Purdue's Edney says Gophers were first to offer, but Pitino seemed to be "going through the motions" in recruitment, Edey said.

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BleedGopher

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per Marcus:

Edey is the latest in a long line of 7-footer success stories under Purdue coach Matt Painter. But the first but team to offer a scholarship, when Edey was all raw talent in Toronto, was the Gophers.

"They were my first D-I offer," Edey said Tuesday. "I played with [former Gophers player] Marcus Carr in the same AAU program he did, so my AAU coach had a connection to Minnesota. They came down to watch a few games and offered me the first summer that I started playing."

Current Gophers coach Ben Johnson wasn't on staff at the time, but Johnson's predecessor Richard Pitino seemed to be "going through the motions" in recruitment, Edey said. "I didn't feel like the interest was there from them."

www.startribune.com

7-foot-4 Purdue big man Zach Edey passed on first scholarship offer — from the Gophers

Edey's first D-I scholarship offer came from Minnesota, but he picked the Boilermakers and their history with 7-footers.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 




I'm not going to defend Pitino. His recruiting results landed him in New Mexico. I would ask Edey about the other 10-20 schools that probably also offered him. Were they also going through the motions? This sounds like Suggs saying he would have been a gopher if Pitino had DM'ed him 20 times a day instead of 15.
 




GopherBlood666 said:
Funny how the Strib is running a story on Edey only for the fact that the previously fired head coach swung and missed. Shouldn't this be more about how the David Gophers will take down the Goliath Boilermakers?
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No. We must stay laser focused on every individual minor failure, as judged in hindsight and without context, for at least two full coaching cycles.
 

jamiche said:
I'm not going to defend Pitino. His recruiting results landed him in New Mexico. I would ask Edey about the other 10-20 schools that probably also offered him. Were they also going through the motions? This sounds like Suggs saying he would have been a gopher if Pitino had DM'ed him 20 times a day instead of 15.
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You're not comparing recruit Edey to recruit Suggs are you?

Of course Suggs was never coming here. He was a top dozen (give or take) rated prep and a high lottery pick after his freshman year. I can understand why Pitino wouldn't want to spend much time recruiting him.

Edey was much different. According to 247 Sports he was rated as the 76th best center and the #440th player nationally (ESPN rated him a bit higher). Obviously, he deserved a higher rating but he certainly was gettable by a program of our stature.
 



bc2211 said:
No. We must stay laser focused on every individual minor failure, as judged in hindsight and without context, for at least two full coaching cycles.
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Bravo! Completely agree. Now you're making sense. No abatement of Pitino bashing for at least two years!

:giggle:
 

Unlike Suggs, Edey has no reason to say this if it weren’t true. Suggs knows he has to come back to Minnesota and he wants to still be the hometown hero. Edey has no connection here, and quite frankly I’m assuming doesn’t give a damn what Minnesota fan thinks about him. I think Edey’s statement is very enlightening as to the kind of recruiter Pitino was.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
Funny how the Strib is running a story on Edey only for the fact that the previously fired head coach swung and missed. Shouldn't this be more about how the David Gophers will take down the Goliath Boilermakers?
Click to expand...

Well, look at it this way.

The latter story would just generate reactions of "Yeah, whatever..." while the former would generate heads nodding and thoughts of "Add another reason to be glad that Pitino is gone!"
 

Well, the Strib - for whatever reason - seems to like to do profiles of the Gopher opponents.

the 'hook' on the Badgers was the # of MN kids on the roster.

the 'hook' on Purdue is their size. Purdue has size - the Gophers don't. And the Gophers had offered a big man who is now playing for Purdue.

sounds like a story line to me.
 



I don't blame Pitino, he wasn't ranked very high and his mobility was a huge question mark. I'm always first to dog on Pitino, but I see this as a good sign Gophers were the first to offer.
 


cjbfbp said:
You're not comparing recruit Edey to recruit Suggs are you?

Of course Suggs was never coming here. He was a top dozen (give or take) rated prep and a high lottery pick after his freshman year. I can understand why Pitino wouldn't want to spend much time recruiting him.

Edey was much different. According to 247 Sports he was rated as the 76th best center and the #440th player nationally (ESPN rated him a bit higher). Obviously, he deserved a higher rating but he certainly was gettable by a program of our stature.
Click to expand...
I'm tired of the "I woulda come here if the coach had...." stuff from players who went elsewhere. That was my main point. I don't buy it.
 

jamiche said:
I'm tired of the "I woulda come here if the coach had...." stuff from players who went elsewhere. That was my main point. I don't buy it.
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If several players are saying a particular coach didn't recruit them very hard, including non locals that don't have any reason to make up excuses for not staying home, maybe it's possible that they in fact didn't recruit them very hard. Not that crazy of a thought that some coaches recruit harder than others.
 

Cayman said:
I can only imagine the raucous applause for Pitino’s recruiting if he’d secured a commitment from a big man ranked in the 400’s from out of state with scant few other offers while Garcia, Dainja, Carlson, and Crowl went elsewhere.
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Wait...It wouldn't have been better to GET a commitment from a big ranked in the 400s with scant few others while Garcia. Dainja, Carlson and Crowl went elsewhere??

I mean, good lord, the knots people twist themselves into to make excuses are really quite impressive.
 


USAF said:
Wait...It wouldn't have been better to GET a commitment from a big ranked in the 400s with scant few others while Garcia. Dainja, Carlson and Crowl went elsewhere??

I mean, good lord, the knots people twist themselves into to make excuses are really quite impressive.
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I don’t know exactly what you’re saying here, but no I don’t think there would have been a great deal of excitement for Pitino landing a lightly recruited center from out of state, while having higher ranked options from Minnesota leave, even though Edey has arguably been better than all of the bigs from Minnesota in the 2020 class.
 

Keyser Söze said:
If several players are saying a particular coach didn't recruit them very hard, including non locals that don't have any reason to make up excuses for not staying home, maybe it's possible that they in fact didn't recruit them very hard. Not that crazy of a thought that some coaches recruit harder than others.
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As I said, there's a reason Pitino ended up in NM. He wasn't a good recruiter. Does Edey have any ties to this area that would have driven him to become a gopher had Pitino not screwed it up? He's from Toronto and played HS ball at IMG. I think he played on the same AAU team as Carr. Doesn't seem like Pitino snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on this one. Edey was a top 400 kid who Pitino probably took a look see and passed. My guess is some other coaches made the same mistake. Painter was smarter and better. Edey is pounding his chest at a coach who passed on him. That's all.
 

jamiche said:
As I said, there's a reason Pitino ended up in NM. He wasn't a good recruiter.
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I think he was a better recruiter, especially of transfers, than a coach or player developer. Of course, that's only faint praise.
 




GopherBlood666 said:
Funny how the Strib is running a story on Edey only for the fact that the previously fired head coach swung and missed. Shouldn't this be more about how the David Gophers will take down the Goliath Boilermakers?
Click to expand...
The Strib sucks. They have done nothing but take jabs at any Gopher program back all the way to Clem.
 



cjbfbp said:
You're not comparing recruit Edey to recruit Suggs are you?

Of course Suggs was never coming here. He was a top dozen (give or take) rated prep and a high lottery pick after his freshman year. I can understand why Pitino wouldn't want to spend much time recruiting him.

Edey was much different. According to 247 Sports he was rated as the 76th best center and the #440th player nationally (ESPN rated him a bit higher). Obviously, he deserved a higher rating but he certainly was gettable by a program of our stature.
Click to expand...
What are you talking about? Clearly he was going to come to the University of Minnesota and play football therefore foregoing the NBA draft lottery. He even said so. If you don't believe him you are clearly a Pitino apologist.

Either that or you have a fully functioning brain and realize that Suggs was 100% full of sh!t with that statement. There are hundreds of things to rightfully rip on Pitino for, but anyone who believes Suggs had actual interest in coming to the U to play football is delusional.
 


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