Forward Josh Martin chose the Gophers over offers from Pitt, Oklahoma State, Florida State and others.
Ahhh, National Signing Day. Where the grass always looks slightly less brown, the sky is marginally less cloudy and it seems just a few degrees warmer outside. Signing Day for the Gophers in recent years has been hit and miss. There have been some nice pick-ups, but also some guys who made you double check exactly where they came from and if they’re likely to redshirt or not. Honestly, it can be hard to get excited about a three-star small forward who is likely to redshirt the following season. Fortunately, this year is not one of those years.
When Richard Pitino came to town it was unclear exactly what we should expect from him in the recruiting department. Tubby had done a solid job of recruiting in-state talent but left something to be desired when it came to landing the top talent everyone clamored for. And with perhaps the most nationally relevant recruiting class coming out of Minnesota in 2014, the stakes were high. Not only that, with four scholarships available in 2014 for the Gophers, building out the program with solid recruits was a must.
Turning over a coaching staff has its benefits and drawbacks. One of those drawbacks is basically starting from scratch with recruits left from the previous staff, while quickly developing relationships with new ones. And for Pitino, he had to jump into the fray and recruit players capable of handling themselves in the Big Ten; a far different task than getting guys to go to Florida International. Suffice to say, he’s done a better job both being in the conversation with nationally-recognized players and landing legitimate talent right out the gate than many would have expected. And with the deck stacked against him, he did an admirable job of securing guys they wanted without reaching. Who is Minnesota’s 2014 class so far?
- Nate Mason, a 5’11 combo guard out of Georgia who also considered Virginia and Kansas State
- Josh Martin, a 6’8 power forward from Seattle who also considered Florida State and Pitt
- Carlos “Squirrel” Morris, a 6’4 shooting guard from Chipola Junior College in Florida, who also considered Arkansas and UAB and was even once committed to South Carolina.
Looking at the schools these players decided to forego, it’s comforting to know that even coming into the game late, Pitino secured commitments against schools of a similar caliber (except UAB). And as a jumping-off point for his first class, it’s a fine position to be in.
This year’s signing period is solidly in the “good” category for the program. But with the peaks also came some valleys. How did it shape up?
GOOD:
Three recruits … and no reaches – It’s one thing to get recruits in the fall signing period. It’s quite another to get recruits who were actually on your list of people to go after. Not that Martin, Morris and Mason are blue chippers on the level of Minnesota’s Big Three, but they are still recruits that the Gophers showed clear interest in and weren’t forced in offering. To me that’s probably the biggest takeaway from the recruiting period – that Richard Pitino came into town ice cold on the recruiting front and was able to drum up enough cache where legitimate recruits not only took him seriously, but also committed their future to the program. After the coaching change I had low expectations for Pitino initially on the recruiting front, for no other reason than it’s extremely difficult to come in and make up ground on similar programs who had their recruiting activities going on for far longer. The success so far is a special thing.
BAD:
The Big Three, now down to The Big One? – With Reid Travis choosing to become a tree rather than a Gopher, and with Tyus Jones all but assured to go somewhere other than Minnesota, it’s appears that the remaining chance for the Gophers to land one of the original Big Three rests with Rashad Vaughn. Of course, he no longer lives or plays in-state, but we still consider him one of the blue chippers the program has coveted for so long. The Gophers still appear to be very much in the running for Vaughn’s services (along with Iowa State and UNLV), but where he ends up is still anyone’s guess. The Travis miss hurts the most, though, only because it seemed that he was the best chance the team had to land one of the Big Three. And while you can’t fault the kid for taking a free ride to Stanford, seeing him stay home would have been a huge boon to the program.
INTERESTING:
Out of the gate, Pitino apparently has recruiting chops – College basketball recruiting is a real life soap opera, and predicting where anyone will actually end up is often a fool’s errand. However, what’s struck me the most since Richard Pitino took over is just how seriously many recruits took him. Minnesota was on the final list of several high-profile recruits this summer and, while he was unable to land anyone, Richard definitely got the program some exposure out of the gate.
To me, the point isn’t that he was unable to land some highly regarded players, it’s that the Gophers were even in the conversation after upending the program at the coaching level. For a 31-year old coach to come into a completely new program and even get in the door with some of these players is incredible, and to be part of the final two or three schools on a list is even more amazing. It’s light years ahead of where I thought we’d be on the recruiting trail at this point, and if Pitino can show growth in his first year he’ll be in great position to actually start closing the deal with some great players. And with commitments of guys like Alex Illikainen, Henry Ellenson and Jarvis Johnson right around the corner, having Pitino show that he can be a force on the recruiting trail is a very interesting development.