All Things Isaac Asuma Recruitment Thread (Class of 2024, Minnesota's Top In-State Target)

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Blackhammer said:
Any blue blood shows up it’s over. Seen this movie a hundred times .
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I’ve only seen it once here with Kerwin Walton. Any others locally? Most of our local blue blood players were on the radar for a lot g time and were not not midnight pick ups.
 

Blackhammer said:
Any blue blood shows up it’s over. Seen this movie a hundred times .
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Maybe.
But, Asuma is an Iron Ranger and the closest D1 school for the family to travel to and see is UMN or St Thomas.
Will Asuma (pron:Ah-soo-mah...sort of like ski-u-mah) travel across the country to play or stay close to his family? I don't think the blue bloods have as much sway as you imagine.
 


MennoSota said:
It's my heritage. It's part of my dna. It's a word others can use. It's a word the football team used under Jerry Kill as he grew the program after Brewster.
So, it's more than just a word of the day.

FYI, this past weekend was laskiainen. Look it up. Asuma,as a Finn, may have gone to it.
https://www.perfectduluthday.com/the-event/laskiainen-finnish-festival-2023/2023-02-04/
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Ohhh my man. I’m more than familiar with that event. A good friend organizes it. Duluth was my former home
 



Holy Man said:
I’ve only seen it once here with Kerwin Walton. Any others locally? Most of our local blue blood players were on the radar for a lot g time and were not not midnight pick ups.
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We got Coffee basically because of his injury going into his senior year Humpries and Rickert came here after committing elsewhere because of their dads What other high rated players we ever get? Dahlman, Holman, Alan Anderson, Cole Aldrich ,Matthew Hurt not to mention all the Wisconsin recruits ?Our instate record is dismal . I realize this happens to a degree elsewhere but Minnesota nice seems pretty easy to leave In basketball Now to pile on teams that actually pay players and tell me why will things ever change?
 

Blackhammer said:
We got Coffee basically because of his injury going into his senior year Humpries and Rickert came here after committing elsewhere because of their dads What other high rated players we ever get Dahlman, Holman, Alan Anderson, Cole Aldrich ,Matthew Hurt not to mention all the Wisconsin recruits .Our instate record is dismal . I realize this happens to a degree elsewhere but Minnesota nice seems pretty easy to leave In basketball Now to pile on teams that actually pay players and tell me why will things ever change?
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Your original point seemed to refer to blue bloods coming into our territory late and snatching recruits that we had a real chance at getting. Your response conflates the issue of losing middle range recruits to other programs (for whatever reason and absolutely true) and gaining high level recruits because blue bloods soured on them (also very true). I reiterate that the only recent recruit we were aggressively in on who "blew up" late and was snatched by a blue blood was Kerwin Walton who indecisively bled his recruitment to the bitter end before ending up at North Carolina.

There is a difference between bad decisions, an inability to recruit local players, and having others grab players at the last minute. The first two are historic realities, while I don't see the latter as a significant issue.

If the issue is simply us missing out on local players, we have all seen it "a hundred times." The fear of Asuma having a blue blood grab him late isn't part of our historical problems (and people who follow recruiting closely suggest if he was going to "blow up" he would have by now) seems unfounded. Losing him to another major for a basket of different reasons is a fear with real basis to it.
 

I
Holy Man said:
I’ve only seen it once here with Kerwin Walton. Any others locally? Most of our local blue blood players were on the radar for a lot g time and were not not midnight pick ups.
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It may be helpful that this kid has strong family ties with 50-some relatives in the stands for his HS games. That may help him to stay close to home. Has anyone seen him play live? I heard someone say he was more of a "2" which wouldn't help quite as much, but if he can handle it and give us some offense (and stay in front of people on defense) from the guard position we'll take it in a heartbeat.
 

Fireguy10 said:
Make sure they try to sell the program and not the Coach as he should not be coaching the team in 2024.
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Players basically come for a coach, that’s who’s recruiting them - see Fleck and Morgan, CAB W.Michigan to MN, unless the kid is going to. School that specializes in certain academia, ala Purdue and engineering, as an example.
 
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Holy Man said:
Your original point seemed to refer to blue bloods coming into our territory late and snatching recruits that we had a real chance at getting. Your response conflates the issue of losing middle range recruits to other programs (for whatever reason and absolutely true) and gaining high level recruits because blue bloods soured on them (also very true). I reiterate that the only recent recruit we were aggressively in on who "blew up" late and was snatched by a blue blood was Kerwin Walton who indecisively bled his recruitment to the bitter end before ending up at North Carolina.

There is a difference between bad decisions, an inability to recruit local players, and having others grab players at the last minute. The first two are historic realities, while I don't see the latter as a significant issue.

If the issue is simply us missing out on local players, we have all seen it "a hundred times." The fear of Asuma having a blue blood grab him late isn't part of our historical problems (and people who follow recruiting closely suggest if he was going to "blow up" he would have by now) seems unfounded. Losing him to another major for a basket of different reasons is a fear with real basis to it.
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Evans would be an example of someone who blew up late and stayed with his commitment - Asuma is a much more known quantity than he was.

Tre & Tyrus we’re also PGs and they blew up early in their HS careers and had blue blood offers galore.
 


Gopher_In_NYC said:
Evans would be an example of someone who blew up late and stayed with his commitment - Asuma is a much more known quantity than he was.

Tre & Tyrus we’re also PGs and they blew up early in their HS careers and had blue blood offers galore.
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Correct but the issue is “late blow up” not generic “blow up.” We’ve had a pile of guys identified as high level recruits early that every school in the country was on. The point at hand is the infrequent player who gets noticed late in the process. Isaac would be in that category if blue bloods started putting the full court press on now. That doesn’t seem to be happening. I think us losing realistic recruits to blue bloods at the last minute is an almost non-existent problem.
 




Holy Man said:
Correct but the issue is “late blow up” not generic “blow up.” We’ve had a pile of guys identified as high level recruits early that every school in the country was on. The point at hand is the infrequent player who gets noticed late in the process. Isaac would be in that category if blue bloods started putting the full court press on now. That doesn’t seem to be happening. I think us losing realistic recruits to blue bloods at the last minute is an almost non-existent problem.
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Agree a 💯.

My point was the Jones brothers were the antithesis if that.
 

Blackhammer said:
We got Coffee basically because of his injury going into his senior year Humpries and Rickert came here after committing elsewhere because of their dads What other high rated players we ever get? Dahlman, Holman, Alan Anderson, Cole Aldrich ,Matthew Hurt not to mention all the Wisconsin recruits ?Our instate record is dismal . I realize this happens to a degree elsewhere but Minnesota nice seems pretty easy to leave In basketball Now to pile on teams that actually pay players and tell me why will things ever change?
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Daniel Oturu, Rodney Williams, Joel Pryzbilla, Sam Jacobson, Michael Bauer were all highly rated guys. Coffey still had commitable offers to Arizona and Michigan State when we got him. The good fortune Coffey was Hoiberg going to the Bulls. We may still have gotten him, Richard really wanted him home, but it would have been much more of a battle
 

Holy Man said:
Your original point seemed to refer to blue bloods coming into our territory late and snatching recruits that we had a real chance at getting. Your response conflates the issue of losing middle range recruits to other programs (for whatever reason and absolutely true) and gaining high level recruits because blue bloods soured on them (also very true). I reiterate that the only recent recruit we were aggressively in on who "blew up" late and was snatched by a blue blood was Kerwin Walton who indecisively bled his recruitment to the bitter end before ending up at North Carolina.

There is a difference between bad decisions, an inability to recruit local players, and having others grab players at the last minute. The first two are historic realities, while I don't see the latter as a significant issue.

If the issue is simply us missing out on local players, we have all seen it "a hundred times." The fear of Asuma having a blue blood grab him late isn't part of our historical problems (and people who follow recruiting closely suggest if he was going to "blow up" he would have by now) seems unfounded. Losing him to another major for a basket of different reasons is a fear with real basis to it.
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Point taken . Really hope he’s a Gopher.
 

Blackhammer said:
We got Coffee basically because of his injury going into his senior year Humpries and Rickert came here after committing elsewhere because of their dads What other high rated players we ever get? Dahlman, Holman, Alan Anderson, Cole Aldrich ,Matthew Hurt not to mention all the Wisconsin recruits ?Our instate record is dismal . I realize this happens to a degree elsewhere but Minnesota nice seems pretty easy to leave In basketball Now to pile on teams that actually pay players and tell me why will things ever change?
Click to expand...
Lot to digest here. MN recruiting of MN kids has honestly been pretty close to the average of other schools getting their in state kids. We had a couple bad year run under the last two staffs because of some AAU and coach riffs.
We will never get all the kids, but if our staff can create positive relationships with them, we will get enough.
 



Fireguy10 said:
Make sure they try to sell the program and not the Coach as he should not be coaching the team in 2024.
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You need to stop watching the games if you can't handle the fact that we're rebuilding. You should instead check the box scores to see our freshmen's progress, and you should follow recruiting.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
You need to stop watching the games if you can't handle the fact that we're rebuilding. You should instead check the box scores to see our freshmen's progress, and you should follow recruiting.
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That's almost as bad.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Evans would be an example of someone who blew up late and stayed with his commitment - Asuma is a much more known quantity than he was.

Tre & Tyrus we’re also PGs and they blew up early in their HS careers and had blue blood offers galore.
Click to expand...
Tre and Tyus played at Apple Valley, a large school in the Twin Cities. Asuma would be best known by outsiders as the kid who lives closest to the plane crash site where former Senator Paul Wellstone died. Where Asuma lives, there are more deer and timberwolves than humans. It's like finding the most remote place in the State of New York times 3. So, the competition that Asuma faces on a nightly basis would be your basic pickup game player at the YMCA. Only at the State Tournament will others see his talent (or summer AAU). Otherwise, no one would know him. The better comparison is Dutcher getting McHale out of Hibbing (not saying Asuma is another McHale) where no one else ever went.

Last year's State Tournament was Asuma's coming out party. He had Quincy Lewis falling over himself and nearly begging the Gophers to recruit him. If you haven't seen clips of him play, the kid is a smooth point guard.
 

Blackhammer said:
Any blue blood shows up it’s over. Seen this movie a hundred times .
Click to expand...
Maybe. But this is why we hired Ben. Let's see how his recruiting goes in this class. Last class he signed Christie, who had a Michigan State offer...and Evans, who could have gone anywhere he wanted.
 


It’s never going to be safe to Asuma that Isaac is coming to the Gophers. Until he signs his LOI.
 

MennoSota said:
Tre and Tyus played at Apple Valley, a large school in the Twin Cities. Asuma would be best known by outsiders as the kid who lives closest to the plane crash site where former Senator Paul Wellstone died. Where Asuma lives, there are more deer and timberwolves than humans. It's like finding the most remote place in the State of New York times 3. So, the competition that Asuma faces on a nightly basis would be your basic pickup game player at the YMCA. Only at the State Tournament will others see his talent (or summer AAU). Otherwise, no one would know him. The better comparison is Dutcher getting McHale out of Hibbing (not saying Asuma is another McHale) where no one else ever went.
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👍

Born and breed Minnesotan who grew up in Douglas County, graduated from Hamline before living in Mpls & St. Paul before moving to NYC in 98.

My mom is a Ranger, Hibbing. So I’ve driven through the town of Cherry on Hwy. 37 more time than most and it features a billboard celebrating their Class A baseball championship from sometime in the 80s IIRC. My mom’s first home was on Janet Lake before they moved into Hibbing city limits - have two uncles still live there and one of them owned at one point the house Robert Zimmerman grew up in. My Grandpa and Uncle both worked in the mines and when my mom moved back to the area they settled into Side Lake outside Chisholm.

My comment about the Jones brothers was to provide an example of MN PGs (same position)that the blue bloods were in on from the beginning and that’s not the case with Asuma - trying to assuage ‘Hammer’s worries.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
You need to remember that they're freshmen. They're doing okay if you take that into consideration. Let's see how they do in the last 5 games of the season.
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I do take it into consideration, I'm just saying that their box scores would not convert a skeptic. JOJ has improved. The rest of them have not.

Henley was worse in January than he was in December. We'll see how he does in February.
Carrington was way better in December than he was in January.
Payne is about the same (slightly worse) in January than December.
JOJ has been better.

I intentionally did not look at November because the competition was weaker.

This isn't a rip on them, I'm just pointing out that the idea that someone could look at the box score of our freshman and that would bring hope is false. They haven't been very good. Again, I understand they're freshman and there is potential, but that isn't showing up in the box score.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I do take it into consideration, I'm just saying that their box scores would not convert a skeptic. JOJ has improved. The rest of them have not.

Henley was worse in January than he was in December. We'll see how he does in February.
Carrington was way better in December than he was in January.
Payne is about the same (slightly worse) in January than December.
JOJ has been better.

I intentionally did not look at November because the competition was weaker.

This isn't a rip on them, I'm just pointing out that the idea that someone could look at the box score of our freshman and that would bring hope is false. They haven't been very good. Again, I understand they're freshman and there is potential, but that isn't showing up in the box score.
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Well stated.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I do take it into consideration, I'm just saying that their box scores would not convert a skeptic. JOJ has improved. The rest of them have not.
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For most people regardless of occupation, progress has innumerable peaks and valleys - The MD game looked like it could be Payne’s coming bout party - he was aggressive on both ends and that one block was top ten worthy, he still needs to board better and improve his handle and develop Jon Thomas range from outside the lane.
Bob_Loblaw said:
Henley was worse in January than he was in December.
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So good.
Bob_Loblaw said:
We'll see how he does in February.
Carrington was way better in December than he was in January.
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Maybe his foot was really bothering him or already injured - he gets a pass from me this year.
Bob_Loblaw said:
Payne is about the same (slightly worse) in January than December.
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See comment above and he looks much more comfy from the charity stripe and better results are ensuing. Imagine him as a Jr. - he will terrorize the paint and own it.
Bob_Loblaw said:
JOJ has been better.
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Yes he has!
Bob_Loblaw said:
I intentionally did not look at November because the competition was weaker.

This isn't a rip on them, I'm just pointing out that the idea that someone could look at the box score of our freshman and that would bring hope is false. They haven't been very good. Again, I understand they're freshman and there is potential, but that isn't showing up in the box score.
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Sometimes progress can be very minor, since it’s 3 steps forward and 2 steps back.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
👍

Born and breed Minnesotan who grew up in Douglas County, graduated from Hamline before living in Mpls & St. Paul before moving to NYC in 98.

My mom is a Ranger, Hibbing. So I’ve driven through the town of Cherry on Hwy. 37 more time than most and it features a billboard celebrating their Class A baseball championship from sometime in the 80s IIRC. My mom’s first home was on Janet Lake before they moved into Hibbing city limits - have two uncles still live there and one of them owned at one point the house Robert Zimmerman grew up in. My Grandpa and Uncle both worked in the mines and when my mom moved back to the area they settled into Side Lake outside Chisholm.

My comment about the Jones brothers was to provide an example of MN PGs (same position)that the blue bloods were in on from the beginning and that’s not the case with Asuma - trying to assuage ‘Hammer’s worries.
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You and I know the same haunts. See you at Bimbo's sometime.
Hopefully the school has a new well. Unlike Buhl that has the best water in the State, Cherry dug their well right into a sulfur pit. It was just awful. Nearly undrinkable.
 

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