 recruit. In his entire tenure, the only clear hit on a lightly recruited kid was Gabe Kalscheur. If you look at kids outside the consensus top 200 per 247 it's a laundry list of kids who you simply cannot win with from Gaston Diedhiou and Ahmad Gilbert to Josh Martin and Jamir Harris. Even Michael Hurt ended up outside the top 200 (I seem to remember him being ranked higher so they might be doing some Chad Ford esque revising on 247), so this has been an amazingly consistent theme for Minnesota. The best result Pitino has gotten from a player outside the top 200 is one or two years of adequate backup center play from Bakary Konate (I am obviously being very generous here) while taking up a scholarship for four years.

Something has to change, because the status quo isn't working.
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I think you forgot about Nate Mason. He wasn't a bottom of the barrel recruit, but he wasn't top 150, and he had arguably the best 4 year career of any of Pitino's recruits, though Jordan Murphy is right up there with him. Tre Williams was a nobody at the time we signed him, and now he's a top 150 recruit. This staff has also gotten good players in the spring transfer market: Akeem Springs, Joey King, Reggie Lynch (off-court stuff aside, he was a good basketball player), Marcus Carr had interest from John Beilein and Chris Holtmann when he announced his transfer, two coaches whom I'm guessing you would hold in higher esteem than Pitino. I know you were very down on the Payton Willis signing based on his stats at Vandy, but I still have hope he'll turn out. Alihan Demir might have a chance at a starting spot.

To look on the bright side, we did just win a tournament game against a brand-name basketball program for the second time in the 21st century, the unmitigated recruiting disaster of 2019 gave us a class that ranks in the top third of the Big Ten, and we have some solid out of state recruits interested in us for 2020.
 
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Yep, its August 26th and it's time to push the panic button on recruiting!
 

gophereric30 said:
Yep, its August 26th and it's time to push the panic button on recruiting!
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I've been calling a spade and spade for months and months. Pitino sucks at recruiting local kids. I know, I Know Oturu says hi. For every Oturu there area a dozen misses. With very little good feel about the 2020 class I'm worried. The writing is on the wall. either Crowl or Carlson will go Wisconsin. I hope I'm wrong but the ceiling is either Madson or Watson at this point.
 

gophereric30 said:
Yep, its August 26th and it's time to push the panic button on recruiting!
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Yup too early.

That being said, if november comes and goes with an underwhelming signing period, I'll probably hit the panic button.
 

Ec9. You make a lot of assumptions based upon false information.

Each player only gets a few official visits. Many of those players that you gripe about have open invitations and are spending a lot of time at the U. Of course we would want them to take an official visit to the U, but that doesn’t mean they won’t play at the U.

Minnesota doesn’t have enough roster spots for all of the D1 players coming out of the state, so be prepared to “lose” a few of them.

You need to brush away the storm clouds and be patient.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 


alchemy2u said:
Ec9. You make a lot of assumptions based upon false information.

Each player only gets a few official visits. Many of those players that you gripe about have open invitations and are spending a lot of time at the U. Of course we would want them to take an official visit to the U, but that doesn’t mean they won’t play at the U.

Minnesota doesn’t have enough roster spots for all of the D1 players coming out of the state, so be prepared to “lose” a few of them.

You need to brush away the storm clouds and be patient.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Sure would be nice to get a couple though, strike out this year and you would have one top ranked Minnesota kid in four years in a time when there is more top talent than ever, great facilities to boot, that is as bad as it can get. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't happen.
 

jovs said:
Sure would be nice to get a couple though, strike out this year and you would have one top ranked Minnesota kid in four years in a time when there is more top talent than ever, great facilities to boot, that is as bad as it can get. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't happen.
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The top ranked player in Minnesota for every class since 2017 has been a 5 star, a caliber of recruit we generally don’t get. Three of them went to Duke. Lots of low to mid-tier power conference schools aren’t keeping 5 stars in state.
 

Gabe and Daniel were not good gets, they were tremendous gets. One actually had this as his dream school, even in the face of great offers. Gabe took the best offer as a very under valued player, my favorite type. The balance of the highly rated recruits has had a ton of big time offers and unless they had dreams of playing here are just like kids from other places that do not stay home. Those national type kids, if you did not get the hometown dream or get them early they go elsewhere.THEY PICK WHAT THEY PERCIEVE TO BE THE BETTER COACH AND BETTER PROGRAM. I could care less where the kids come from. The key is finding players from all over that fit what you do, fit with their team. Often that involves finding them first, before others have offered and are almost always under evaluated. We are not going to out recruit the top programs for 5 and high 4 star players, many of whom are way over rated anyway. This staff has worked their rear end off and found many really good players. The job is to put them together in a way that wins games. Out of those 6-7 state kids getting 2 would be a great job. People should remember that getting them does not guarantee winning. Fan bases tend to have unrealistic expectations on higher rated kids, especially if the kids are local. What kids besides the blue blood recruits like the Jones boys went somewhere and won huge ? I count during the Pitino years JP Macura as a serious winner and a miss. Who else that was attainable went elsewhere and won big ? Is there something wrong with finding kids from out of state in that 150 range that have gone on to win conference titles, final 4's, national titles and made the NBA ? Why are people so provincial towards local kids ? Obviously they are really good players but most fans have not even seen them. I talked with two parents of the top 5 local kids about how ESPN forever changed the landscape for kids favoring the hometown school. Combined with AAU travel these kids get exposed to great opportunities from all over. People argue that the best players could go anywhere and make the NBA, that may be true for the top 5 or so but people are fooling themselves if they think certain coaches are not better at developing players better than others have.
 

builtbadgers said:
Gabe and Daniel were not good gets, they were tremendous gets. One actually had this as his dream school, even in the face of great offers. Gabe took the best offer as a very under valued player, my favorite type. The balance of the highly rated recruits has had a ton of big time offers and unless they had dreams of playing here are just like kids from other places that do not stay home. Those national type kids, if you did not get the hometown dream or get them early they go elsewhere.THEY PICK WHAT THEY PERCIEVE TO BE THE BETTER COACH AND BETTER PROGRAM. I could care less where the kids come from. The key is finding players from all over that fit what you do, fit with their team. Often that involves finding them first, before others have offered and are almost always under evaluated. We are not going to out recruit the top programs for 5 and high 4 star players, many of whom are way over rated anyway. This staff has worked their rear end off and found many really good players. The job is to put them together in a way that wins games. Out of those 6-7 state kids getting 2 would be a great job. People should remember that getting them does not guarantee winning. Fan bases tend to have unrealistic expectations on higher rated kids, especially if the kids are local. What kids besides the blue blood recruits like the Jones boys went somewhere and won huge ? I count during the Pitino years JP Macura as a serious winner and a miss. Who else that was attainable went elsewhere and won big ? Is there something wrong with finding kids from out of state in that 150 range that have gone on to win conference titles, final 4's, national titles and made the NBA ? Why are people so provincial towards local kids ? Obviously they are really good players but most fans have not even seen them. I talked with two parents of the top 5 local kids about how ESPN forever changed the landscape for kids favoring the hometown school. Combined with AAU travel these kids get exposed to great opportunities from all over. People argue that the best players could go anywhere and make the NBA, that may be true for the top 5 or so but people are fooling themselves if they think certain coaches are not better at developing players better than others have.
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Gabe ended up as a good player but he wasn't a top recruit, I doubt you are ever going to compete for B1G titles with only surprises.
 

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