ski-u-mah
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Guess he could have been around, just not mentioned...
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/07/v-mobile/1340061/john-clay-summer-basketball-a.html
John Clay: Summer basketball a must-be-seen event
By: By John Clay
Published: Thu, 07/08 @ 12:00AM
INDIANAPOLIS — Roy Williams sat on the front row of the bleacher seats at North Central High School, wearing shorts, boat shoes and something of a bored look.
A few rows up to his left sat Michigan State's Tom Izzo and South Florida's Stan Heath. To the right of those two were Purdue's Matt Painter and Butler's Brad Stevens. A couple of rows up from them was Virginia's Tony Bennett.
Down on the gym floor was a team of high school seniors-to-be out of New York named the Riverside Hawks playing the Indiana Elite, out of Bloomington, a team that featured a pair of top hoops prospects in Cody Zeller and Marshall Plumlee.
Despite that, you didn't have to look all that closely to see Izzo trying to stifle a yawn.
Welcome to the Adidas Invitational, a 225-team AAU tournament with teams from Massachusetts to California, including a couple from Canada.
It's the kickoff to the summer camp/tournament circuit, the annual necessary evil of college basketball recruiting, where coaches go to see talent, and be seen by talent.
"I'd be happy if they just got rid of summer basketball," Kentucky Coach John Calipari has said on more than one occasion.
Never fear, Calipari is on the recruiting trail. Just a different one. The Kentucky coach was in Hamburg, Germany, to watch the USA U-17 team, with a pair of UK commitments in Michael Gilchrist and Marquis Teague, play (and win) in the FIBA World Championships.
Tennessee's Bruce Pearl is also in Hamburg. So is Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey. (The Germans lost his luggage.) Florida's Billy Donovan is headed there Thursday.
But Donovan was still in Indianapolis on Wednesday, along with Kansas' Bill Self, UNLV's Lon Kruger, Southern Cal's Kevin O'Neill, Oklahoma's Jeff Capel, Alabama's Anthony Grant and Louisville's Rick Pitino, to name a few.
NCAA rules prohibit coaches from talking to the media at such venues, but in a separate interview, Pitino said he didn't mind the summer circuit.
"It's much better than just seeing a high school game," said the U of L coach. "You might make a long trip to see a kid and he's triple-teamed. When I was a young coach at Hawaii, I'd take a 13-hour flight to see a kid and he'd get in foul trouble."
The one variable at an event such as Indianapolis is the instruction.
"If they have a good coach, who knows what he's doing, you can tell a lot about the player," said Pitino, who said AAU coaching has improved to the point now where 75 percent actually run plays, change defenses. "But if you have a bad coach, you're wasting your time."
As for the older players, by this time in the recruiting process, most college coaches know which players are worthy of interest and scholarships. Most players know which coaches are seriously interested in their services. So even though a coach cannot talk to a recruit at these camps/tournaments, a coach feels he must be there to be seen by the desired player, for fear that his competitors are there to do the same.
"The top five or seven guys we're recruiting," said Pitino, "we'll be there every time they play this summer."
Thus the marquee crowd to watch Zeller, ranked 35th by Rivals.com, and Plumlee, ranked 99th. With Zeller being from Indiana, IU Coach Tom Crean made his presence known by taking a front-row seat late in the game. Zeller has a brother at North Carolina, thus Williams' attendance. Plumlee's brothers play at Duke, thus Blue Devils assistant coach Chris Collins was watching from the side of the bleachers.
That's not always the case. A big crowd turned out to watch Rivals' No. 2-ranked player, Quincy Miller, out of High Point, N.C., on Tuesday. By Wednesday, however, when the 6-foot-8 Miller's D-One Stars team lost 53-52 to Houston Elite, the crowd had dwindled, as many of the coaches were on the move, headed to the LeBron James camp in Akron, Ohio.
One exception was Pitino, who along with assistants Steve Masiello and Tim Fuller, were there in the end zone for Miller's entire game.
When it comes to summer recruiting, coaches can't afford to not be there.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/07/v-mobile/1340061/john-clay-summer-basketball-a.html#ixzz0t5zhJL00
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/07/v-mobile/1340061/john-clay-summer-basketball-a.html
John Clay: Summer basketball a must-be-seen event
By: By John Clay
Published: Thu, 07/08 @ 12:00AM
INDIANAPOLIS — Roy Williams sat on the front row of the bleacher seats at North Central High School, wearing shorts, boat shoes and something of a bored look.
A few rows up to his left sat Michigan State's Tom Izzo and South Florida's Stan Heath. To the right of those two were Purdue's Matt Painter and Butler's Brad Stevens. A couple of rows up from them was Virginia's Tony Bennett.
Down on the gym floor was a team of high school seniors-to-be out of New York named the Riverside Hawks playing the Indiana Elite, out of Bloomington, a team that featured a pair of top hoops prospects in Cody Zeller and Marshall Plumlee.
Despite that, you didn't have to look all that closely to see Izzo trying to stifle a yawn.
Welcome to the Adidas Invitational, a 225-team AAU tournament with teams from Massachusetts to California, including a couple from Canada.
It's the kickoff to the summer camp/tournament circuit, the annual necessary evil of college basketball recruiting, where coaches go to see talent, and be seen by talent.
"I'd be happy if they just got rid of summer basketball," Kentucky Coach John Calipari has said on more than one occasion.
Never fear, Calipari is on the recruiting trail. Just a different one. The Kentucky coach was in Hamburg, Germany, to watch the USA U-17 team, with a pair of UK commitments in Michael Gilchrist and Marquis Teague, play (and win) in the FIBA World Championships.
Tennessee's Bruce Pearl is also in Hamburg. So is Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey. (The Germans lost his luggage.) Florida's Billy Donovan is headed there Thursday.
But Donovan was still in Indianapolis on Wednesday, along with Kansas' Bill Self, UNLV's Lon Kruger, Southern Cal's Kevin O'Neill, Oklahoma's Jeff Capel, Alabama's Anthony Grant and Louisville's Rick Pitino, to name a few.
NCAA rules prohibit coaches from talking to the media at such venues, but in a separate interview, Pitino said he didn't mind the summer circuit.
"It's much better than just seeing a high school game," said the U of L coach. "You might make a long trip to see a kid and he's triple-teamed. When I was a young coach at Hawaii, I'd take a 13-hour flight to see a kid and he'd get in foul trouble."
The one variable at an event such as Indianapolis is the instruction.
"If they have a good coach, who knows what he's doing, you can tell a lot about the player," said Pitino, who said AAU coaching has improved to the point now where 75 percent actually run plays, change defenses. "But if you have a bad coach, you're wasting your time."
As for the older players, by this time in the recruiting process, most college coaches know which players are worthy of interest and scholarships. Most players know which coaches are seriously interested in their services. So even though a coach cannot talk to a recruit at these camps/tournaments, a coach feels he must be there to be seen by the desired player, for fear that his competitors are there to do the same.
"The top five or seven guys we're recruiting," said Pitino, "we'll be there every time they play this summer."
Thus the marquee crowd to watch Zeller, ranked 35th by Rivals.com, and Plumlee, ranked 99th. With Zeller being from Indiana, IU Coach Tom Crean made his presence known by taking a front-row seat late in the game. Zeller has a brother at North Carolina, thus Williams' attendance. Plumlee's brothers play at Duke, thus Blue Devils assistant coach Chris Collins was watching from the side of the bleachers.
That's not always the case. A big crowd turned out to watch Rivals' No. 2-ranked player, Quincy Miller, out of High Point, N.C., on Tuesday. By Wednesday, however, when the 6-foot-8 Miller's D-One Stars team lost 53-52 to Houston Elite, the crowd had dwindled, as many of the coaches were on the move, headed to the LeBron James camp in Akron, Ohio.
One exception was Pitino, who along with assistants Steve Masiello and Tim Fuller, were there in the end zone for Miller's entire game.
When it comes to summer recruiting, coaches can't afford to not be there.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/07/v-mobile/1340061/john-clay-summer-basketball-a.html#ixzz0t5zhJL00
