All Things Class of 2020 Recruiting Thread

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Cayman said:
I think that would be a pretty solid class, with Mason Madsen being a questionable signing, especially after taking what appears on the surface to be a bit of a desperation signing of Greenlee at the same position in the spring. I don't mean to be unfair to Greenlee without seeing him suit up first, just saying that signing a guy with his offer list that late in the recruiting cycle makes it look like they were just trying to get a warm body to play spot minutes at point guard, and with Mason Madsen, you now arguably have two of those at the same position, what some would say is the most important position on the floor. Feels like ball handler, wing, and big man are the targets for the 3 scholarships we have, and that class would cover it with a bit of star power with Carlson in the top 100. It would actually be fairly similar to our 2019 class, with a top 100 big (Carlson/Ihnen), a top 150 guard (Gabe Madsen/Williams), a ball handler with a mid-major recruiting profile (Mason Madsen/Greenlee), and then Crowl and Freeman is probably the least adept comparison, as Crowl is ranked significantly higher, Freeman was offered by the Gophers in the summer before his senior year after a live evaluation I believe, so there seemed to be at least a bit of early confidence that he was a guy Pitino wanted, as opposed to making a late offer to any old tall guy they could find.

I think it would be a good class that at the very least doesn't set the program back or anything. There would be some skepticism of the Mason Madsen signing. It would get a bit of undue hype due to being 4 Minnesota kids, in the same way that I thought the 2018 class was a little overhyped, as I thought Omersa and Kalscheur would be more of the type of player who doesn't become a steady, regular contributor until he's at least a junior, but Kalscheur exceeded pretty much everyone's expectations.

And then there would likely be a few fans laser-focused on the college careers of Dainja and Garcia, using any success they have as an indictment against the coaching staff and still asking "Why can't Pitino get the best Minnesota kids?" No one would care about missing out on the out-of-staters. No one ever talks about Shamorie Ponds, Talen Horton-Tucker, Tyrese Haliburton, or Wade Baldwin even though they've all been quite good in college, or received NBA hype, and had either expressed interest in us, or weren't ranked so highly that got lured away by far more prestigious programs or anything. Marcus Zegarowski ended up scoring double figures as a freshman last year at Creighton, shot over 40% from 3, and had a nearly 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, but you're gonna see McKinley Wright brought up here 10 more times before you ever see Zegarowski's name again.

Oh, and because the tall white guy (Michael Hurt, Joey King, Elliot Eliason, Colton Iverson) always gets an out-sized tongue-lashing from fans, Steven Crowl would become the most hated player on the team if he goes a on cold streak with his shooting, fouls a little too much, or gets beaten on defense. Then we get an 8 page long thread titled, "Should Crowl be playing D3 instead?"
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I think you nailed it when you said that a Crowl, Madsen, Carlson class might be pretty similar to last year in quality. That's fair and you are right ...not a bad class. But what I appreciate here is that the coaches are saying- we are not settling for pretty good when "great" is still right there in front of us. It is a risk. But I would argue that if they fan on the guys they are after, and they might, they could still sign that same quality class in the Spring. I think it is worth it.

In the recent past Pitino has been pretty good about backing off a kid when he knows they just aren't into being a Gopher. Therefore I have to believe that Walton and Garcia have given them an indication that it is a real possibility. I would hope they would be straight with the coach on that. So I feel pretty good that we are going to get 2 maybe 3 really good players this fall. If the coaches didn't feel that way, then I think they would have taken some of the players we slow played.
 

bga1 said:
I think you nailed it when you said that a Crowl, Madsen, Carlson class might be pretty similar to last year in quality. That's fair and you are right ...not a bad class. But what I appreciate here is that the coaches are saying- we are not settling for pretty good when "great" is still right there in front of us. It is a risk. But I would argue that if they fan on the guys they are after, and they might, they could still sign that same quality class in the Spring. I think it is worth it.

In the recent past Pitino has been pretty good about backing off a kid when he knows they just aren't into being a Gopher. Therefore I have to believe that Walton and Garcia have given them an indication that it is a real possibility. I would hope they would be straight with the coach on that. So I feel pretty good that we are going to get 2 maybe 3 really good players this fall. If the coaches didn't feel that way, then I think they would have taken some of the players we slow played.
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We did not slow play Carlson. Not saying that you said we did just pointing out that it was full throttle. Looks like it is first come first serve, The dominoes are falling faster now. Some classes even full.
 

builtbadgers said:
We did not slow play Carlson. Not saying that you said we did just pointing out that it was full throttle. Looks like it is first come first serve, The dominoes are falling faster now. Some classes even full.
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Good point on Carlson. Sounds like the U was never really where he was going though.
 

Ryan James released a "Talk Gopher Buckets" last night that was essentially all recruiting. I will recap some of it here, but it is a decent listen. Unfortunately Luke (the host) really is not in to recruiting (admittedly) and has a bad habit of trying to lead Ryan in to his (Luke's) rather uninformed position instead of just asking good questions.

First the good news: Ryan mentioned the Gopher staff is very confident they will land either Berry or Mashburn Jr. He said that everyone loved Ty Berry on his visit both personally and playing with him (must have done some open runs during the visit?) and certainly seemed to hint that he could be a plus for both Dawson Garcia and Kerwin Walton. Ryan agreed with the Gophers staff optimism on the guard situation and said that he'd be shocked if they didn't land one of the two. At some point in the podcast he also floated the possibility of the Gophers taking both guards. Also on that visit weekend, Frankie Collins (2021) Dad LOVED Minnesota, he loved everything about the visit from the University to the coaches and Ryan thinks we are in good shape with that recruitment.

Ryan mentioned that Jamal Mashburn Jr's visit date is still up in the air.
Ryan mentioned that DJ Gordon is no longer scheduled to visit this weekend as he had a death in the family and will be attending a funeral

Ryan thinks the Gophers want a big in this class but questioned where it would come from. He mentioned both Gethro Muscadin and Dawson Garcia, but not in a way where he thought they were likely additions to the class. He mentioned Martice Mitchell as a project who only has a visit to Rutgers set up so far.

Interesting comment was made on Jamari Sibley who Ryan compared to Jarvis Omersa as a shot blocker/athlete who has a lot of skill work to do. When Ryan was wondering about where the big would come from, he made a comment on the construction of the class that made it seem like neither Sibley or Gordon are slam dunk takes right now. I don't want to put words in his mouth and it was more of a context thing, so I'll just leave it at that.

The early part of the podcast was spent on Crowl and Carlson and featured more talk on Crowl. Ryan believes the staff actually wanted Crowl as they had watched him recently and Crowl was supposedly in contact with the staff about setting up a visit for this coming weekend. Ryan feels that the staff should have at least made some minimal contact with Crowl (offered him tickets to games etc) before this last Spring. Ryan did acknowledge that Crowl was not a priority for the staff, but seemed to think that changed recently? He mentioned that when Minnesota made contact they just didn't work to develop a relationship in the same way others (Wisconsin) did).

I personally was not convinced that he had the story right on Crowl as some knowledgeable people have shared different versions of events. For example, if Crowl was in contact about a visit this coming weekend, maybe the response he go turned him off? Maybe the Gophers didn't work to develop a relationship because he was further down their list? This is not a criticism of Ryan at all as he's the best we have on Gopher recruiting (would love to hear from people who are able to read David Sisk's stuff as I don't know how connected he is). I also would personally be interested in why there is such an interest in adding another 5 to the roster...is Oturu likely gone after this year? Is Freeman not a B1G level kid? On paper carrying a 3rd center in this era of basketball does not make a lot of sense when there will be long stretches of games where teams will want to be smaller and more versatile.
 




He said 50/50 here period. I said that was great but what about his other options and he said early playing time was important. Several of his choices do not have that as a option. The two i am worried about are Arizona and UNC. UNC pulls the MJ just showing up. And kids love playing in that Duke-UNC rivalry at least twice a year. Those battles dwarf any other rivalries. These are tight lipped situations which means that after paring down lists they still have not decided.
 

We picked up a crystal ball for Jamal Mashburn today.
 




Would be interesting to see what just getting the first one to break the ice would do to the posters here and the tone overall.
 

Cayman said:
We picked up a crystal ball for Jamal Mashburn today.
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Great news, I really like Mashburn. He has his priorities straight. I saw an interview where he talked about his goals off the court to be an entrepreneur like his father.

Apparently Mashburn Sr. made more money with his business ventures than he did playing in the NBA. I have no idea what his academics look like but Carlson would be an outstanding place for Jr. to study.

On the court, he has a good pedigree and he seems like a player who has a high floor. In the few videos I saw it looks like he has a solid jumper, plus ball handler and plus quickness and explosiveness to make up for his size. I kind of like Berry better as a player, but I think the two could coexist.
 




Cayman said:
I think that would be a pretty solid class, with Mason Madsen being a questionable signing, especially after taking what appears on the surface to be a bit of a desperation signing of Greenlee at the same position in the spring. I don't mean to be unfair to Greenlee without seeing him suit up first, just saying that signing a guy with his offer list that late in the recruiting cycle makes it look like they were just trying to get a warm body to play spot minutes at point guard, and with Mason Madsen, you now arguably have two of those at the same position, what some would say is the most important position on the floor. Feels like ball handler, wing, and big man are the targets for the 3 scholarships we have, and that class would cover it with a bit of star power with Carlson in the top 100. It would actually be fairly similar to our 2019 class, with a top 100 big (Carlson/Ihnen), a top 150 guard (Gabe Madsen/Williams), a ball handler with a mid-major recruiting profile (Mason Madsen/Greenlee), and then Crowl and Freeman is probably the least adept comparison, as Crowl is ranked significantly higher, Freeman was offered by the Gophers in the summer before his senior year after a live evaluation I believe, so there seemed to be at least a bit of early confidence that he was a guy Pitino wanted, as opposed to making a late offer to any old tall guy they could find.

I think it would be a good class that at the very least doesn't set the program back or anything. There would be some skepticism of the Mason Madsen signing. It would get a bit of undue hype due to being 4 Minnesota kids, in the same way that I thought the 2018 class was a little overhyped, as I thought Omersa and Kalscheur would be more of the type of player who doesn't become a steady, regular contributor until he's at least a junior, but Kalscheur exceeded pretty much everyone's expectations.

And then there would likely be a few fans laser-focused on the college careers of Dainja and Garcia, using any success they have as an indictment against the coaching staff and still asking "Why can't Pitino get the best Minnesota kids?" No one would care about missing out on the out-of-staters. No one ever talks about Shamorie Ponds, Talen Horton-Tucker, Tyrese Haliburton, or Wade Baldwin even though they've all been quite good in college, or received NBA hype, and had either expressed interest in us, or weren't ranked so highly that got lured away by far more prestigious programs or anything. Marcus Zegarowski ended up scoring double figures as a freshman last year at Creighton, shot over 40% from 3, and had a nearly 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, but you're gonna see McKinley Wright brought up here 10 more times before you ever see Zegarowski's name again.

Oh, and because the tall white guy (Michael Hurt, Joey King, Elliot Eliason, Colton Iverson) always gets an out-sized tongue-lashing from fans, Steven Crowl would become the most hated player on the team if he goes a on cold streak with his shooting, fouls a little too much, or gets beaten on defense. Then we get an 8 page long thread titled, "Should Crowl be playing D3 instead?"
Click to expand...

Quite possibly the best post on this thread, well put.
 


Apparently multiple other coaches were at PL last night from other schools maybe Kansas and NC?
 

Cayman said:
We picked up a crystal ball for Jamal Mashburn today.
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I know he visited already, but what would it take for him to commit before visiting California and Wake Forest? Maybe staff let him know about Berry?
 





$hit about to hit the fan at Kansas. Intriguing timing given they're listed in the top 7 for Garcia and one of the more aggressive pursuers of Walton. Hopefully this bombshell disqualifies KU in both cases. Next up for the NCAA to take down: Arizona.

 

Was just gonna post this. Sign ‘em up Coach P!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

well that helps our chances! throw the hammer down on them!!
 

WindyCityGopher said:
$hit about to hit the fan at Kansas. Intriguing timing given they're listed in the top 7 for Garcia and one of the more aggressive pursuers of Walton. Hopefully this bombshell disqualifies KU in both cases. Next up for the NCAA to take down: Arizona.

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Would have been real interesting if Hurt had signed there.
 


It would be nice to eliminate AZ and KS from the Dawson and Walton recruiting races
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
It would be nice to eliminate AZ and KS from the Dawson and Walton recruiting races
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And Muscadin is at KU on an official this weekend. Oooh, really bad timing for them; hopefully that's something we can turn to our advantage.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
And Muscadin is at KU on an official this weekend. Oooh, really bad timing for them; hopefully that's something we can turn to our advantage.
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Actually probably good timing for them, since they can talk live and try to spin it, assuring him that it will just go away.
 


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