All Things Gophers Basketball Class of 2022 Recruiting Thread

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manderson1984 said:
Kids develop differently. Payne didn’t play nationally for AAU last year and he’s just improved a ton. Big kids develop slower sometimes. It’s not a knock or a negative. He will have a ranking in the top 150 by the end of the summer.
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Keyser Söze said:
There are a few people on this board who decided shortly after hiring Ben that it was a failure, so they seem to be looking for reasons to validate that opinion. That’s why they’re so eager to talk about 2022 recruiting not going well even though our top targets in the class from the very beginning haven’t even committed anywhere yet.
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King and Heide got phone calls right away and were top targets.
 

Roland Brooks said:
Payne top 150 I would guess next ranking. His brother played at East Ridge this year solid player they played against each other. It’s 2021 if you are good they will find you.
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Thank you. Not worried about his physical potential and actual progress. More interested in his court sense and other intangibles.
 

As another mentioned earlier, Payne’s brother played for East Ridge and was a senior this past season.
Another point on Payne I would like to make is that he could be a “diamond in the rough” type due to Covid. With not much/no AAU season last spring, coaches haven’t really been able to see him play until this month really.
 

Gopherholefan said:
As another mentioned earlier, Payne’s brother played for East Ridge and was a senior this past season.
Another point on Payne I would like to make is that he could be a “diamond in the rough” type due to Covid. With not much/no AAU season last spring, coaches haven’t really been able to see him play until this month really.
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Great point and for this program finding diamonds in the rough is essential to success.
 




builtbadgers said:
Pretty big deal as i thought Penn State was a lock after Purdue
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curious, who are the prospects that the new coaches are going to bring in because they had developed a relationship with the player, much like shrewsberry did with Jameel.
 




GopherOhana said:
curious, who are the prospects that the new coaches are going to bring in because they had developed a relationship with the player, much like shrewsberry did with Jameel.
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No idea. Someone on here has a better grasp of who these coaches were after before they got here.
 

Looks like he was offered while johnson was at xavier. Hopefully he can close this deal. Would be a really solid get. However... Penn State is the clear favorite at this moment. Also looks like he is in no hurry to commit as he will be waiting for other offers
 

paulser21 said:
It’s a bad sign that the unranked, never heard of recruit (until a few weeks ago) is now being compared to NBA draft picks. Expectations for this program are really dropping.
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I mean he might not be a great player in college, you just never know, but all I'm saying is Oturu and Nnaji were both relatively unheralded at the same point in their HS careers. Big men develop slower than guards.

I think if you watched Payne play you'd be impressed.
 









TruthSeeker said:
Whalen is now gobbling up the in-state kids. Lots of good players. It took her a little time. It will take Ben time.
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0 for 5 in 2021 and 2 for 4 in 2022? if Ben doesn't get MN players until recruiting year 4, guessing we're looking for a new coach.
 

I'd think Ben gets at least 4 years regardless. Might get interesting if they're in the single digit win total for the first 2 years though. Hope it doesn't come to that. Take the Mason approach and let's go back to a garbage non-conference schedule.
 

skiumah1 said:
I'd think Ben gets at least 4 years regardless. Might get interesting if they're in the single digit win total for the first 2 years though. Hope it doesn't come to that. Take the Mason approach and let's go back to a garbage non-conference schedule.
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It took Whalen a few years to start landing her in-state targets (Borowicz & Czinano in 2021, and Battle, Braun, Heyer & Holloway in 2022).

Even with his relationships as an assistant, being the head coach is different.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
It took Whalen a few years to start landing her in-state targets (Borowicz & Czinano in 2021, and Battle, Braun, Heyer & Holloway in 2022).

Even with his relationships as an assistant, being the head coach is different.
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Yeah this is a full blown rebuild at this point. I'm ok with that, there's just going to be some impatience.
 

Love to see what Whalen is doing now and think Ben will be there as well with the instate kids. I struggle with knowing it takes awhile to build relationships and get kids bought in, but also being impatient and knowing the high level MN players (besides Holloman) are right there for the taking as the built in excuses aren’t there with Watson, Lee, Payne, Carrington. I understand why King went to ISU and why Heide went to Purdue. I would understand (but be extremely disappointed - I don’t even want to think about it) if Holloman fell for the allure of Izzo and MSU and went there. But I also know this feels like I’m putting too high of expectations on a brand new coach who hasn’t been here for 3 months yet.

I don’t follow the women’s team closely so no idea if there was impatience or not with Whalen the past few years, but going by reactions since March to really everything, feels like the patience is going to run real thin on the men’s side as decisions are made and they don’t go Minnesota’s way.
 
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I’ll also add that it doesn’t help that the school 3 hours south is doing what we want to do with a new coach. They got the local lead guard and got a high ranked MN player to go with him. If Holloman goes to MSU, I worry about losing Watson to a school like ISU (they are all in on him as well) that is building from the ground up with already committed top talent.
 

umn99 said:
Love to see what Whalen is doing now and think Ben will be there as well with the instate kids. I struggle with knowing it takes awhile to build relationships and get kids bought in, but also being impatient and knowing the high level MN players (besides Holloman) are right there for the taking as the built in excuses aren’t there with Watson, Lee, Payne, Carrington. I understand why King went to ISU and why Heide went to Purdue. I would understand (but be extremely disappointed - I don’t even want to think about it) if Holloman fell for the allure of Izzo and MSU and went there. But I also know this feels like I’m putting too high of expectations on a brand new coach who hasn’t been here for 3 months yet.

I don’t follow the women’s team closely so no idea if there was impatience or not with Whalen the past few years, but going by reactions since March to really everything, feels like the patience is going to run real thin on the men’s side as decisions are made and they don’t go Minnesota’s way.
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Remember though, Ben is not some guy we brought in from out of state to do this job. No. He was brought in because he has relationships with the centers of influence and even some of these kids locally. If Ben is playing catch up, then we got the wrong local guy. I think he will do fine getting local and national recruits this fall and I don't think we should be making excuses for him if he was the right hire. I have high expectations for the '22 recruiting class.
 

bga1 said:
Remember though, Ben is not some guy we brought in from out of state to do this job. No. He was brought in because he has relationships with the centers of influence and even some of these kids locally. If Ben is playing catch up, then we got the wrong local guy. I think he will do fine getting local and national recruits this fall and I don't think we should be making excuses for him if he was the right hire. I have high expectations for the '22 recruiting class.
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I guess this probably sums it up well for me. I get worried when I see people moving the goalposts already when it comes to this class. Will it be a perfect class? No. We already lost top targets. But I do have high expectations for how he does with this class (and even higher in 2023).
 

umn99 said:
I guess this probably sums it up well for me. I get worried when I see people moving the goalposts already when it comes to this class. Will it be a perfect class? No. We already lost top targets. But I do have high expectations for how he does with this class (and even higher in 2023).
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I love the optimism but what is it based upon? Mythical mn relationships? Where are the results? Let’s see the results?
 



MplsGopher said:
Does it hurt Payne at all that he plays for Park CG? (sorry, there will only ever be one "Park", and that's St Lous Park)

Or does school ball not matter that much?

Would think he could easily play or have played for East Ridge or Woodbury, in the same district, if that was a thing. No idea if those school teams are better, but ER is one of those wealthy suburban schools that are good at everything?
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When I hear Park, I don't think of St Louis Park
 

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