STrib: For Tubby Smith, recruiting is 'the lifeblood of a program'

Donate To GopherHole
BleedGopher

BleedGopher

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
61,971
Reaction score
18,165
Points
113
Few elite recruits have chosen the U under Tubby Smith. Attracting an upcoming regional star or two would enhance that reputation.

"Minnesota isn't really on the radar of four and five-star recruits," said Jeff Borzello of CBSSports.com. "The reputation of their assistants, and even Tubby [is] they're not really ace recruiters."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/179221821.html

Go Gophers!!
 


BleedGopher said:
Few elite recruits have chosen the U under Tubby Smith. Attracting an upcoming regional star or two would enhance that reputation.

"Minnesota isn't really on the radar of four and five-star recruits," said Jeff Borzello of CBSSports.com. "The reputation of their assistants, and even Tubby [is] they're not really ace recruiters."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/179221821.html

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...
And all this time I thought that winning was the 'lifeblood of a program'. I understand better now the true value of finishing 5th or 6th in the conference.
 


Costa Rican Gopher said:
Win & get better recruits. Cause & effect.
Click to expand...

It has to start somewhere. For every Duke, there's a Johnny Dawkins who becomes the father of his country. That's how you have to sell Minnesota, especially to a local kid.
 


The history of a dominant program seems to be having a young coach come in and win a National Championship and then stay for 15+ years while winning one or two more National Championships.

Where is our young coach who can build a National Championship team and then stay for 15+ years?

If that is an impossibility here, then we'll have to be content with a deep tourney run about once every 10 or 15 years.
 

This recruiting stuff is funny to me, we land 5* Royce, 4* Rodney, not sure what mbakwe was, Sampson was a 4*, devoe was a 4*, im probably missing someone, and then we get a bunch of 3* kids, recruiting is fine we have just had the luck of the Chicago cubs for our basketball, football, and men's hockey teams.
 

lakesgopher said:
This recruiting stuff is funny to me, we land 5* Royce, 4* Rodney, not sure what mbakwe was, Sampson was a 4*, devoe was a 4*, im probably missing someone, and then we get a bunch of 3* kids, recruiting is fine we have just had the luck of the Chicago cubs for our basketball, football, and men's hockey teams.
Click to expand...

Mbakwe was a 4* out of high school, Andre and Joe were right between 3* and 4* with Andre being closer to 4 than Joe was. Mo Walker was a 3* but also a rivals top 150.

Recruiting has not been terrible. It was retention that caused the problems.
 

scher215 said:
Mbakwe was a 4* out of high school, Andre and Joe were right between 3* and 4* with Andre being closer to 4 than Joe was. Mo Walker was a 3* but also a rivals top 150.

Recruiting has not been terrible. It was retention that caused the problems.
Click to expand...

Just one problem with the program.

Good to know.
 



Bad Gopher said:
It has to start somewhere. For every Duke, there's a Johnny Dawkins who becomes the father of his country. That's how you have to sell Minnesota, especially to a local kid.
Click to expand...

Duke had already gone to 4 Final Fours and was one of the winningest basketball programs in NCAA history when Dawkins signed there. Duke was the national runner-up 4 years before Dawkins signed, and went to the Elite Eight 2 years before he signed. Jones would be taking a vastly more profound leap of faith by signing here than Dawkins even came close to.
 

This is a deep, experienced, talented team, wait until the season is over before putting a value on these players recruitments. Austin Hollins has looked really good, Wiliams has been consistent, Coleman has played well, Andre Hollins is going to explode, thats without mentioning Mbwake, Walker, Eliason, Welch, and even Ahamisi or Osenieks in spots.
 

scher215 said:
Mbakwe was a 4* out of high school, Andre and Joe were right between 3* and 4* with Andre being closer to 4 than Joe was. Mo Walker was a 3* but also a rivals top 150.

Recruiting has not been terrible. It was retention that caused the problems.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but I think where the lack of recruiting chops comes in is with some of those spring signings we had to do in light of those transfers. For some schools, losing a guy suddenly like that, they can do the quick turnaround and grab solid replacements. No disrespect to our spring guys, but they are not of the same caliber as our fall recruits, and they had some shots at guys, but they couldn't get them sold. Tubby's crew seems to be of the type that needs a long time to reel a kid in, and that hurts when you have circumstances like we had two years ago.
 

A rare decent article out of the local press on Gopher hoops. The one piece of information that was missing was how the Gophers recruiting has compared to its Big Ten peers over the past two seasons (hint: not good). I like that Tubby admitted that recruiting has not been stellar, I just hope he has the drive to change that. As many have said, a good year this year (sweet 16), will go a long towards curing the recent struggles on the recruiting front.
 



You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom