If he committed to the Gophers tomorrow how confident would I be? Well, I don't know how to put a number on that, but I'd be more confident than I am now. Wouldn't you? Or are you also saying that you'd have a completely neutral reaction to that since he's so young? Not that I don't think he'll come here, but if he committed, obviously our chances would be a little better.
I didn't have a strong reaction to his comments. Do I think what he says at this age means much? No, but since I did have a slight reaction, it was disappointment, not excitement. Not sure how you calculated the 25%... and commitments in football and basketball aren't the same, so you can't compare them.
You're right, you could say that about every coach, but I think both of us know that us losing our coach would be a bigger deal than the other schools (who we'll be recruiting against) losing their coach. If schools like NC, UCLA, Kentucky, Kansas, etc lose their coach, I don't think they'll have a hard time recruiting top notch players. Do you really think NC will have a hard time recruiting once Roy Williams is retired? If we lose Tubby, are you confident we'll hire somebody capable of recruiting top talent and keeping the best in-state players here if other top programs are pushing hard for them?
I understand that your point was that we shouldn't put any stock into anything a 9th grader says. I put very little in when I made those comments, but for some reason you must have thought that I was convinced that he wasn't coming here because of them. Even if you didn't intend for those comments to be directed entirely at me, they still were, so that's why I'm responding the way I am. I can't speak for everyone, but at least in my case, I don't think I had anywhere near as big of a reaction as you think.
It probably came of as an over-reaction to your comments specifically. I probably shouldn't have quoted yours, as I was pointing out the multiple people over-reacting to this, not just you.
But yes, I am neutral on it. Any comments made by a kid this young are basically meaningless unless they are very strong one way or the other. Only then would they even have a slight meaning. Heck, if the kid out and out commited to the Gophers tomorrow, how confident would you be that he'd actually play for them? It would still be no better then 25%. How often do the kids who commit to Tennesee or USC football at that age actually go there? It's just way too early to worry about this kid. Yes the staff should be watching and communicating with him, but let's not start parsing his every word. That's my only point.
You have a valid point about Tubby still being here when the kid plays. But you can say that about any coach that's not Izzo. It'll be 8 years til this kid is a senior. Tubby will be 67 then. It's entirely feasible he'll still be here then. It's also entirely possible he'll be long gone before the recruitment of this kid even gets serious. But are Coach K and Roy Williams still going to be around in 8 years? As for the Sweet 16/middle of the pack question, I think both will happen over the next 3/4 years. My only point was that the Sweet 16 year will probably do a lot to raise the status of the hometown team in his eyes.
