Jack Robinson commits to Wisconsin

in the last 15 contests, the Badgers have won 13 and Gophers 2.
That's not much of a rivalry.
 


Careful closet Badger fan, 😏! MnJay coming to get you.
Yeah...I think some of these Wisconsin backside-smoochers are closeted Wisconsin fans.

Their favorite thing is to think they're stealing our recruits. They LOVE that idea. But it's not true...so they make delusional non-logical arguments.

Putting their MN recruits on the Gophers instead of who we got instead wouldn't help us.
 

Wisconsin isn't getting Minnesota kids like Lynch and Jacobson. Not even close.

Yeah yeah Leuer was good. But out of the 3 per year for 30 years...only 2 or 3 turned out to be in that category. The Gophers don't need to worry about the Badgers. We simply need a good coach.
Well okay. But Minnesota is getting MN HS kids like Lynch and Jacobson either. The players that WI are getting are helping them win Big Ten titles, NCAA Tournaments, etc..

Jordan Taylor was pretty darn good. Kam Taylor, Davison, Leuer , and Reuvers all scored over a 1000 points. They all would have been a little useful for Minnesota.
 

I get that the Lakeview North history is troubling but we have a coach just starting their second year. Let's let him get some games under his belt and see if LN preps continue to drift east. Johnson was hired for his relationship building.

Johnson clearly lost the battle for Winter after an aggressive recruitment. Some think that Betts reclassifying to this year may have impacted that decision as they both play forward. Based on my information, Betts has the greater upside but I do not like missing out on a decent legacy recruit... especially to a bitter rival.

It is unclear whether Winter's decision to turn red impacted Evans or not but I will take that trade at this point in their non-existent college hoops careers. Evans has the potential to be a magnet for future high-level recruits.

Robinson is a good player and will fit well with the UW team. He shoots the ball well and can play within a team defense concept. He is not what one would call a dynamic player. There are many players nationally who better fit what Johnson is trying to achieve. He now needs to reel them in.

Sometimes the fit is just not there. We have to be ok with that and not second guess every recruiting decision. For every 2-4 prep players who commit to the Gophers in any given year, there are literally dozens of 'misses.' Let's focus on the birds in the hand versus the ones who flew away.
 


Well okay. But Minnesota is getting MN HS kids like Lynch and Jacobson either. The players that WI are getting are helping them win Big Ten titles, NCAA Tournaments, etc..

Jordan Taylor was pretty darn good. Kam Taylor, Davison, Leuer , and Reuvers all scored over a 1000 points. They all would have been a little useful for Minnesota.
I beg to differ. Fit matters. Some of the players you list fit UW's system perfectly but not what the Gophers were running at the time. The debate about what led to the varying success of the two programs is a whole different discussion.

WI has done a good job of identifying and sticking to a system and recruiting the talent to play it. There are many past or current Gophers who would not do well at WI. There are many past or current Badgers who would not do well at the U of M.

Our hope is that Johnson establishes an unwavering identity and then expertly recruits the players that fit that versus chasing stars that do not fit- even if they are a top ranked Minnesotan.
 

F Davidson, I'm ecstatic he ended up a Badger.

With Reuvers, it's not hindsight, we recruited Nate Reuvers and it's absolutely insane for a Gopher fan to dismiss him because he was only ever third team All Big 10. Yes, putting Taylor and Leuer aside (which I don't know why we do that), you have found 6 examples of guys who are better than them. As much as I hate Wisconsin, it's very odd to point to good players at a much better program than ours and act like they wouldn't have helped us.

Generally, I agree with you about preferring Sims to Reuvers. But why do you? Using your logic, Sims was never All Big XII and he only averaged 6.6 points and 5.4 rebounds during his career. Why on earth would you want Sims but not Reuvers.

As far as choosing Wahl over Ihnen, again, we recruited him. It's not revisionist history. So we always wanted him. He had a similar FR season to Ihnen and a way better SO season. That was before there were any injuries. I hope Ihnen is great for us, but he was terrible as a sophomore. Wahl was a pretty important part of a much better team.

People really aren't wringing their hands over losing Robinson. This is a thread about a local person we were recruiting who just announced he is going to WI. Isn't this precisely the place for the discussion about losing recruits to WI? Most of the disagreements in this thread have nothing to do with Robinson, it's that there is a camp of people who want to pretend that we haven't lost talent to WI and people are rightfully correcting them.

It's entirely possible (and the only logical conclusion) to think that we have a great recruiting class coming in but that, in the past, we have lost a lot of talent to WI.

I don't give a sh!t about losing Robinson. I would have liked to have gotten Winter, but I'd prefer Betts and they are similar. I care more about losing Tre Holloman or Eli King than either of them. I'm ecstatic about Evans, Christie, Payne, and I think Carrington will be better than most people do. All of that said, when Gopher fans pretend like the guys we lost to the Badgers didn't hurt our program in the past, it's insane. It's an absolute cope.
I'm not putting Taylor and Leuer aside as much as noting that Wisconsin has not gotten a player of their caliber from Minnesota since then, and they enrolled at the University of Wisconsin 15 years ago now. They were committed before Tubby Smith started coaching here, so the "since Taylor and Leuer" period covers the Tubby, Pitino, and Johnson eras of Minnesota basketball. I personally only started following Gopher sports in 2007, and didn't pay much attention to recruiting until about 2010, so I have no opinion on Dan Monson's recruiting.

When I think of who has fueled Wisconsin's biggest successes over the past several years, I think of Happ, Kaminsky, Dekker etc. before Reuvers or Wahl I guess, same as I am inclined to attribute Minnesota's greatest recent highs more to Amir Coffey, Nate Mason, and Jordan Murphy than to Dupree McBrayer or Gabe Kalscheur. Gabe and Dupree were decent signings, but they weren't stars, one was even from out of state, because a guy who scores 10-ish points per game as an upperclassman is gettable from out of state. You don't get Reuvers, go get Hasahn French. He was actually going to take an official visit here until the staff took Jamir Harris' commitment instead.

Sure we "recruited" Reuvers and Wahl to some degree. They have offers from Minnesota listed on their recruiting profiles. Did the staff actually want them? Did they try to get them on official visits? I've mentioned it before, but Pitino offered basically every single high-major basketball prospect in the state while he was here, something Wisconsin absolutely doesn't do, and something Ben Johnson hasn't done either, taking passes on Prince Aligbe and DJ Jefferson. It feels like Pitino offered in state players that he didn't even want, because maybe he felt like that was how to keep coaches happy or something. Remember he offered Brad Davison like 4 days before he announced his commitment to Wisconsin, and he probably knew Brad was going to Wisconsin, but he tossed out the offer anyway. I remember them being after Theo John early, and maybe shifting focus to Jericho Sims later on. Of the three power forwards in the 2017 Minnesota high school class, it seemed like Reuvers was the third priority. I think Ryan James has also suggested the staff didn't much effort into recruiting Wahl, or Crowl.

As to Sims and Reuvers, Sims scores less, but rebounds more, and he was on a team that was more stocked with talent, competing against other 4 and 5 star players for minutes. Sims was in the same Texas recruiting class as Mo Bamba, and then Jaxson Hayes came in the next class, and both were one and dones and lottery picks. I wouldn't be surprised if Reuvers was the top rated recruit on the Wisconsin basketball team for the entire 4 years he was in college, though he did play with Happ for two years.

I'm not suggesting we haven't lost talent to Wisconsin, I'm saying the amount lost is overblown. There's been just as many benchwarmers as regular rotation players over the last decade, and Wisconsin's biggest stars in that period were not from Minnesota. Even you seem to be counting Reuvers and Wahl, and maybe Winter, as the only guys that it would have been nice to have. Even those I think would have hurt less if not for Eric Curry, Isaiah Ihnen, and Parker Fox's injury troubles. Even if we did get Reuvers and Wahl, are we really significantly better off? I just think there are much bigger factors to both Minnesota's failures and Wisconsin's successes in the last 10 or 15 years than Wisconsin's recruiting in the state of Minnesota.
 

It’s interesting. WI does have the perception of building strong teams with more white kids, so it’s not terribly shocking that suburban white kids choose to go there. Impossible as an outsider to tell if that’s parents’ or kids’ preferences in these cases, or if there’s some other influence going on.
It sucks to see any of these kids go to WI, but I’d also say there haven’t been many MN kids that have gone there that I’m really disappointed weren’t Gophers (maybe Taylor and Leuer?). Robison and Winter were on the same team last year and led their team to a pedestrian 19-9 record given their talent - it’s not like these kids are world beaters or anything. Good luck to them, just not when playing the Gophers.

Why would anyone live and play in our city, when you can live and play in Madison ?
It's pretty simple, but no one wants to say it.THE BARN IS THE REASON, PLAYERS DON'T LIKE IT.
 

I get that the Lakeview North history is troubling but we have a coach just starting their second year. Let's let him get some games under his belt and see if LN preps continue to drift east. Johnson was hired for his relationship building.

Johnson clearly lost the battle for Winter after an aggressive recruitment. Some think that Betts reclassifying to this year may have impacted that decision as they both play forward. Based on my information, Betts has the greater upside but I do not like missing out on a decent legacy recruit... especially to a bitter rival.

It is unclear whether Winter's decision to turn red impacted Evans or not but I will take that trade at this point in their non-existent college hoops careers. Evans has the potential to be a magnet for future high-level recruits.

Robinson is a good player and will fit well with the UW team. He shoots the ball well and can play within a team defense concept. He is not what one would call a dynamic player. There are many players nationally who better fit what Johnson is trying to achieve. He now needs to reel them in.

Sometimes the fit is just not there. We have to be ok with that and not second guess every recruiting decision. For every 2-4 prep players who commit to the Gophers in any given year, there are literally dozens of 'misses.' Let's focus on the birds in the hand versus the ones who flew away.
I think if Robison shoots it well, he’s a really good fit for what we do. That being said this one can be replaced by others similar to Winter. The key is to continue to get equal or better players. They accomplished that with Winter by getting Betts. Still very early in the 2024 class and lots of time.
 



I'm not putting Taylor and Leuer aside as much as noting that Wisconsin has not gotten a player of their caliber from Minnesota since then, and they enrolled at the University of Wisconsin 15 years ago now. They were committed before Tubby Smith started coaching here, so the "since Taylor and Leuer" period covers the Tubby, Pitino, and Johnson eras of Minnesota basketball. I personally only started following Gopher sports in 2007, and didn't pay much attention to recruiting until about 2010, so I have no opinion on Dan Monson's recruiting.

When I think of who has fueled Wisconsin's biggest successes over the past several years, I think of Happ, Kaminsky, Dekker etc. before Reuvers or Wahl I guess, same as I am inclined to attribute Minnesota's greatest recent highs more to Amir Coffey, Nate Mason, and Jordan Murphy than to Dupree McBrayer or Gabe Kalscheur. Gabe and Dupree were decent signings, but they weren't stars, one was even from out of state, because a guy who scores 10-ish points per game as an upperclassman is gettable from out of state. You don't get Reuvers, go get Hasahn French. He was actually going to take an official visit here until the staff took Jamir Harris' commitment instead.

Sure we "recruited" Reuvers and Wahl to some degree. They have offers from Minnesota listed on their recruiting profiles. Did the staff actually want them? Did they try to get them on official visits? I've mentioned it before, but Pitino offered basically every single high-major basketball prospect in the state while he was here, something Wisconsin absolutely doesn't do, and something Ben Johnson hasn't done either, taking passes on Prince Aligbe and DJ Jefferson. It feels like Pitino offered in state players that he didn't even want, because maybe he felt like that was how to keep coaches happy or something. Remember he offered Brad Davison like 4 days before he announced his commitment to Wisconsin, and he probably knew Brad was going to Wisconsin, but he tossed out the offer anyway. I remember them being after Theo John early, and maybe shifting focus to Jericho Sims later on. Of the three power forwards in the 2017 Minnesota high school class, it seemed like Reuvers was the third priority. I think Ryan James has also suggested the staff didn't much effort into recruiting Wahl, or Crowl.

As to Sims and Reuvers, Sims scores less, but rebounds more, and he was on a team that was more stocked with talent, competing against other 4 and 5 star players for minutes. Sims was in the same Texas recruiting class as Mo Bamba, and then Jaxson Hayes came in the next class, and both were one and dones and lottery picks. I wouldn't be surprised if Reuvers was the top rated recruit on the Wisconsin basketball team for the entire 4 years he was in college, though he did play with Happ for two years.

I'm not suggesting we haven't lost talent to Wisconsin, I'm saying the amount lost is overblown. There's been just as many benchwarmers as regular rotation players over the last decade, and Wisconsin's biggest stars in that period were not from Minnesota. Even you seem to be counting Reuvers and Wahl, and maybe Winter, as the only guys that it would have been nice to have. Even those I think would have hurt less if not for Eric Curry, Isaiah Ihnen, and Parker Fox's injury troubles. Even if we did get Reuvers and Wahl, are we really significantly better off? I just think there are much bigger factors to both Minnesota's failures and Wisconsin's successes in the last 10 or 15 years than Wisconsin's recruiting in the state of Minnesota.
If the staff didn't want Reuvers, Wahl, etc., that's an even bigger problem. I have no reason to believe we didn't.

But no one is arguing that Wisconsin's success was built on MN kids. We are arguing that we have lost a ton of talent to the Badgers. Many times, that talent manifested itself as pretty prominent role players - guys we shrug our shoulders at as no big loss like Wahl, Berggron, Brusiewicz, Crowl, etc. Are they great? No. Would have they helped MN win a lot of games - absolutely.

As far as Reuvers vs. Sims, Reuvers was a more productive basketball player on teams that outperformed the teams that Sims was on. Again, I actually like Sims more as a player but your logic for Reuvers was that he wasn't that good because he only averaged like 9 points and 4 rebounds and was only All Conference once. That was YOUR argument. Not mine. So using your logic, if Reuvers wasn't very good, what F does that make Sims?

It's weird that people on here have watched this team over the past 10 years and turn their nose up at quality depth. That has been one of our most glaring issues over the last few years (even throwing last year away). People are dismissing Crowl because he isn't one of the best players in the program's history. It's honestly baffling.

Just so we're all clear on where the Wisconsin bootlickers in this thread stand, it's pretty simple. Over the course of the last couple decades, we have lost a lot of talent to Wisconsin. That exodus of talent from MN to WI, is one of the reasons that they have been so successful and we have not. Notice, I did not say it was the only or the main reason. Notice, I did not say all of the players were the best players on WI team and better than any of our players.
 



Yeah...I think some of these Wisconsin backside-smoochers are closeted Wisconsin fans.

Their favorite thing is to think they're stealing our recruits. They LOVE that idea. But it's not true...so they make delusional non-logical arguments.

Putting their MN recruits on the Gophers instead of who we got instead wouldn't help us.
We know you think that, that's why we all laugh at you.

We have all been double agents, being fake Gopher fans for years, even arguing about things like who should be the third RB on a 2-5 football team, grieving the loss of our Turkish sharpshooter, commenting in game threads of the 14th best team in the Big 10. We have devoted that much our lives to this bit.

The payoff would have been enormous. We would get to say outrageous things like the state of MN has lost some talent to the U of WI under the guise of being a Gopher fan.

This 10 year undercover stint was really about to pay off but we just couldn't pull the wool over MNJay's eyes.
 



It’s weird to me that people are arguing Reuvers vs Sims. I believe we were final 2 in Sims and rightfully made him a priority over anyone else if was showing that interest.

Sims is currently on the Knicks roster. The last thing Reuvers did was quit on his coach. I think the correct player was prioritized.
 



I'm not putting Taylor and Leuer aside as much as noting that Wisconsin has not gotten a player of their caliber from Minnesota since then, and they enrolled at the University of Wisconsin 15 years ago now. They were committed before Tubby Smith started coaching here, so the "since Taylor and Leuer" period covers the Tubby, Pitino, and Johnson eras of Minnesota basketball. I personally only started following Gopher sports in 2007, and didn't pay much attention to recruiting until about 2010, so I have no opinion on Dan Monson's recruiting.

When I think of who has fueled Wisconsin's biggest successes over the past several years, I think of Happ, Kaminsky, Dekker etc. before Reuvers or Wahl I guess, same as I am inclined to attribute Minnesota's greatest recent highs more to Amir Coffey, Nate Mason, and Jordan Murphy than to Dupree McBrayer or Gabe Kalscheur. Gabe and Dupree were decent signings, but they weren't stars, one was even from out of state, because a guy who scores 10-ish points per game as an upperclassman is gettable from out of state. You don't get Reuvers, go get Hasahn French. He was actually going to take an official visit here until the staff took Jamir Harris' commitment instead.

Sure we "recruited" Reuvers and Wahl to some degree. They have offers from Minnesota listed on their recruiting profiles. Did the staff actually want them? Did they try to get them on official visits? I've mentioned it before, but Pitino offered basically every single high-major basketball prospect in the state while he was here, something Wisconsin absolutely doesn't do, and something Ben Johnson hasn't done either, taking passes on Prince Aligbe and DJ Jefferson. It feels like Pitino offered in state players that he didn't even want, because maybe he felt like that was how to keep coaches happy or something. Remember he offered Brad Davison like 4 days before he announced his commitment to Wisconsin, and he probably knew Brad was going to Wisconsin, but he tossed out the offer anyway. I remember them being after Theo John early, and maybe shifting focus to Jericho Sims later on. Of the three power forwards in the 2017 Minnesota high school class, it seemed like Reuvers was the third priority. I think Ryan James has also suggested the staff didn't much effort into recruiting Wahl, or Crowl.

As to Sims and Reuvers, Sims scores less, but rebounds more, and he was on a team that was more stocked with talent, competing against other 4 and 5 star players for minutes. Sims was in the same Texas recruiting class as Mo Bamba, and then Jaxson Hayes came in the next class, and both were one and dones and lottery picks. I wouldn't be surprised if Reuvers was the top rated recruit on the Wisconsin basketball team for the entire 4 years he was in college, though he did play with Happ for two years.

I'm not suggesting we haven't lost talent to Wisconsin, I'm saying the amount lost is overblown. There's been just as many benchwarmers as regular rotation players over the last decade, and Wisconsin's biggest stars in that period were not from Minnesota. Even you seem to be counting Reuvers and Wahl, and maybe Winter, as the only guys that it would have been nice to have. Even those I think would have hurt less if not for Eric Curry, Isaiah Ihnen, and Parker Fox's injury troubles. Even if we did get Reuvers and Wahl, are we really significantly better off? I just think there are much bigger factors to both Minnesota's failures and Wisconsin's successes in the last 10 or 15 years than Wisconsin's recruiting in the state of Minnesota.

They seemingly poach complimentary players from
MN and not their first or second best options/players. They’re re right next door, so that is a good approach.

Another way to look at it is, have they ever poached a true national recruit from MN?Meaning substantial offers outside the Midwest.
 
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Anyone who believes you guys are Gopher fans ought to have their head examined LOL.

The projection here is delicious. The only non-Gopher fan here is you. You definitely doth protest too much BADgerboy!
 

We know you think that, that's why we all laugh at you.

We have all been double agents, being fake Gopher fans for years, even arguing about things like who should be the third RB on a 2-5 football team, grieving the loss of our Turkish sharpshooter, commenting in game threads of the 14th best team in the Big 10. We have devoted that much our lives to this bit.

The payoff would have been enormous. We would get to say outrageous things like the state of MN has lost some talent to the U of WI under the guise of being a Gopher fan.

This 10 year undercover stint was really about to pay off but we just couldn't pull the wool over MNJay's eyes.

We are all just part of a very elaborate Andy Kauffman bit! Hell I'm third generation doing it that is how far back this goes!!
 


It’s weird to me that people are arguing Reuvers vs Sims. I believe we were final 2 in Sims and rightfully made him a priority over anyone else if was showing that interest.

Sims is currently on the Knicks roster. The last thing Reuvers did was quit on his coach. I think the correct player was prioritized.
People aren't arguing Reuvers vs. Sims, we both agree we would prefer Sims.

The argument is that the logic that someone would prefer Sims because Reuvers "only averaged 9 points and 4 rebounds per game and was only All Conference once" is terrible take because Sims averaged 7 points 6 rebounds and was never All Conference. I prefer Sims as a player.

That said, losing Reuvers hurt us more because he went to a rival and helped them win. Longhorn wins didn't hurt the Gophers. I also don't know if we prioritized Sims. I'm also not sure if we prioritized him over Reuvers. The Sims recruiting was really strange because he kind of came out of nowhere (late in the process) and skyrocketed as a recruit. We probably offered Sims around the same time Reuvers committed to Wisconsin - I don't think the two were related at all. It'd be pretty shocking to me if they didn't want both considering we had scholarships available after 2017 and gave significant run to Ghaston, Michael Hurt and Bakary the next couple of years. Maybe they prioritized him and I wouldn't have blamed them if they had, but we desperately needed more talent in the front court during this time.
 

Getting a great coach makes all the difference in the world. Once the Badgers first hired Dick Bennett from Green-Bay in 1995 and then Bo Ryan from UW-Platteville back in 2000, they became a BIG10 powerhouse, before that they were a middle of the road D1 team, at best.
We need to start hiring better head coaches, and pay them. There are plenty of great ones out their that win at DII and DI levels.... but First, we need to hire a real AD that cares about winning versus running a sports business.
 

Getting a great coach makes all the difference in the world. Once the Badgers first hired Dick Bennett from Green-Bay in 1995 and then Bo Ryan from UW-Platteville back in 2000, they became a BIG10 powerhouse, before that they were a middle of the road D1 team, at best.
We need to start hiring better head coaches, and pay them. There are plenty of great ones out their that win at DII and DI levels.... but First, we need to hire a real AD that cares about winning versus running a sports business.
Just gonna overlook bringing in athletes like rashard griffith?
 

Getting a great coach makes all the difference in the world. Once the Badgers first hired Dick Bennett from Green-Bay in 1995 and then Bo Ryan from UW-Platteville back in 2000, they became a BIG10 powerhouse, before that they were a middle of the road D1 team, at best.
We need to start hiring better head coaches, and pay them. There are plenty of great ones out their that win at DII and DI levels.... but First, we need to hire a real AD that cares about winning versus running a sports business.
Lol Coyles the best AD we’ve had since I can remember. The business part helps the winning and vice versa.
 

Getting a great coach makes all the difference in the world. Once the Badgers first hired Dick Bennett from Green-Bay in 1995 and then Bo Ryan from UW-Platteville back in 2000, they became a BIG10 powerhouse, before that they were a middle of the road D1 team, at best.
We need to start hiring better head coaches, and pay them. There are plenty of great ones out their that win at DII and DI levels.... but First, we need to hire a real AD that cares about winning versus running a sports business.
The BADgers didn’t throw $$$ around to find the flavor of the day. They found coaches in Dick and Bo with local ties who knew how to win and how to recruit to their system. The system placed an emphasis on recruiting to fit the system vs chasing 4 and 5 star players who only aspired to getting to the next level.

They knew that it was harder to compete for these rarer recruits and focused instead on lower rated players who fit. Because there are more 3 star players available, they could choose to be very selective and ENSURE fit. While not always the most exciting bball, I must acknowledge that it has been highly successful.
 

The BADgers didn’t throw $$$ around to find the flavor of the day. They found coaches in Dick and Bo with local ties who knew how to win and how to recruit to their system. The system placed an emphasis on recruiting to fit the system vs chasing 4 and 5 star players who only aspired to getting to the next level.

They knew that it was harder to compete for these rarer recruits and focused instead on lower rated players who fit. Because there are more 3 star players available, they could choose to be very selective and ENSURE fit. While not always the most exciting bball, I must acknowledge that it has been highly successful.
While this is mostly accurate, Wisconsin has tried hard (and failed) to get Wisconsin HS 4- and 5- stars - guys like Tyler Herro, Diamond Stone, Joey Hauser, and most recently Patrick Baldwin. It's more that they've HAD to look at fit and develop the guys they get rather than purposely avoiding the higher rated recruits
 

While this is mostly accurate, Wisconsin has tried hard (and failed) to get Wisconsin HS 4- and 5- stars - guys like Tyler Herro, Diamond Stone, Joey Hauser, and most recently Patrick Baldwin. It's more that they've HAD to look at fit and develop the guys they get rather than purposely avoiding the higher rated recruits
They've given the requisite effort to attract their state's highest rated recruits (who would have helped improve their brand) but haven't put all of their eggs in that basket. They HAVE been very selective in terms of which WI preps they've pursued... there are numerous decent players in state that WI hasn't given the time of day.
 

In his latest podcast, Doogie said we backed off of recruiting Jack a few months ago and that we only intend to sign 1 HS player from the Class of 2024.

Go Gophers!!
 





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