Riley to Syracuse

[bma725]

Honestly, I know Crean recruited bigs.  But he only landed 2 in the past 7 years.

I don't completely disagree with you, and while they may not all be centers, Buzz has already signed 3 guys over 6'8" in about 10 months.  So, is Buzz just that much better at recruiting?

How are we defining bigs, the position they play or by height.  Because if it's height he had more than 2 in the last 7 years.

Well that depends.  Do you consider McMorrow, Otule and Roseboro to be a better group of players over 6'8 than the 3 that Crean signed in 2004(Amo, Barro, Kinsella)?

[Niv Berkowitz]

My point earlier was that - to support Crean and Buzz - it's insanely difficult to get sure-thing big guys, let alone projects whose chances of succeeding aren't under 50/50.

Can anyone name me a sure-fire big man that was able to contribute extensively in his freshman and sophomore year that didn't attend one of the top ten traditional programs in the country? I'd be shocked if you could.

Most bigs if they are "studs" and five-stars, head to the big schools. They don't grow on trees either...as we all should have realized by now.

[ChicosBailBonds]

To be fair, at least Buzz has signed 3 guys that are over 6'8" and will be eligible to play next year.  Even if Mbakwe had stayed, Otule was the only recruit eligible for that stat since Ooze signed.  2 tall guys in 5 years is NOT enough - even if you have to take projects.

I'm not ripping on Buzz at all, although I'm sure people will take it that way.  I'm in the camp with MUSF.....bigs are hard to find and the better they are, the more difficult they are to land at a place like MU.  Guards and forwards are much easier to find and schools like MU can get those types of kids because they are more plentiful.

I want Buzz to land quality bigs just like I wanted TC, Mike Deane, etc to do the same.  We all do.   My only point is that some people on this board who constantly bash our inability to get quality bigs as if the attempts weren't made and it was total gross negligence.  I disagree.  The attempts were always made, let's hope Buzz has more luck then Deane and Crean had in getting them.  He's known as a terrific recruiter and that certainly helps us.

The other thing Buzz has going for him is that he doesn't have the "I can't get a big man" baggage tag that Crean had (though funny at IU he isn't having that problem...go figure). 

And yes Rocky, he has landed three bigs so far.  Hopefully they are better than the bigs that Crean landed but we will have to wait and see on that front. 

I will say this, if Crean had landed Clarke with his rep, the Crean haters here would be going ape #$^* because he was only a 2 star when we got him.  I want to give the kid a chance, but we all know that is exactly what people would say.  Just as if Crean landed a hockey player from Canada, the Crean haters would go ape #$#.

[ChicosBailBonds]

For those who say Crean can't recruit big men, answer me these questions:

#1. Why is it that within weeks of his going to IU, he was able to land his #1 big man target for 2009....the very same player that refused to commit to Crean while he was at MU, and was slowly eliminating MU from the process(Bobby Capobianco)?

#2. For those who say he only gets short projects, how is that he was able to get one 6'10 player and one 7-footer in his first two IU classes?

Could it be that getting a big man to come to Marquette is a he** of a lot harder than you think, and maybe just maybe the guys he got are the only ones that actually wanted to come here?

Ding ding ding....we have a winner.    But remember, MU recruits itself, you just have to plug in a coach and it happens...anyone will do. 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Honestly, I know Crean recruited bigs.  But he only landed 2 in the past 7 years.

I don't completely disagree with you, and while they may not all be centers, Buzz has already signed 3 guys over 6'8" in about 10 months.  So, is Buzz just that much better at recruiting?

You bring up a good point, but we don't know if Buzz's bigs are going to be any good.

I know the old adage "you can't teach height", but really is a 6'10" role player much different from a 6'8" role player? If they both avg. 4 points and 3 rebounds, what's the difference?

I know people love height, but I'm not sure that 6'10" projects are a huge upgrade from 6'8" projects.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Honestly, I know Crean recruited bigs.  But he only landed 2 in the past 7 years.

I don't completely disagree with you, and while they may not all be centers, Buzz has already signed 3 guys over 6'8" in about 10 months.  So, is Buzz just that much better at recruiting?

I guess again it depends on what a "big" is.  Is it someone that plays the 5 only?  Or someone that plays the 4 or 5?  I'd say he landed more than 2.

Trevor Mbakwe
Dwight Burke
Patrick Hazel
Damian Saunders (wasn't admitted to school)
Otule
Erik Williams verballed to Crean....he plays the 2 through 4 spots at 6'7"
Blackledge
Amo
Barro
Kinsella
Etc, etc....certainly more than 2 in the last 7 years.


Is there a lot of quality there?  Nope...just Williams, Saunders and Mbakwe.  But to say only 2 I think it disingenious.

[nola03]

Riley's mind was made up when he visited Syracuse per Zag's blog today.  Only visited MU to please his mother.  Much ado about nothing.

Which would explain the schedule a visit/visit cancelled/reschedule a visit merry-go-round of the last six weeks.

[bma725]

Which would explain the schedule a visit/visit cancelled/reschedule a visit merry-go-round of the last six weeks.

Not really.  His mind was made up after his visit on 2/14, most of the merry go round stuff came before that and a lot of it had to do with MU rescheduling.

[Norm]

From what we have seen from O'Tule this year, does anyone expect his career to be any better than Chris Grimm's? I don't know if he'll even be able to bang like Grimm. I also hope McMorrow can avoid the injury bug and not have injury after injury like Kinsella. I really hope O'Tule, McMorrow and Roseboro turn out to be good players, or are at least serviceable.

[Badgerhater]

Not having a quality big man has not killed MU this year.  What has killed MU is being outsized at multiple positions on the floor when those opposing players are also exceptional basketball players.   It's always better to have a quality big man than to not have one, but it is only one of five positions on the floor and good teams can compensate for not having one.  It looks like Buzz's future teams will at the most be outsized only at one or two positions (1 and 5) instead of all five.  A team can be very successful with that formula because an short athletic PG can hold his own and a team can create a defensive scheme to reduce the impact of a single big guy.

[tower912]

If Otule morphs into Grimm and Liam morphs into a taller Ooze with hands, we will be OK.    Living in Michigan, there is no buzz at all about Riley.   Also, I never felt like we were going to get him.   Seriously, when is the last time we got one after an agonizing wait?    Shumpert?   Taylor?  (not ultimately)?   Swopshire?    If the last 10 months is an indicator of future performance, we either get them fairly quick, or Buzz moves on.   He seems to have very little patience for the dramatic 'will-he-or-won't-he?' crap.    So every time I hear that there is a recruit choosing among X schools and MU is in the mix, I assume we are not going to get him.

[Blackhat]

"Could it be that getting a big man to come to Marquette is a he** of a lot harder than you think, and maybe just maybe the guys he got are the only ones that actually wanted to come here?"


Tall people hate Marquette.

[Big Papi]

I guess again it depends on what a "big" is.  Is it someone that plays the 5 only?  Or someone that plays the 4 or 5?  I'd say he landed more than 2.

Trevor Mbakwe
Dwight Burke
Patrick Hazel
Damian Saunders (wasn't admitted to school)
Otule
Erik Williams verballed to Crean....he plays the 2 through 4 spots at 6'7"
Blackledge
Amo
Barro
Kinsella
Etc, etc....certainly more than 2 in the last 7 years.


Is there a lot of quality there?  Nope...just Williams, Saunders and Mbakwe.  But to say only 2 I think it disingenious.

Bigs are not defined by height but by position.  Saunders, Erik Williams and Blackledge are not bigs.  They are all best suited for the 3 position.  Amo was a 4 and a big but wanted to be a 2.  Look at Blair, the kid is 6'7" but plays around rim and is a beast.  Mbakwe leaving was the one that hurt. Here was a 6'7" kid with incredible hops and really long arms that would have been a force down low for us if his head was screwed on straight. 

TC always tried to recruit good bigs to come to MU but lets be honest, none of the good ones wanted to come here so TC had a choice.  Take the project and hope they develop or take one with greater upside and talent but had some big time warts, i.e. headcases.  Unfortunately, the projects never developed and the headcases were really screwed up in the head.

Its hard to get good bigs to come to MU and lets not fall all over Buzz and his recruiting either.  He is doing the exact same thing as TC did.  He has a project in Otule, McMorrow and Roseboro and has a talented big player in Maymon who was some big time warts that most are overlooking for whatever reasons.  Buzz could just as easily whiff on all 4 and if he does, we could be in a world of hurt because if there is one thing that TC was able to do, it was recruit some real good guards and he had another great coming in Ty Taylor.  We don't yet know how good Cadugan and Buycks will really be until they play but at least it does look promising.

[ChicosBailBonds]

That's kind of my point, what are people defining as bigs.  You defined it as a position, a 4 or 5.  I see a lot of people here constantly harping about how tall people are.  So the definitions are different for some folks.

I agree that Williams is better suited at the 2 or 3, but he may play some 4 as well.  Kinsella, who was certainly tall (that meets some people's requirements on this board), wasn't a banger at all.  Etc, etc.

I think half the problem here is people have different definitions of what a big is.  Hell, Charles Barkley was a small guy but I'd say he was a big because of how he played (your Blair example is perfect).


And yes, Crean was very very good at getting guards and a few key forwards as well.  That's the choice he had to make because the crop of quality bigs is small.  At IU, he's not having those same problems getting bigs and there's a reason.  It's IU.  If Buzz can get bigs to MU, he will rule the day.  In the meantime, I suspect he will try to get long athletes that are versatile.

[The Lens]

For those who say Crean can't recruit big men, answer me these questions:

#1. Why is it that within weeks of his going to IU, he was able to land his #1 big man target for 2009....the very same player that refused to commit to Crean while he was at MU, and was slowly eliminating MU from the process(Bobby Capobianco)?

#2. For those who say he only gets short projects, how is that he was able to get one 6'10 player and one 7-footer in his first two IU classes?

Could it be that getting a big man to come to Marquette is a he** of a lot harder than you think, and maybe just maybe the guys he got are the only ones that actually wanted to come here?

Well MU recruited MacIlvaine, Key, Faisal & Lovette.  Plus Amal, though he wasn't highly regarded.

How in the world could Deane & KO do what TC, the inventor of MU Hoops, could not?

[Big Papi]

Oh and lets not forget that for all the complaining about the lack of bigs TC did not get, that he did get Robert Jackson and Merrit to come here and play.  And I really don't want to hear more excuses about how Robert Jackson fell into his lap.  He still attended MU for a year.  Oh and Marcus Jackson would be another solid big be brought here.  Unfortunately he was injuried his first year.

Abraham was an undersized big similar to Marcus Jackson.  Mac was a local big.  He might very well be the last big from this area that was talented enough and smart enough to be admitted to MU besides Jackson.  Lovette was a project and I will give you Key who by the way was also local.

So who was the last good big MU had pre Crean that wasn't from southeastern Wisconsin??????????????

[bma725]

Well MU recruited MacIlvaine, Key, Faisal & Lovette.  Plus Amal, though he wasn't highly regarded.

How in the world could Deane & KO do what TC, the inventor of MU Hoops, could not?

You're praising KO for Faisal Abraham?  You've got to be kidding me.  He was a good defensive player sure, but offensively he was no better than Ousmane, and that's saying something given that Ooze didn't even get to play HS ball.  He was also not highly ranked coming out of high school or out of prep school.  Further, he was about the same size as Burke or Hazel - 6'7-ish, 225.  Interesting though that you praise KO for recruiting him, but Crean gets ripped for recruiting similar sized bigs that are just as limited in terms of skills.

Anyway, KO and Deane had an advantage to get 3 of the players you mentioned, they were Wisconsin kids and UW sucked back then.  Makes it a heck of a lot easier to recruit the state.  Mac didn't seriously consider them because he didn't want to play for Steve Yoder.  Key was not interested in UW at all because of the staff.  Lovette didn't even get an offer from UW.   Those kind of things would not have happened under Bennett or Ryan.

Further, Lovette was not highly ranked at all.  He had interest from other well known schools, but MU was the only one to extend an offer, and his final two were MU and UWGB.  As a freshman, he did nothing on the court, but Deane was able to develop him into something.  He deserves credit for that, but giving him credit for recruiting him when no other high major even offered him is ridiculous.

[RawdogDX]

it's hard to land top big men, so you have to gamble on some prospects.  Crean didn't have a very good track record for it (not a 0% success rate either).  Hopefully Buzz gets lucky with the new batch.

I think the team buzz is building and the new offence will make big men look good.  has to be better than them hanging out while MU runs the weave.

[MUfan12]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT ABOUT ABEL JOSEPH?!

It'll be a little bit before MU can shake the rep it's gotten as basically a guard only system on offense. If Buzz has his way and gets the tall, athletic team he wants, that perception will change. I'd love to have a squad built like Memphis and UL.

[MU B2002]

Was Lovette the guy that battled alocohol and depression issues late in his MU career?





Edit:
Thanks BMA.  Didn't know the details, just knew there were problems.

[bma725]

Was Lovette the guy that battled alocohol and depression issues late in his MU career?

Yes, though he was into much harder stuff than alcohol.

[rugbydrummer]

How exactly would that argument go?

I think the original post was about how snowy Syracuse is or something to that effect.  I merely was suggesting that milwaukee isn't exactly a tropical paradise, either.  But now that I mention it, i knew i forgot someone-- USF!!! >_< Doh!

[reinko]

I just look forward to people posting about random games that Riley goes for 18 and 15 and peeps exclaiming  "man, wish we had him on our team this year!"

It's gonna be awesome.

[vealdogs]

Rod Grosse for THRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GOMU1104]

I just look forward to people posting about random games that Riley goes for 18 and 15 and peeps exclaiming  "man, wish we had him on our team this year!"

It's gonna be awesome.

Dont worry...that NEVER happens