All Things Isaiah Whitehead Thread UPDATED 9/18: Whitehead to Seton Hall

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What on earth is going on at Seton Hall? Their conference blew up, their team was absolutely awful last year, they haven't been relevant in forever, we poached their assistant (and I believe they lost some others). Now all of a sudden they are getting elite recruits left and right? Sigh, the shady world of college basketball recruiting.
 

jaymil said:
He didn't even visit. Our chances are slim to none. He just visited both local schools, I'm guessing he'll pick one of them.
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Agreed. You don't go that far from home with out seeing the campus. Especially if he's been willing to check out Seton Hall, St. John's, and Indiana who are all closer.
 

WanderingGopher said:
What on earth is going on at Seton Hall? Their conference blew up, their team was absolutely awful last year, they haven't been relevant in forever, we poached their assistant (and I believe they lost some others). Now all of a sudden they are getting elite recruits left and right? Sigh, the shady world of college basketball recruiting.
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Seton Hall just hired Oliver Antigua, a long time Bronx, NY coach:

Antigua enjoyed a successful career at St. Raymond High School in the Bronx, where he coached the Ravens to five Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) Class AA championships over his 13-year tenure. In 10 seasons as head coach, the Ravens won 186 games and three intersectional championships (2003, 2004, 2012). The most recent championship campaign in 2012 featured St. Ramond posting a 21-10 overall record behind CHSAA Player of the Year Daniel Dingle. The Ravens captured a berth in the New York State Federation Tournament semifinals.

http://www.shupirates.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/091713aaa.html

Go Gophers!!
 

Straight from the horse:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>I Will Be Choosing Between St. John's, Seton Hall, Pitt, Minnesota and Indiana Thursday At My High School At 2:30 ❗</p>— Isaiah Whitehead (@Isaiah_W15) <a href="https://twitter.com/Isaiah_W15/statuses/380154308857442304">September 18, 2013</a></blockquote>
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Buttcheeks McGaffigan said:
I hope this isn't one of those instances of the parents interfering with the players final decision.
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Whatever will be, will be.

Whitehead is the guy I wanted the most - even more than Vaughn. He's a scoring machine.

Our luck that the homebody would be there and the world travelers would grow up here.
 

it looks like he won't pick the u, and now the 247 guys can quickly change their crystal ball predictions and the mn rivals guys can do the same and they can then say there were right. anyone who claims they know what these kids are thinking or who leads are making it up. no one knows. it's all about subscriptions.
 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The buzz from two coaches via text (not <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a> coaches) is Whitehead will pick St. John's.</p>— Darren Wolfson (@DarrenWolfson) <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenWolfson/statuses/380156696053567489">September 18, 2013</a></blockquote>
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Go Gophers!!
 

Has he even visited St. John's yet? Earlier in his recruitment the story was that he wanted to go away from home. What happened? St. John's is in his back yard. (And like Seton Hall, no longer in a power conference).

Agreed, who would've thought the "world travelers" (SMH) would be in Minneapolis and the homebodies in NYC?
 



WanderingGopher said:
Has he even visited St. John's yet? Earlier in his recruitment the story was that he wanted to go away from home. What happened? St. John's is in his back yard. (And like Seton Hall, no longer in a power conference).

Agreed, who would've thought the "world travelers" (SMH) would be in Minneapolis and the homebodies in NYC?
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I believe he is taking an unofficial there tomorrow. Hard to feel good about the Gophers chances with him never even having been on campus, if I had to take a guess I would bet he picks either St.Johns or Indiana.
 

Quite a few on the Seton Hall board think it will be St. John's. Rumor being that his mom prefers Lavin.

Too bad all of the top Gopher targets can't announce on Thursday. Then if it's a complete swing and a miss, they can start pushing harder at and taking commitments from the plan B's and plan C's.
 





Bridesmaids yet again oh well. Now we can go all out for Rashad and hope he is homesick after a year at Findlay.
 

"You don't even need to visit"? What a joke. Save us the bullsh*t and just say you're announcing between the two mid-major schools near your home. And sheesh, if you think you're a big time player and you're going to go to school in NJ, at least pick the one in the B1G, not some school that hasn't been relevant in 30 years.
 

I'm definitely disappointed that he's announcing without visiting us. I know it's not likely that he's going to commit to the U, but to delay my misery I'm going to offer a delusional point of view: Isaiah has such a good relationship with Pitino and Kimani Young that he visited the other schools to see if they had enough of a "wow factor" to prevent him from committing to us. None did, so he's choosing us.

There, now I can sleep tonight.

EDIT: Would it be a recruiting violation if us Gopherholers organized a last minute Twitter bomb to try and convince him to come to the U? :cool:
 

lars3212 said:
I'm definitely disappointed that he's announcing without visiting us. I know it's not likely that he's going to commit to the U, but to delay my misery I'm going to offer a delusional point of view: Isaiah has such a good relationship with Pitino and Kimani Young that he visited the other schools to see if they had enough of a "wow factor" to prevent him from committing to us. None did, so he's choosing us.

There, now I can sleep tonight.

EDIT: Would it be a recruiting violation if us Gopherholers organized a last minute Twitter bomb to try and convince him to come to the U? :cool:
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It's against the rules to contact a recruit if you are a booster of the athletic program i.e- season ticket holder or if you have ever donated money to the athletic department. There are other definitions of boosters as well. I'm sure there are plenty of boosters on this board.
 

It is interesting that the only team that has been consistently on his list is Minnesota. We've seen UCLA/Arizona/Miami/Syracuse/Louisville and others pop on and off but Minnesota was always in the mix. His initial six looks nothing like his current five, except Minnesota.

He never took any official visits -- not sure why that would be. Maybe it just isn't that important to him. The fact that he didn't visit here doesn't completely remove us, in my opinion.

But....Sure seems like he was either blown away by Seton Hall or he just decided that he wanted to stay home and go to St. John's. However, he has seemed to enjoy the fact that nobody knew where he was going. Certainly not predicting Minnesota but I haven't completely lost hope either.
 

I have to imagine Pitino and Kimani have a very good idea of where they stand with him since they just had an in-home visit with him. So more than likely they've moved on to other priorities.
 

lars3212 said:
I'm definitely disappointed that he's announcing without visiting us. I know it's not likely that he's going to commit to the U, but to delay my misery I'm going to offer a delusional point of view: Isaiah has such a good relationship with Pitino and Kimani Young that he visited the other schools to see if they had enough of a "wow factor" to prevent him from committing to us. None did, so he's choosing us.

There, now I can sleep tonight.

EDIT: Would it be a recruiting violation if us Gopherholers organized a last minute Twitter bomb to try and convince him to come to the U? :cool:
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Lars- I like your delusional view. :) It's not impossible that he still selects us- Newton did it at Miami. And... a verbal isn't final so he knows that he can still visit after the verbal. But if one cannot subscribe to the delusional view - then we should all consider this: If Whitehead now chooses to be close to home after it appeared he was headed elsewhere- we still do have three fine players here locally, any of which could do the same and none of which have commited elsewhere. Hard work usually pays off and despite the lack of good news- I think Pitino and company are putting in the work.
 

It looks bad but I always wait until the fat woman sings. "So you're saying there's a chance?"
 

This seems exactly like the Perkins deal. Keeps us on the list, but without a visit?? It makes no sense to me. So now I'm hoping TumTum/LaChance, Martin, Vaughn and Cunningham! Is that too much to ask?
 

Did all of the 24/7 guys change their crystal balls yet?
 


gall0249 said:
Did all of the 24/7 guys change their crystal balls yet?
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Yes. 19 straight SJU predictions in the last two days. Although the last non-SJU prediction was for U of MN. "So you're telling me there's a chance."
 

Go4 said:
it looks like he won't pick the u, and now the 247 guys can quickly change their crystal ball predictions and the mn rivals guys can do the same and they can then say there were right. anyone who claims they know what these kids are thinking or who leads are making it up. no one knows. it's all about subscriptions.
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I wouldn't lump Ryan James from GI in with those 247 guys. The guys from 247 caught on with a nice outfit in CBS & they're passionate, but at the end of the day they're just posters from GopherIllustrated trying to run their own website, whereas Ryan James is actually an insider who's spent years involved in the basketball local scene & has lot's of coaching/AAU contacts across the country.

I'm not sure what 247 has been saying, but RJ's said for months that Mom wanted Whitehead to stay close to home & that it would be hard to overcome. Suddenly Seton Hall & St Johns pop up on his list & he's ready to commit without having visited several of his top schools? Tells me proximity to Mom was always the #1 factor.
 

I do think it is interesting though that his coach said the following in Zagoria' blog.....

James Barrett, Whitehead’s AAU coach and an assistant at Lincoln, said Wednesday’s visit will be key.

“It’s going to be important because it’s going to be kind of like his last impression of a school before he makes his decision,” Barrett said of St. John’s.

If it was a slam dunk to go to St. John's, why would his coach say that yesterday? Seems like he still might have two schools in play.

The other thing that is interesting is the quick announcement. He has been saying all along that he would decide in November (as recently as a few days ago in his twitter account). Something has fundamentally changed.

If he decided to stay local and it is between Seton Hall and St. John's, then why the compressed timeline?

Indiana might make some sense if Crean put the squeeze on him to decide before Johnson or Blackmon or others take his spot. If Indiana is truly Whitehead's favorite, then I could see a quicker verbal from him.

A Whitehead commitment for the Gophers would potentially tip the scales for Tum Tum (whose decision is probably imminent) or LaChance and Martin. If Kamani felt really good about where they were at with Whitehead, they might have pushed him given how key the next couple weeks will be for the Gophers. I'm not saying this is the most likely scenario but you never know, particularly with all the mixed signals coming from him over the last few months.

I'm still holding out at least a glimmer of hope.

http://zagsblog.com/articles/whitehead-to-announce-thursday/
 

Why did he change? I hate to say it, but college basketball is a grimy business, and I'd guess that's especially true in NYC. And Lavin, as a low-rent version of Calipari, wouldn't be above making sure a few promises were made. Call it sour grapes, but I always find it a bit suspicious when teams like SJU suddenly comes in out of the blue for a big recruit like this.
 

jmag21 said:
Why did he change? I hate to say it, but college basketball is a grimy business, and I'd guess that's especially true in NYC. And Lavin, as a low-rent version of Calipari, wouldn't be above making sure a few promises were made. Call it sour grapes, but I always find it a bit suspicious when teams like SJU suddenly comes in out of the blue for a big recruit like this.
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... Or teams like Minnesota?
 

scher215 said:
... Or teams like Minnesota?
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I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that we have "come in suddenly" to Whitehead's recruitment. But hey, if we're going to start running a gangster program, that's fine with me. Bring back the days of Tark the Shark and the whirlpool!
 

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