[Enlund's Blog] Coach wants double-double from Durley

[TomEnlundSays]

Coach wants double-double from Durley
               




               

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/132883078.html
               

[NersEllenson]

Nice blog Mr. Enlund!  Keep up the good work.  Thanks.

[downtown85]

I love this quote by Durley's coach:

"I think the thing he's really intrigued about is how they develop big men," said Courtney.

[jeffreyweee]

I love this quote by Durley's coach:

"I think the thing he's really intrigued about is how they develop big men," said Courtney.

I'll temper the excitement for that quote until I hear it from a school where their alum is our starting center but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

[downtown85]

I'll temper the excitement for that quote until I hear it from a school where their alum is our starting center but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Durley's coach is Otule's old coach.  Otule is our starting center.  But I agree with your sentiment.  We have a long way to go until MU is known as Big Man U. But it is nice to hear that from such a coach. 

[tower912]

It's probably based on what the HS coach remembers of Otule (,,,"worst player over 6'2 in Texas"...) and where Otule is now.    Huge strides. 

[🏀]

Nice blog Mr. Enlund!  Keep up the good work.  Thanks.

A lot of people on this board will owe him an apology if he keeps this up.

[Markusquette]

A lot of people on this board will owe him an apology if he keeps this up.

I agree.  Feels as if TR never left.

[MUCrew]

Elund: 2

MUCrew: 3

[brewcity77]

Much better stuff...maybe Enlund logged on, saw the criticism, and decided to step up his game

Either way, I'm pleased with his Durley reports. Hope he keeps this up all season long.

[muball]

maybe he did some research and talked to Todd so he had background on MU etc and met Buzz prior to writing. Did his homework

[BCHoopster]

I told all of you Tom knows basketball!  I would say though I saw Tom is also doing some UWM reporting as well, so it might get a little challenging to do both teams during the season.
Right now it is easy, not sure what they are doing on road games.  Journal, I am sure, is trying to cut back reporters.

[cheebs09]

I'll temper the excitement for that quote until I hear it from a school where their alum is our starting center but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I agree that the quote may have to be taken with a grain of salt, but I think that being the coach of a current big man on our team makes him more credible than an outsider. I think about it as he would know best about how well MU was developing Chris, and if he didn't think Buzz and staff were doing a good job, he probably would try to steer his player away from there. I think that is a nice endorsement for Buzz and the coaches that he is encouraging (I'm assuming he is at least) another one of his big men to come here.

I agree that Endlund is doing a great job recently and I was wrong about him, but I still stand by what I said at the time because those early blog posts were about as bare bones as you could get.

[The Lens]

I'm sorry but this is embarrassing.  Enlund is the #1 basketball writer at the J-S.  Better than Hunt, Gardner, Potrykus and yes even Rosiak.  He has put in over a decade on the NBA with the Bucks and has more contacts then, well, you know.

To call into questions his credentials or his ability to report b/c he doesn't tweet makes us seem like idiots.

This guy is a pro's pro.  Be happy we have him.

[brewcity77]

To call into questions his credentials or his ability to report b/c he doesn't tweet makes us seem like idiots.

First of all, people started calling his credentials into question because his first articles on the beat were nothing more than regurgitated crap with no insight or effort. A sportswriting monkey could have churned out the same stuff in under 5 minutes. His recent articles have been notably better, but calling someone into question for doing crappy work doesn't make us seem like idiots, especially when we've had Rosiak doing so well for so long.

Second, it's virtually impossible to stay up with recruiting these days without Twitter. Pretty much every visit, every offer, and every coach in attendance at an AAU event is mentioned on there. I use Twitter a bit, don't particularly like it, but have realized that when it comes to recruiting time, it's an invaluable tool. I get the old-school mentality, I resisted Twitter at first, but when you realize how much info is out there from prospective recruits and people that travel the country following recruiting, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that not using Twitter today as a college basketball beat reporter would be the equivalent of not using email 3 years ago, or the Internet 5 years ago, or a phone 20 years ago.

[mu_hilltopper]

Lens is correct.

Not every Rosiak piece was a Pulitzer winner, you know.  He did plenty of auto-pilot stuff as well. 

Bottom line, Enlund started with a few layup pieces and the Marquette welcome wagon -- who are very much entitled to A+ journalism -- threw crap sandwiches at him immediately. 

One other comment .. Twitter?  Rosiak's twitter feed was 90% crap.  Maybe 95%.  And Rosiak rarely reported low-level recruiting stuff.

[bamamarquettefan]

I love this quote by Durley's coach:

"I think the thing he's really intrigued about is how they develop big men," said Courtney.

Agree - I don't think developing big men means signing 5-stars and having them go to the NBA the next year. I believe the fact that 2 big men have gotten much better than expected in buzz's first few years indicates he statement may be true.

[brewcity77]

One other comment .. Twitter?  Rosiak's twitter feed was 90% crap.  Maybe 95%.  And Rosiak rarely reported low-level recruiting stuff.

Not necessarily for the sake of reporting, but for the sake of following recruiting. My hope is that he at least has a ghost account on Twitter that he is monitoring. I know there's a lot of crap there, but I would guess 99.5% of recruiting stories break there before they are on any other website.

[mu_hilltopper]

And I get that.  My point is that .. if Rosiak used Twitter to follow recruiting .. he almost never wrote about it, besides listing who would be at big events, and who MU just called about with news of a signing. 

The JS was not, and now is not the place you can get in-depth recruiting info .. so why care that Enlund doesn't read the Twitterverse on recruiting.

[StillAWarrior]

First of all, people started calling his credentials into question because his first articles on the beat were nothing more than regurgitated crap with no insight or effort. A sportswriting monkey could have churned out the same stuff in under 5 minutes. His recent articles have been notably better, but calling someone into question for doing crappy work doesn't make us seem like idiots, especially when we've had Rosiak doing so well for so long.

Not saying it was you, Brew (and I don't think that it was), but there was a handful of people on here who were calling into question his credentials before we even saw his first blog.  It's true that two of his first posts were pretty much just rehashing info that anyone could have put up (DJO as first team BE and pre-season ranking), but I'd guess that he just wanted to get those out fast after they were reported elsewhere (and he'd have been criticized had he not done so).  If you're going to blog and put out there that the national rankings were released, I think the emphasis should be on speed; there's not a lot of "story" there.  So, I didn't fault him at all for those two.

I think there are three main components to his job:  1) quickly get the information out there when there is national "news" (rankings, etc.); 2) recruiting news and feature stories; and 3) game recaps.  I personally think the criticism Elund took when he capably performed job #1 was totally unfair, just because he didn't do it up the standards that we would like to see in Job #2.  Since then, he's also done a nice job on #2.  We'll wait and see how he does job #3, but by the accounts we've heard, that may be his strongest suit.

I liked Todd, and thought he did a good job.  I have seen absolutely nothing yet to suggest to me that Elund won't also do a great job.  (Disclaimer:  I don't care about Twitter, so his failure to use that forum, if he doesn't, makes no difference to me.)

[tower912]

Enlund vs Rosiak   =  Crean vs Buzz       

[MUMac]

And I get that.  My point is that .. if Rosiak used Twitter to follow recruiting .. he almost never wrote about it, besides listing who would be at big events, and who MU just called about with news of a signing. 

The JS was not, and now is not the place you can get in-depth recruiting info .. so why care that Enlund doesn't read the Twitterverse on recruiting.

+1000 Hilltopper, to both of your last two posts in this thread.  Well stated.

[BrewCity83]

We need to give him 5 years on the job before we can fairly judge his work.

[Badgerhater]

If you rely on a JS-Online twitterfeed for in-the-weeds recruiting info then the problem may be with you and not with Enlund's twitter status.