Jon Leuer best college basketball player with USA Basketball

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ShowinGoldyLove said:
He chose Bo over Monson and the U, don't think there was much we could do.
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Two guys, Blake and Jon, and one scholarship available to the first one who took it. Blake jumped. Jon did a little more research. Both have done nicely in their circumstances. It would have been good to have both, but I'm not sure I would "trade" Blake for Jon.

If anything, this was a symptom of Monson giving scholarships to guys who couldn't play Big Ten basketball to fill the roster and then not having scholarships when guys who could play were available.

The Bo style fit well with his skill set and he made a good choice.
 


Holy Man said:
Two guys, Blake and Jon, and one scholarship available to the first one who took it. Blake jumped.
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That's actually incorrect.

If you read everything about that situation, it's true they only had one scholarship left. However, Leuer chose WI before Hoffarber decided between his offers.

Hoffarber then was deciding between the U, Notre Dame, etc. after he already knew Leuer was going to WI...there was a time where many thought we weren't going to get either of them because the staff diddled around for too long on the recruitment of both.

Leuer chose WI a number of weeks before Hoffarber ended up taking the scholarship at the U. I can find the articles stating as such if you give me a bit, but I know I've read that's how it went down numerous times.
 

ShowinGoldyLove said:
That's actually incorrect.

If you read everything about that situation, it's true they only had one scholarship left. However, Leuer chose WI before Hoffarber decided between his offers.

Hoffarber then was deciding between the U, Notre Dame, etc. after he already knew Leuer was going to WI...there was a time where many thought we weren't going to get either of them because the staff diddled around for too long on the recruitment of both.

Leuer chose WI a number of weeks before Hoffarber ended up taking the scholarship at the U. I can find the articles stating as such if you give me a bit, but I know I've read that's how it went down numerous times.
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Leuer committed to Wisky in Sept 2006.

Hoffarber chose Minny in Oct 2006. Both Louisville and Cincy wanted him, too.
 

ShowinGoldyLove said:
That's actually incorrect.

If you read everything about that situation, it's true they only had one scholarship left. However, Leuer chose WI before Hoffarber decided between his offers.

Hoffarber then was deciding between the U, Notre Dame, etc. after he already knew Leuer was going to WI...there was a time where many thought we weren't going to get either of them because the staff diddled around for too long on the recruitment of both.

Leuer chose WI a number of weeks before Hoffarber ended up taking the scholarship at the U. I can find the articles stating as such if you give me a bit, but I know I've read that's how it went down numerous times.
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According to Rivals' database you are correct. Leuer committed to Wis on 9/15/06. Hoff committed to the U on 9/25/06.
 

Minnesota was actually 'late' in offering Leuer (perhaps due in part to Mbakwe). Didn't offer until he had attracted quite a bit of interest from others...

While the Gophers had offered Leuer, there was a period of time when they told Blake, "hey, why don't you walk on for a year... we'll get you a scholarship after year 1, no problem... but we might not have one for you this year".

People have this idea in their head that an offer is a formal contract and a done deal.. and that you can't possibly offer more kids than you have scholarships available.. which is not accurate. I think probably in mid-August when interest in Blake from other schools really was picking up and he was talking about narrowing his list is when Minnesota may have said.. 'OK.. you have an 'offer'... probably.. we really want you, we're just trying to make it all work out...'

Leuer commits to Wisconsin around 9/14/06... and a week and a half later Hoffarber goes with Minnesota.

Certainly was not a situation where Minnesota said "we like both of you guys a tremendous amount, here is a scholarship, first one to grab it gets it!!!".
 



Sorry, this is off thread a little bit, interesting though. (deals with scholarships)........and that you can't possibly offer more kids than you have scholarships available.. which is not accurate.Stated by GW, which we all know to be true. I mean darn, if Arizona State blah, blah, blah....On the other thread I was looking up Buzz Williams because his response to a question was filled with math. Wanted to know what he majored in. Looked it up on Wikipedia and found this.... True or not? I don't know, perhaps GW does, anyways... Buzz received his nickname while attending Navarro College. He "buzzed" around the men's basketball team so often the coach gave him the nickname. His strategy to continuing recruiting over players who have already signed a Letter of Intent has led to the creation of the term "buzz cut". Fall 2010 incoming recruit D.J. Newbill was "buzz cut" on June 30, 2010 to make room for Oregon transfer Jamil Wilson......I honestly wasn't familiar with this practice. Probably naive of me. The addition to wikipedia is so new that it might be some pissed off person giving the "buzz cut" term.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Sorry, this is off thread a little bit, interesting though. (deals with scholarships)........and that you can't possibly offer more kids than you have scholarships available.. which is not accurate.Stated by GW, which we all know to be true. I mean darn, if Arizona State blah, blah, blah....On the other thread I was looking up Buzz Williams because his response to a question was filled with math. Wanted to know what he majored in. Looked it up on Wikipedia and found this.... True or not? I don't know, perhaps GW does, anyways... Buzz received his nickname while attending Navarro College. He "buzzed" around the men's basketball team so often the coach gave him the nickname. His strategy to continuing recruiting over players who have already signed a Letter of Intent has led to the creation of the term "buzz cut". Fall 2010 incoming recruit D.J. Newbill was "buzz cut" on June 30, 2010 to make room for Oregon transfer Jamil Wilson......I honestly wasn't familiar with this practice. Probably naive of me. The addition to wikipedia is so new that it might be some pissed off person giving the "buzz cut" term.
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Looks like a Becky fan has hopped onto Wikipedia. Same concept as 'Creaned'. The Newbill situation I would only discuss over several beers, but will say the description made by an anonymous person with an obvious dislike for Marquette is stupid and wrong.
 

GH.com: As far as the Gophers are concerned, what has been your communication with them?

Leuer: I talked to their coaches a lot. I think I have gotten to know Coach Ware the best. Right now they do not have a scholarship available, and they have asked me to walk on the first year. I am still interested in them, but we’ll have to see how it all plays out.

MN later offered but basically didn't Monson choose Nolen over Leuer for the available scholarship? Also, when Trevor picked Marquette, didn't MN go after Leuer more which was pretty late in the game?
 

Monson was actually a genius. Just imagine what a good walk-on Leuer would have been!
 





The Leuer and Hoffarber deals seemed a little strange to me, I think there was a lot of poker involved. But that's actually the way the drafts go. And I can at least partly agree with the thread title, Leuer is amongst the five best college basketball players around. Let's see how things go in the future but he can become a big one if he he can further improve his play.
 

Leuer is a great college player and a tough matchup. He has a chance to be a later first round pick. He can shoot and handle the ball like a small forward at 6'10" 240 lbs. The negative: he averaged 5.8 rebounds per game. Who can he guard at the next level? He could develop into a Gulgiota type player I guess. If Wisconsin pulls out a top 4 finish with just Lueur, Taylor, and a bunch of role players I will be impressed.
 

march madness said:
Leuer is a great college player and a tough matchup. He has a chance to be a later first round pick. He can shoot and handle the ball like a small forward at 6'10" 240 lbs. The negative: he averaged 5.8 rebounds per game. Who can he guard at the next level? He could develop into a Gulgiota type player I guess. If Wisconsin pulls out a top 4 finish with just Lueur, Taylor, and a bunch of role players I will be impressed.
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Not sure if that's a valid comparison. Gugliotta was a very good rebounder. Leuer will be lucky if he has half the career that Googs had.
 

I will give you that Gugliotta was a much better rebounder. I'm not sure Wisconsin ever has someone with big rebounding numbers as they invert their players on offense and play such a slow down game. Less rebounds to be had. But like I said 5.8 rebounds is pretty low for the minutes he plays. I was thinking of his offensive skill with ball handling and shooting being like Gugliotta.
 

The data shows that Leuer is a very good rebounder, if you understand contemporary statistics. Rebounds per game is a very poor way of measuring rebounds. Defensive rebound % and Offensive Rebound % are much better. Here's why:

Offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds are different animals. If you play for a coach who would rather get back quickly and force the other team to play half court offense, then you aren't going to get a lot of offensive rebounds.

Second, as mentioned above, the number of possessions per game will influence the number of rebounds.

Third, if you are surrounded by a team of good rebounders, you will get less rebounds than if you are surrounded by crappy rebounding munchkins.

Fourth, your own team's shooting percentage will influence the number of offensive rebounding opportunities and your defensive FG% allowed will influence the number of defensive rebounds available.

Fifth, turnovers forced by defense and committed by offense will have an influence on potential rebounds at both ends.

So here's what you need to know about Leuer's rebounding:
1) The Badgers were second in the nation in defensive rebounding % last year.
2) Leuer was by far the best defensive rebounder among Badger starters last year and fifth in the B10 in defensive rebounding.
3) Bo Ryan is very conservative at offensive rebounds and asks his players to get back on defense rather than crash the offensive boards.
 



The Leuer/Blake situation was a complete mess and Monson completely dropped the ball on this one. The first time I saw Leuer was at the Minnesota Team camp before his junior year and it was clear back then, even before he grew the extra 3 inches, that he was a player. Doug Gottlieb, who was the guest speaker:cool:, couldn't stop talking about him and joked to MN assistants Walker and Couch that they should offer him immediately. The problem was that Monson was on vacation again and wasn't at the camp and never saw him or really heard about him. By the time MN realized he could play and offered, it was way too late. The Leuer's we're gopher fans and he would of come here had they gotten in earlier but they knew Monson was a Dead Man Walking and had serious doubts about the future of the MN program.

MN also waited a very long time on Blake but got extremely lucky that the Hoffarbers we're strong Gopher fans and that outweighted any concerns or bad feelings they had about the program(situation similiar to Oglesby). MN tried to use that to there advantage with the gray shirt offer but that didn't go over too well.

Both Blake and Leuer came very close to committing to Louisville during the summer.

The biggest screwup MN made in the situation was panicking in the spring, thinking there jobs we're on the line, and feeling like they had to win now so they tried to catch the Vincent Grier lightning in a bottle by using a scholarship on a juco to try to make a big immediate impact. It failed miserably as Engen Nurumbi was one of the worst signings in gopher histroy and it used up a valuable scholarship that should of been offered to Leuer during his senior season.
 

Always interesting to get the inside scoop on stuff like this. It's good to have u back

JohnnyGopher said:
The Leuer/Blake situation was a complete mess and Monson completely dropped the ball on this one. The first time I saw Leuer was at the Minnesota Team camp before his junior year and it was clear back then, even before he grew the extra 3 inches, that he was a player. Doug Gottlieb, who was the guest speaker:cool:, couldn't stop talking about him and joked to MN assistants Walker and Couch that they should offer him immediately. The problem was that Monson was on vacation again and wasn't at the camp and never saw him or really heard about him. By the time MN realized he could play and offered, it was way too late. The Leuer's we're gopher fans and he would of come here had they gotten in earlier but they knew Monson was a Dead Man Walking and had serious doubts about the future of the MN program.

MN also waited a very long time on Blake but got extremely lucky that the Hoffarbers we're strong Gopher fans and that outweighted any concerns or bad feelings they had about the program(situation similiar to Oglesby). MN tried to use that to there advantage with the gray shirt offer but that didn't go over too well.

Both Blake and Leuer came very close to committing to Louisville during the summer.

The biggest screwup MN made in the situation was panicking in the spring, thinking there jobs we're on the line, and feeling like they had to win now so they tried to catch the Vincent Grier lightning in a bottle by using a scholarship on a juco to try to make a big immediate impact. It failed miserably as Engen Nurumbi was one of the worst signings in gopher histroy and it used up a valuable scholarship that should of been offered to Leuer during his senior season.
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Thanks Johnny. Interesting, as always.

I can't wait until Leuer graduates. At that point I can tell myself the "impact" of the previous coach (as well as "Helluva' golfer") on the Gopher program will be completely washed away.
 

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