All Things Kerwin Walton Recruitment Thread (Class of 2020)

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For some reason I thought Walton was announcing today. I could have simply made that up to stay entertained.
 






UpAndUnder43 said:
Is it actually his kid?
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I don't know but I would assume so. A little more research- Darius Miles does have a son but it appears that he was raised by mom...which is a good thing since Miles himself was talented but had a fair amount of trouble and lost it all.

We suddenly rose into his top 3 after no mention.
 
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UpAndUnder43 said:
This all sounds awesome but it isn't true.

A lot of the firing and hiring is done well before the Final Four because generally the teams firing and hiring are done weeks before this and probably decided to move on well before the NCAA tournament selection committee snubbed their 9-23 team.

If your AD is waiting for a gathering of coaches at the final four to interview...your AD sucks.
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Apparently I was mistaken regarding how part of this functions - not the first time and it won't be the last either - I'm sure you can relate.

A couple of points to clarify- if a coach you want to hire gets his team in the tourney and you don't know how long their run will last then they may well not be hired "weeks" before the FF.

FYI - Last year the FF was on April 6 & 8 - I just checked my shirt as I bought one.

Many of the hiring dates I found on SI's website regarding hiring announcemts were done the week before the FF.
These were the schools twets.

The larger point I was trying to communicate and did do unsuccessfully, my bad, is that Coyle has his process and if he didn't have enough time to do it the way he wanted - better to wait a year.

This all may be a moot discussion any way as maybe he couldn't do so because of the virus economics - no approval at this juncture?
 
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Money in uncertain times was a significant factor in the decision to ride with Pitino another season. Or maybe not? Maybe Coyle believes in Richard...he knows him better than most Gopherholers.
 

bga1 said:
I don't know but I would assume so. A little more research- Darius Miles does have a son but it appears that he was raised by mom...which is a good thing since Miles himself was talented but had a fair amount of trouble and lost it all.

We suddenly rose into his top 3 after no mention.
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Agents for coaches are good at getting a team listed so it appears that they were close.
 




It was definitely a slip to say Minnesota has an edge over some of the schools. Clearly not over all of the schools. Really hope that he changes his mind and chooses us, however it is clear from how aggressive and active our coaching staff is that he isn't coming here.
 






UpAndUnder43 said:
Did coaches prior to Pitino lock down the border? Serious Q. Haven’t looked into it too much.
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No, guys like El-Amin, Lane, Bell, Althoff, Horvath, Gilbert, Taylor, Taylor, Aldrich, Leuer, etc all went elsewhere.

Johnson, Boone, Ohnstad, McKenzie, and Mbakwe went elsewhere and then transferred back. Hargrow came here, left, and came back. Schilling, Coleman, and White came here and then transferred. Rickert and Humphries committed elsewhere before eventually signing here.

We have never locked down the border in the past 25 years. If we had Gopherhole in 1998 people would have been melting down (and this the year after we made the Final Four).

Also contributing is Minnesota used to produce a quality player every couple years, then eventually a couple every year, and now we pump out a bunch of guys so every year there are bound to be more misses just on sheer numbers.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Did coaches prior to Pitino lock down the border? Serious Q. Haven’t looked into it too much.
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I wrote 2500 words on this topic shortly after Dawson Garcia committed to Marquette. There is not good recruiting data available going back to Clem, but the 3 coaches I've been alive for (Haskins, Monson, Smith) have all done a better job locally in terms of getting kids to stay home. Losing high priority kids to schools like Marquette was a rarity until Pitino took over. Losing McKenzie to Oklahoma under Monson was a similar failure (especially since he priortized him over Kam Taylor who would commit to Wisconsin in the same class).
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
No, guys like El-Amin, Lane, Bell, Althoff, Horvath, Gilbert, Taylor, Taylor, Aldrich, Leuer, etc all went elsewhere.

Johnson, Boone, Ohnstad, McKenzie, and Mbakwe went elsewhere and then transferred back. Hargrow came here, left, and came back. Schilling, Coleman, and White came here and then transferred. Rickert and Humphries committed elsewhere before eventually signing here.

We have never locked down the border in the past 25 years. If we had Gopherhole in 1998 people would have been melting down (and this the year after we made the Final Four).

Also contributing is Minnesota used to produce a quality player every couple years, then eventually a couple every year, and now we pump out a bunch of guys so every year there are bound to be more misses just on sheer numbers.
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Johnson and Ohnstad did not have Gopher offers out of high school, I am not sure Trevor did either. Schilling, White, Rickert, and Humphries all committed to the Gophers so they would count as successes? The program was solid enough under Clem that a lot of local kids with good offers were not Gopher offers including Troy Bell who had a great career at Boston College and Nick Horvath who went to Duke (imagine a local kid not having a Gopher offer and going to Duke now but he wasn't tough/physical enough for Clem). There is no precedent for the 2020 class or the 2017 class in the 25 years prior in terms of just whiffing on a ton of kids especially ones that didn't go to blue bloods.
 


EG#9 said:
Johnson and Ohnstad did not have Gopher offers out of high school, I am not sure Trevor did either. Schilling, White, Rickert, and Humphries all committed to the Gophers so they would count as successes? The program was solid enough under Clem that a lot of local kids with good offers were not Gopher offers including Troy Bell who had a great career at Boston College and Nick Horvath who went to Duke (imagine a local kid not having a Gopher offer and going to Duke now but he wasn't tough/physical enough for Clem). There is no precedent for the 2020 class or the 2017 class in the 25 years prior in terms of just whiffing on a ton of kids especially ones that didn't go to blue bloods.
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Whether they had offers or not they still went somewhere else first. It's a pretty big miss to not offer Ben Johnson or Trevor Mbakwe, no matter that we got them in the end or not.
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
No, guys like El-Amin, Lane, Bell, Althoff, Horvath, Gilbert, Taylor, Taylor, Aldrich, Leuer, etc all went elsewhere.

Johnson, Boone, Ohnstad, McKenzie, and Mbakwe went elsewhere and then transferred back. Hargrow came here, left, and came back. Schilling, Coleman, and White came here and then transferred. Rickert and Humphries committed elsewhere before eventually signing here.

We have never locked down the border in the past 25 years. If we had Gopherhole in 1998 people would have been melting down (and this the year after we made the Final Four).

Also contributing is Minnesota used to produce a quality player every couple years, then eventually a couple every year, and now we pump out a bunch of guys so every year there are bound to be more misses just on sheer numbers.
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Tubby had Rodney and White the same year. He did get White, White just got in trouble before he could get on the floor. Tubby also then got Mbakwe back.
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
No, guys like El-Amin, Lane, Bell, Althoff, Horvath, Gilbert, Taylor, Taylor, Aldrich, Leuer, etc all went elsewhere.

Johnson, Boone, Ohnstad, McKenzie, and Mbakwe went elsewhere and then transferred back. Hargrow came here, left, and came back. Schilling, Coleman, and White came here and then transferred. Rickert and Humphries committed elsewhere before eventually signing here.

We have never locked down the border in the past 25 years. If we had Gopherhole in 1998 people would have been melting down (and this the year after we made the Final Four).

Also contributing is Minnesota used to produce a quality player every couple years, then eventually a couple every year, and now we pump out a bunch of guys so every year there are bound to be more misses just on sheer numbers.
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We did have a gopherhole.com in 1998. The real negative Nancys showed up in about 2008-2010.

The Gopher Hole

unofficial home of University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball
web.archive.org
 

I do not consider every kid offered a miss if they did not come here. You try as best you can and if they have their heart set on a dream school with a great coach that is just the way it goes. Fans tend to overate in state kids everywhere. The state happens to be a top 12 state just for the past few years. The fact is that we have not built a program.
 

EG#9 said:
I wrote 2500 words on this topic shortly after Dawson Garcia committed to Marquette. There is not good recruiting data available going back to Clem, but the 3 coaches I've been alive for (Haskins, Monson, Smith) have all done a better job locally in terms of getting kids to stay home. Losing high priority kids to schools like Marquette was a rarity until Pitino took over. Losing McKenzie to Oklahoma under Monson was a similar failure (especially since he priortized him over Kam Taylor who would commit to Wisconsin in the same class).
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You are trying to compare apples to oranges.

- Like you said, we produced a some big slow centers once every few years. They were not as highly regarded as the players we produce today and they were not courted by the "blue bloods". Also, Gopher Basketball was a very hot ticket to get and the atmosphere was electric.
- One and done's didn't really exist and most players stayed at their school for all four years of eligibility. You didn't have the Duke's, Kentucky's, etc.. needing to reloading with 4-6 new players every year. That, along with the pro leagues in Europe (and now the G-League) takes a lot of good players early out of college which need to be filled. There is so much more competition for the top players today. And you have the AAU programs that give kids so much exposure to the "blue bloods".

It is real difficult to compare the in-state recruiting of today to what it was back in the Clem or Dutcher days.
 

skiumah1 said:
Tubby had Rodney and White the same year. He did get White, White just got in trouble before he could get on the floor. Tubby also then got Mbakwe back.
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I’m pretty sure White committed publicly before he had an official offer under Tubby. Hope I’m not perpetuating rumors here. The dude clearly has an affinity to being close to home.
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
Whether they had offers or not they still went somewhere else first. It's a pretty big miss to not offer Ben Johnson or Trevor Mbakwe, no matter that we got them in the end or not.
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I feel like that is a different conversation as that speaks to evaluation. I defended Pitino for not offering Terry (until really, really late) and he's put his name in for the draft after his freshman year at Stanford. Pitino didn't feel he fit his style of play and went after a ton of other guards and missed and finally ended up with Greenlee in complete desperation mode. The problem with counting a Mbawke against Monson or a Terry against Pitino is where do you draw the line? Is it fair to criticize Monson or Tubby for not offering Ben Woodside or Nate Wolters? Neither of those guys had any high major offers so I think the answer is clearly "no" but you may disagree?

On Kerwin Walton, Rivals just put something up today saying that his recruitment is very hard to read but that Arizona and Creighton might be in better shape than others.
 

EG#9 said:
I feel like that is a different conversation as that speaks to evaluation. I defended Pitino for not offering Terry (until really, really late) and he's put his name in for the draft after his freshman year at Stanford. Pitino didn't feel he fit his style of play and went after a ton of other guards and missed and finally ended up with Greenlee in complete desperation mode. The problem with counting a Mbawke against Monson or a Terry against Pitino is where do you draw the line? Is it fair to criticize Monson or Tubby for not offering Ben Woodside or Nate Wolters? Neither of those guys had any high major offers so I think the answer is clearly "no" but you may disagree?

On Kerwin Walton, Rivals just put something up today saying that his recruitment is very hard to read but that Arizona and Creighton might be in better shape than others.
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I don’t remember the woodside recruitment at all, but there were a lot of people critical of Tubby for not offering Wolters, especially during his sr season. Most were guessing it was a style/height/athleticism reason for not doing so.
 


Gopherholefan said:
I don’t remember the woodside recruitment at all, but there were a lot of people critical of Tubby for not offering Wolters, especially during his sr season. Most were guessing it was a style/height/athleticism reason for not doing so.
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Wolters's best offer all his senior year was NSIC. Even SDSU and the other low D1's came in late. I loved Nate and coached against his Tech teams. They were great and he was obviously very underrated, but it was even underrated in the local scene.
 

EG#9 said:
The program was solid enough under Clem that a lot of local kids with good offers were not Gopher offers including Troy Bell who had a great career at Boston College and Nick Horvath who went to Duke (imagine a local kid not having a Gopher offer and going to Duke now but he wasn't tough/physical enough for Clem).
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Clem shouldn't get credit for not offering Troy Bell, that was a ridiculous decision and terrible evaluation.
 

manderson1984 said:
Wolters's best offer all his senior year was NSIC. Even SDSU and the other low D1's came in late. I loved Nate and coached against his Tech teams. They were great and he was obviously very underrated, but it was even underrated in the local scene.
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Did he improve that much in you opinion from HS or was it a big miss by everyone? I think about Decker when asking these type of questions based on how he ended up a Gopher.
 

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