[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Recruiting has lots of hits and misses

 

By Dana O’Neil
ESPN.com
Archive

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Recruiting is a lot like fishing. It takes patience. It takes skill and it takes dumb luck.

It doesn’t take long for a coach to accrue his fair share of stories. There are both lovelorn tales about the recruit that jilted them and left them pining and boastful triumphs about the big fish they landed, the one everyone else thought should be tossed back into the pond.

During the EYBL Peach Jam, ESPN.com caught up with 15 head coaches. Here are their tales of woe and their epics of discovery:

 

[+] Enlarge

US PresswireTim Duncan might have become a Friar and changed the Big East for four seasons.

 

Rick Barnes, Texas

The one that got away: Tim Duncan. "We had him committed to Providence. We already had the full allotment but I knew we had a guy that was going to transfer, maybe two. I went to our athletic director and we went to the president, who was a priest at the time. I told him I wanted to sign Tim and he said, ‘But you don’t have a scholarship.’ I said, ‘I will.’ He wouldn’t let me sign him. Tim goes to Wake Forest and the other two guys transfer."

The best discovery: Royal Ivey. "He was being recruited by Marist, Rider and Boston University and Rob Lanier said, ‘You need to come see this kid because I think he’s pretty good."’

Mark Fox, Georgia

The one that got away: Derrick Williams. "We had him on an official visit to Nevada. I didn’t think there was any way we would get him, but he visited."

The best discovery: JaVale McGee. "I remember my assistant said to me, ‘I’m not sure, so you watch him and tell me if you think he’s good enough.’ I said, ‘No. He’s going to be a pro.’ He didn’t have a great game, but there were these two out-of-bounds plays and you could see he had great hands."

Darrin Horn, South Carolina

The one that got away: J.J. Barea. "We could have had him [when Horn was head coach at Western Kentucky] but I said, ‘I don’t know. He’s kind of small.’"

The best discovery: Dwyane Wade. "I was a third assistant [at Marquette] at the time so I wasn’t entirely involved, but I remember it well. No one saw this coming."

Ben Howland, UCLA

The one that got away: Kevin Love. "There are always more successes than failures, but the ones that really kill you are the guys you get and then they leave. I told Kevin that this year he led the NBA in rebounding as a college senior. That’s pretty good."

The best discovery: Russell Westbrook. "Russell was under the radar, didn’t sign early. I thought he’d be good, but did I think he’d be an all-pro? No, I’m not that smart."

Bob Huggins, West Virginia

The one that got away: Keith LeGree. "I saw him every day in July [when Huggins was coach at Cincinnati]. Every single day. And he went to Louisville." The good news: Two years later, LeGree transferred to Cincinnati.

The best discovery: Nick Van Exel. "He had two offers: New Mexico State and Cincinnati. He had played at Trinity Valley [Community College] and the team wasn’t very good, so he wasn’t looked at much."

Tom Izzo, Michigan State

The one that got away: Chris Webber. "I really thought we had him. I started following him [as an assistant at Michigan State] when he was in the eighth grade but then well, we all know what happened. I remember I was really bummed, but I also saw it coming."

The best discovery: Morris Peterson. "He wasn’t even top 200, but it was my first recruiting class and he wanted to come. I had no idea he could be this good."

Kerry Keating, Santa Clara

The one that got away: Paul George. "He committed to us and then he changed his mind [and signed with Fresno State]. Two years later, he’s a lottery pick."

The best discovery: Kevin Foster. "We beat exactly nobody to get him because nobody was recruiting him. I think King Rice [then a Vanderbilt assistant] watched him for a little while. He leads the nation in 3-pointers as a freshman."

 

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Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesDelonte West wasn’t even considered the best player on his high school team.

 

Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph’s

The one that got away: Lavoy Allen. "That one really hurt. It came down to us and Temple and when he went to Temple, it really tilted things in the Atlantic 10 and in Philadelphia."

The best discovery: Delonte West. "He was the second-best player on his high school team. Everyone was really looking at Eddie Basden."

Fran McCaffery, Iowa

The one that got away: Jay Williams. "We had a very good shot at him at Notre Dame (where McCaffery was an assistant), but then he just kept playing better and Duke turned on the heat."

The best discovery: Darren Queenan. "He had exactly one Division I offer — ours. He ended up finishing second in Division I scoring in his senior year (at Lehigh, where McCaffery was head coach in 1988). He was a tweener, so he really wasn’t recruited. We thought he was good. He ended up being instant coffee."

Josh Pastner, Memphis

The one that got away: Darren Collison. "Arizona was his dream school and we (Pastner was an assistant) just didn’t pull the trigger. We weren’t sure about him. All the credit in the world to Coach Howland for realizing how talented he was."

The best discovery: Jordan Hill. "He was probably ranked in the 200s. We thought he needed development but that he would develop and become something special."

Rick Pitino, Louisville

The one that got away: Rajon Rondo. "We took Sebastian Telfair instead. We should have waited. I always loved Rondo. He was at my camp every year, but a point guard had never gone directly to the NBA so I didn’t see that coming with Telfair. And then not only did we lose [Rondo], we lost him to a bitter rival."

The best discovery: Nazr Mohammed. "He was probably the worst high school player I’ve ever seen. I remember I went to his high school and his coach said, ‘Rick Pitino, what are you doing in my gym? Antoine Walker isn’t walking through that door.’"

Mark Turgeon, Maryland

The one that got away: Adam Koch. "I was at Wichita State and had spent a lot of time recruiting Adam. Instead he went to Northern Iowa and became the player of the year."

The best discovery: Khris Middleton. "I liked him not just as a good player but for his character and he’s become a great player for A&M."

Bruce Weber, Illinois

The one that got away: Derrick Rose. "I saw him in eighth grade at an AAU event, so that was tough. I really liked him and really liked his family."

The best discovery: Jimmy Oliver. "It was the last day of the recruiting period and I wanted to come home (Weber was a Purdue assistant at the time). I was tired but I went out and that was the day I saw Jimmy Oliver."

Roy Williams, North Carolina

The one that got away: "There are about a thousand. Dean [Smith] used to say, ‘Don’t worry, another one will come along.’ For a long time I didn’t believe him. I’d just think, ‘This will kill our program,’ but I’ve learned he was right."

The best discovery: Raef LaFrentz. "I had just buried my mom but I had to go to work, so I went to Winston-Salem for a camp for 17 and unders. I walked around the corner and I ran into Eddie Fogler. He said, "I just saw a kid that looks like a Kansas kid more than any player I’ve ever seen.’ That night I watched Raef play for the first time. If I hadn’t forced myself to go to work, who knows what happens?’"

Jay Wright, Villanova

The one that got away: Lionel Simmons. "We didn’t take him. Rollie Massimino [then the Villanova head coach] said that we already had Barry Bekkedam at his position so we didn’t need him. He becomes the national player of the year [at La Salle]."

The best discovery: Scottie Reynolds. "He dropped in my lap and was a first team All-American. That is probably the least amount of work I’ll ever do in recruiting."

 

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/basketball/mens/story/_/id/6792715/college-coaches-tell-their-story-recruiting-woe-triumph

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Hits and misses over the years

Despite hitting on Chris Paul, Dave Telep missed badly on Steph Curry, Adam Morrison

By Dave Telep
ESPN Recruiting
Archive

If there’s a rehab for recruiting junkies, I’d be the first to sign up. Yes, I have a problem, an addiction to recruiting. That’s a good thing. After all, it’s recruiting that puts food on the table and pays for the Telep boys to go to school. It’s also recruiting that keeps me awake at night; ask my wife.

For someone like myself, there is nothing worse than "missing" on a player. Believe it or not, every few years, I have someone independently study rankings with the hope of learning from my mistakes. My personality allows the misses to run wild in my mind, and rarely do I take time to celebrate a good evaluation. In the interest of starting on a positive note, allow me to briefly pat myself on the back before I throw myself under the bus.

Here is a look at some of my noteworthy hits, misses and regrets from over the years.

 

The hits

 

 

[+] Enlarge

Linda Spillers/WireImageChris Paul was drafted No. 4 overall in 2005 by the New Orleans Hornets.

 

Junior varsity gem
Chris Paul played two seasons of junior varsity basketball at a public school in North Carolina. In the summer prior to his junior season, I watched him go for 30 in a game at the AAU Nationals. I’d seen his high school team that season but didn’t arrive in time for the junior varsity game. Once his junior season began, I went to a high school game and a local scout made a regretful statement during the game. He said Paul wasn’t the best point guard in the county. Not one to allow such blasphemy to go unchecked, I countered that not only was he in fact the best in the county, he was the best I’d seen in the country. That, ladies and gentlemen, counts as a hit. Solid gold, undisputed hit. Don’t worry, I’m not bragging, the carnage comes later in the article.

Leuzinger pipeline
Good recruiters use pipelines, and analysts do too. In order for the pipeline to work, it has to be mutually beneficial for both parties. One of my favorite pipelines helped three kids dot the radar at a higher level. Reggie Morris, then the coach at Leuzinger High School outside Los Angeles, coached Dorell Wright and helped him ascend from unknown to elite. We had a mutual friend and talked often about his players. Because of that, Wright became a guy I was able to tout before most, yet still late in his senior year. He began a three-year run of under-the-radar prospects at Leuzinger.

Morris also coached Russell Westbrook, whom I rated as a strong mid-major entering his final season. As his last year played out, Morris kept me in the loop regarding Westbrook. And when it was time to offer up a final ranking, Westbrook was inserted into my top 100 at No. 66; the lone service to rate him as such.

Though not the same caliber prospect, the next year Morris had Donnell Beverly. At this point, I was two-for-two out of Leuzinger so I trusted Morris again and alerted schools about Beverly. He eventually signed with UConn.

On point
In 2004, my top-five point guards were Shaun Livingston, Sebastian Telfair, Rajon Rondo, Daniel Gibson and Jordan Farmar. Farmar was the tricky one because Quentin Thomas (North Carolina) was regarded by some as the top point guard out west. Thankfully, I was a Farmar guy all the way.

Others of note
I proudly ranked DeJuan Blair in the top 20 when not many others put him in that neighborhood. It was my good fortune to be in a small gym in Houston when Von Wafer went from nowhere to elite recruit. My friend Mike Ellis phoned me about a kid from Richmond named Ed Davis. He asked me to come up and see him and to let him know what I thought. What did I think? Somewhere between the layup line and the tip I marked him to be a pro. I happily led the charge to rank Davis highly. When injured as a senior, which he kept under wraps, I rode out the storm while most dumped his stock.

Honestly, claiming a "hit" seems a little cocky to me. Surely many folks saw these guys long before me. I just so happened to be the guy in position to give them a pass/fail grade and fortunately I’ve made a few correct calls. The right ones don’t do much for me, it’s the misses that concern me the most.

Most of the hits go totally unnoticed, such as Antoine Agudio. I rated him a high-major recruit and steal for Hofstra. He went on to be a four-time All-CAA player.

 

The misses

 

Bosh not high enough
It was 2002, and I was seriously dating the woman I would marry a year later. Now, it would be easy to use that as an excuse for being off my game (sorry, Paige). OK, 2002 was a great year for me personally but professionally, I graded players poorly. That year, I rated Chris Bosh No. 6 overall, which alone isn’t a problem. Where I messed up was ranking Paul Davis (Michigan State) No. 4 and one spot ahead of Bosh in the power forward rankings. Yikes.

Down on Deron
Like I said, 2002 wasn’t a banner year. How would you feel if you ranked 11 point guards ahead of, gulp, Deron Williams? Raymond Felton was the top dog at the point that year and a then 6-foot-1, 185-pound Williams was recruited to Illinois by Billy Gillispie. In that same recruiting class, rated 33 spots ahead of Williams was Dee Brown, his backcourt mate. I saw Williams play during his rookie season with the Utah Jazz and waited for him after the game. He was cool with me and always has been but his mother, Wendy, asked me that night how I felt about his ranking now. She reminded me he was No. 56 overall.

Problem in Houston
Believe me, there are a lot of misses to pick from without trolling message boards for reminders. I whiffed on Emeka Okafor by ranking him in the bottom end of top 100. Okafor led the city of Houston in rebounding at 18 per game as a senior. I’ve since learned via Okafor, Blair and Paul Milsap that elite rebounding translates to college and beyond.

Others of note
For a variety of reasons, I flat-out whiffed on some college All-Americans. JaVale McGee, I rated him mid-major, and not even a good one. Ditto for Wesley Johnson, who played on the second team for the Dallas Mustangs. My apologies to Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin’s All-American point guard. He was given a mid-major-plus tag and left out of the top 100. I graded Taylor out higher than Nick Fazekas, another All-American, and Jimmer Fredette. In my infinite wisdom, I rated two guys higher than Fredettte on his own AAU team.

Raise your hand if you saw Eric Maynor’s final high school game. I did and still rated him a mid-major player. I remember telling Jeff Capel as much on my ride home.

 

Regrets … I have a few

 

Call me chicken
I first began really evaluating my rankings because of Adam Morrison (Gonzaga) and Tyrus Thomas (LSU). Those two guys drove me over the edge. Recruiting analysts are graded by what their top 100 looks like and neither one made mine — despite receiving high-major grades. Before his senior season, in a remote gym in Las Vegas, I watched Morrison dump 40 points on a team of "paying campers." The guys guarding Morrison would have been better served guarding the water cooler than trying to stop the then 6-5 Morrison. I walked out of that gym liking Morrison and toyed with putting him in the top 100. I regretfully remember like it was yesterday that he was one of my final cuts.

Thomas’ story drove me equally nuts. At the AAU nationals I watched him three times and liked him, even though he was so thin you could see through him. At the time, Western Kentucky was the only school on him. I knew he was going to be good but chickened out — just like I did with Morrison.

Stick with your gut
Chris Warren was a star for Mississppi. Old Dominion and VCU wanted him badly; NC State brought him to campus and never offered him. I had Warren rated a stud mid-level guy entering his senior season, which I followed closely. Warren was a tough kid and a winning machine. After the state championship I made one phone call to a friend in Florida whom I trusted. He attended the game and expressed concerns over Warren at the highest level. Prior to the call, Warren was going to be No. 100. Should have stuck with my gut on that one.

More than Dell’s kid
I’ll end with my ultimate regret: Steph Curry. I first saw him early in his sophomore season and he was not a player. Dell Curry’s kid needed protein shakes and all the fried late-night food he could eat to get to 125 pounds. He had some talent and mainly because of his genes I tagged him a valued low-major target. I ran into Curry quite a bit over the next few seasons on the high school and AAU circuit. Each time, he kept getting better, but because of his wafer-thin body, it was hard to get on the train at the highest level. I did think Virginia Tech (his dad’s alma mater) should take him and redshirt him. He was improving every year. I witnessed it with my own eyes. On my desk was the final top 100 and Curry was No. 100, but I took him off the list. True story.

Over the next three years, I must have fielded 50 calls from reporters for stories about Curry. It would have been a lot more pleasurable had I not erased him from the list. Because of Curry, in years when there is a clear-cut elite sniper, I try to make a point to include him. My one saving grace with Curry is an e-mail I sent to Sam Presti when he was in the front office of the San Antonio Spurs. Following Curry’s first exhibition game against Michigan, I e-mailed Presti and told him to start a file on the kid because he had all the markers of a late bloomer. I lost the e-mail for a few years but when I visited Presti in Oklahoma City, his right-hand man Rob Hennigan printed it off for me and it’s now posted in my office so I can stare at it daily. The e-mail serves as a reminder that if you do the homework on a player, trust your instincts.

Dave Telep is the senior basketball recruiting analyst for ESPN.com. His college basketball scouting service is used by more than 225 colleges and numerous NBA teams. He can reached at [email protected]. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter.

 

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/basketball/mens/story/_/id/6790612/dave-telep-hits-misses-years

 

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Hits and misses over the years

Despite hitting on Chris Paul, Dave Telep missed badly on Steph Curry, Adam Morrison

By Dave Telep
ESPN Recruiting
Archive

If there’s a rehab for recruiting junkies, I’d be the first to sign up. Yes, I have a problem, an addiction to recruiting. That’s a good thing. After all, it’s recruiting that puts food on the table and pays for the Telep boys to go to school. It’s also recruiting that keeps me awake at night; ask my wife.

For someone like myself, there is nothing worse than "missing" on a player. Believe it or not, every few years, I have someone independently study rankings with the hope of learning from my mistakes. My personality allows the misses to run wild in my mind, and rarely do I take time to celebrate a good evaluation. In the interest of starting on a positive note, allow me to briefly pat myself on the back before I throw myself under the bus.

Here is a look at some of my noteworthy hits, misses and regrets from over the years.

 

The hits

 

 

[+] Enlarge

Linda Spillers/WireImageChris Paul was drafted No. 4 overall in 2005 by the New Orleans Hornets.

 

Junior varsity gem
Chris Paul played two seasons of junior varsity basketball at a public school in North Carolina. In the summer prior to his junior season, I watched him go for 30 in a game at the AAU Nationals. I’d seen his high school team that season but didn’t arrive in time for the junior varsity game. Once his junior season began, I went to a high school game and a local scout made a regretful statement during the game. He said Paul wasn’t the best point guard in the county. Not one to allow such blasphemy to go unchecked, I countered that not only was he in fact the best in the county, he was the best I’d seen in the country. That, ladies and gentlemen, counts as a hit. Solid gold, undisputed hit. Don’t worry, I’m not bragging, the carnage comes later in the article.

Leuzinger pipeline
Good recruiters use pipelines, and analysts do too. In order for the pipeline to work, it has to be mutually beneficial for both parties. One of my favorite pipelines helped three kids dot the radar at a higher level. Reggie Morris, then the coach at Leuzinger High School outside Los Angeles, coached Dorell Wright and helped him ascend from unknown to elite. We had a mutual friend and talked often about his players. Because of that, Wright became a guy I was able to tout before most, yet still late in his senior year. He began a three-year run of under-the-radar prospects at Leuzinger.

Morris also coached Russell Westbrook, whom I rated as a strong mid-major entering his final season. As his last year played out, Morris kept me in the loop regarding Westbrook. And when it was time to offer up a final ranking, Westbrook was inserted into my top 100 at No. 66; the lone service to rate him as such.

Though not the same caliber prospect, the next year Morris had Donnell Beverly. At this point, I was two-for-two out of Leuzinger so I trusted Morris again and alerted schools about Beverly. He eventually signed with UConn.

On point
In 2004, my top-five point guards were Shaun Livingston, Sebastian Telfair, Rajon Rondo, Daniel Gibson and Jordan Farmar. Farmar was the tricky one because Quentin Thomas (North Carolina) was regarded by some as the top point guard out west. Thankfully, I was a Farmar guy all the way.

Others of note
I proudly ranked DeJuan Blair in the top 20 when not many others put him in that neighborhood. It was my good fortune to be in a small gym in Houston when Von Wafer went from nowhere to elite recruit. My friend Mike Ellis phoned me about a kid from Richmond named Ed Davis. He asked me to come up and see him and to let him know what I thought. What did I think? Somewhere between the layup line and the tip I marked him to be a pro. I happily led the charge to rank Davis highly. When injured as a senior, which he kept under wraps, I rode out the storm while most dumped his stock.

Honestly, claiming a "hit" seems a little cocky to me. Surely many folks saw these guys long before me. I just so happened to be the guy in position to give them a pass/fail grade and fortunately I’ve made a few correct calls. The right ones don’t do much for me, it’s the misses that concern me the most.

Most of the hits go totally unnoticed, such as Antoine Agudio. I rated him a high-major recruit and steal for Hofstra. He went on to be a four-time All-CAA player.

 

The misses

 

Bosh not high enough
It was 2002, and I was seriously dating the woman I would marry a year later. Now, it would be easy to use that as an excuse for being off my game (sorry, Paige). OK, 2002 was a great year for me personally but professionally, I graded players poorly. That year, I rated Chris Bosh No. 6 overall, which alone isn’t a problem. Where I messed up was ranking Paul Davis (Michigan State) No. 4 and one spot ahead of Bosh in the power forward rankings. Yikes.

Down on Deron
Like I said, 2002 wasn’t a banner year. How would you feel if you ranked 11 point guards ahead of, gulp, Deron Williams? Raymond Felton was the top dog at the point that year and a then 6-foot-1, 185-pound Williams was recruited to Illinois by Billy Gillispie. In that same recruiting class, rated 33 spots ahead of Williams was Dee Brown, his backcourt mate. I saw Williams play during his rookie season with the Utah Jazz and waited for him after the game. He was cool with me and always has been but his mother, Wendy, asked me that night how I felt about his ranking now. She reminded me he was No. 56 overall.

Problem in Houston
Believe me, there are a lot of misses to pick from without trolling message boards for reminders. I whiffed on Emeka Okafor by ranking him in the bottom end of top 100. Okafor led the city of Houston in rebounding at 18 per game as a senior. I’ve since learned via Okafor, Blair and Paul Milsap that elite rebounding translates to college and beyond.

Others of note
For a variety of reasons, I flat-out whiffed on some college All-Americans. JaVale McGee, I rated him mid-major, and not even a good one. Ditto for Wesley Johnson, who played on the second team for the Dallas Mustangs. My apologies to Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin’s All-American point guard. He was given a mid-major-plus tag and left out of the top 100. I graded Taylor out higher than Nick Fazekas, another All-American, and Jimmer Fredette. In my infinite wisdom, I rated two guys higher than Fredettte on his own AAU team.

Raise your hand if you saw Eric Maynor’s final high school game. I did and still rated him a mid-major player. I remember telling Jeff Capel as much on my ride home.

 

Regrets … I have a few

 

Call me chicken
I first began really evaluating my rankings because of Adam Morrison (Gonzaga) and Tyrus Thomas (LSU). Those two guys drove me over the edge. Recruiting analysts are graded by what their top 100 looks like and neither one made mine — despite receiving high-major grades. Before his senior season, in a remote gym in Las Vegas, I watched Morrison dump 40 points on a team of "paying campers." The guys guarding Morrison would have been better served guarding the water cooler than trying to stop the then 6-5 Morrison. I walked out of that gym liking Morrison and toyed with putting him in the top 100. I regretfully remember like it was yesterday that he was one of my final cuts.

Thomas’ story drove me equally nuts. At the AAU nationals I watched him three times and liked him, even though he was so thin you could see through him. At the time, Western Kentucky was the only school on him. I knew he was going to be good but chickened out — just like I did with Morrison.

Stick with your gut
Chris Warren was a star for Mississppi. Old Dominion and VCU wanted him badly; NC State brought him to campus and never offered him. I had Warren rated a stud mid-level guy entering his senior season, which I followed closely. Warren was a tough kid and a winning machine. After the state championship I made one phone call to a friend in Florida whom I trusted. He attended the game and expressed concerns over Warren at the highest level. Prior to the call, Warren was going to be No. 100. Should have stuck with my gut on that one.

More than Dell’s kid
I’ll end with my ultimate regret: Steph Curry. I first saw him early in his sophomore season and he was not a player. Dell Curry’s kid needed protein shakes and all the fried late-night food he could eat to get to 125 pounds. He had some talent and mainly because of his genes I tagged him a valued low-major target. I ran into Curry quite a bit over the next few seasons on the high school and AAU circuit. Each time, he kept getting better, but because of his wafer-thin body, it was hard to get on the train at the highest level. I did think Virginia Tech (his dad’s alma mater) should take him and redshirt him. He was improving every year. I witnessed it with my own eyes. On my desk was the final top 100 and Curry was No. 100, but I took him off the list. True story.

Over the next three years, I must have fielded 50 calls from reporters for stories about Curry. It would have been a lot more pleasurable had I not erased him from the list. Because of Curry, in years when there is a clear-cut elite sniper, I try to make a point to include him. My one saving grace with Curry is an e-mail I sent to Sam Presti when he was in the front office of the San Antonio Spurs. Following Curry’s first exhibition game against Michigan, I e-mailed Presti and told him to start a file on the kid because he had all the markers of a late bloomer. I lost the e-mail for a few years but when I visited Presti in Oklahoma City, his right-hand man Rob Hennigan printed it off for me and it’s now posted in my office so I can stare at it daily. The e-mail serves as a reminder that if you do the homework on a player, trust your instincts.

Dave Telep is the senior basketball recruiting analyst for ESPN.com. His college basketball scouting service is used by more than 225 colleges and numerous NBA teams. He can reached at [email protected]. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter.

 

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/basketball/mens/story/_/id/6790612/dave-telep-hits-misses-years

 

[paradigmnParticipant]

 Wasn’t  ROY WILLIAMS one of the coaches to help discover Mike Jordan and get him to UNC when he was an assistant under Dean Smith???….I would think that should trump his Raef LaFrentz find.

[paradigmnParticipant]

 Wasn’t  ROY WILLIAMS one of the coaches to help discover Mike Jordan and get him to UNC when he was an assistant under Dean Smith???….I would think that should trump his Raef LaFrentz find.

[providencefriars1Participant]

If Duncan would have gone to Providence then they would have probably got better recruits, the team would not have been in such dissarray, and we wouldnt be paying Keno Davis big bucks untill 2015 for destroying a once prominent program. To think they were so close just hurts.

[providencefriars1Participant]

If Duncan would have gone to Providence then they would have probably got better recruits, the team would not have been in such dissarray, and we wouldnt be paying Keno Davis big bucks untill 2015 for destroying a once prominent program. To think they were so close just hurts.

[Scottoant93Participant]

wow thats crazy,i guess thats why you should never sleep on any player,anything can happen. i bet pitino has nightmare of rondo going to kentucky, most likely the worst decision of his career

[Scottoant93Participant]

wow thats crazy,i guess thats why you should never sleep on any player,anything can happen. i bet pitino has nightmare of rondo going to kentucky, most likely the worst decision of his career

[SubZeroParticipant]

What did Eric Maynor do his last high school game?

[SubZeroParticipant]

What did Eric Maynor do his last high school game?

[JNixonParticipant]

GREAT reads!

Quenton Thomas for UNC was regarded as the top PG in the west as a HS Sr. Haha. UNC shouldn’t recruit West coast PG’s (the Larry Drew fiasco, another California PG). Thomas went on to be a backup PG, a reserve for 2 and a half years. He only played as a Jr. because Ty Lawson got hurt during the ACC slate and the 2nd string guy also got hurt earlier in the year.

[JNixonParticipant]

GREAT reads!

Quenton Thomas for UNC was regarded as the top PG in the west as a HS Sr. Haha. UNC shouldn’t recruit West coast PG’s (the Larry Drew fiasco, another California PG). Thomas went on to be a backup PG, a reserve for 2 and a half years. He only played as a Jr. because Ty Lawson got hurt during the ACC slate and the 2nd string guy also got hurt earlier in the year.

[Author]

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