Bank the remaining scholarships

[MU Avenue]

I am at a loss to explain why Marquette University, an outstanding university with a terrific basketball program and coaching staff, is not grabbing more recruits this year.

Unless there is an outstanding big man out there, or one with a wealth of potential, Marquette should bank its remaining scholarships and put a year between two great recruiting classes and the next major influx of talent.

Marquette must be strategic in how it offers scholarships. It should not just throw offers this year at players who will not make major contributions.

[wadesworld]

...because you know exactly what's going on with Marquette's recruiting

[MU Avenue]

...because you know exactly what's going on with Marquette's recruiting

I have no idea the point that wadesworld is attempting to make.

Anyone else understand it?

[TallTitan34]

He is saying Buzz knows better than we do how to use the scholarships.  For all we know there is a stud JUCO Buzz has in mind.

[wadesworld]

He is saying Buzz knows better than we do how to use the scholarships.  For all we know there is a stud JUCO Buzz has in mind.

Exactly.  Would you take a player of DJO's caliber?  He was not a top 100 recruit.  We missed out on 4 or 5 top 100 recruits.  We got 1 top 100 recruit.  We have no idea what players we are in or out on.  Starting this topic is ridiculous.  Bank the last 2 scholarships?  Give up on recruiting before the high school basketball season even starts?  Really?

[MU Avenue]

He is saying Buzz knows better than we do how to use the scholarships.  For all we know there is a stud JUCO Buzz has in mind.

Why do some here feel the need to defend and protect Buzz Williams? Replies such as those by wadesworld and TallTitan34 are funny because they miss the point of this site, which is for normal ol’ folks to share thoughts and debate.

I have no idea what Buzz Williams knows or is doing. I only think that Marquette would be served best by banking its available scholarships for a year.

Is this the best strategy? I have no idea. But none of us here is doing anything but tossing out thoughts that are hopefully worthy of discussion and debate.

If your only thought is to write that Buzz Williams “must” know what he is doing, why bother writing anything at all?

[TallTitan34]

You asked what he meant and I told you. 

[wadesworld]

Why do some here feel the need to defend and protect Buzz Williams? Replies such as those by wadesworld and TallTitan34 are funny because they miss the point of this site, which is for normal ol’ folks to share thoughts and debate.

I have no idea what Buzz Williams knows or is doing. I only think that Marquette would be served best by banking its available scholarships for a year.

Is this the best strategy? I have no idea. But none of us here is doing anything but tossing out thoughts that are hopefully worthy of discussion and debate.

If your only thought is to write that Buzz Williams “must” know what he is doing, why bother writing anything at all?

OK well then why would we bank 2 scholarships when it's not even November?  I don't understand the point.  So we missed on some guys.  Does that mean the only players left are CYO players?  You should bank scholarships when somebody decommits in June and there is nobody else available, not in November after 4 potential recruits commit to their instate schools.  There is still PLENTY of talent out there, and Buzz will find it.

[MU Avenue]

OK well then why would we bank 2 scholarships when it's not even November?  I don't understand the point.  So we missed on some guys.  Does that mean the only players left are CYO players?  You should bank scholarships when somebody decommits in June and there is nobody else available, not in November after 4 potential recruits commit to their instate schools.  There is still PLENTY of talent out there, and Buzz will find it.

There you go, wadesworld. Your last reply actually makes a point and challenges others to reply.

I knew you could do it.

[wadesworld]

There you go, wadesworld. Your last reply actually makes a point and challenges others to reply.

I knew you could do it.

Thanks, buddy !

[bilsu]

Open scholarships do not help the team.There were a lot of times in Buzz's first two years that he did not have enough players to practice. Players that are not progressing most likely will transfer out anyways. There also is no guarantee that Buzz will land his top targets next year.

[Rockmic87]

What I don't understand is that for the most part, any 4-5 star PF-C (Big Man), will have the opportunity to start, if not log in huge minutes as a freshman in the Big East. Yet, we are having trouble landing any of them. Besides Merritt and R. Jackson, MU has been very unsuccessful landing bigs. Yet, numerous bigs will opt to go to schools where they are 2nd or 3rd on the depth chart...

[MarquetteNation]

It's a discussion board. Who said a prerequisite was knowing everything that is going on with recruiting. We should be encouraging more people to start threads - not disparaging them when they do so.

[4everwarriors]

In today's recruiting game, scholarships are not banked. Isn't going to happen.

[tower912]

In this day and age of transfers, injuries,  and decommits, banking the schollies makes little to no sense.   Buzz has shown one ability that his predecessor seemed to lack and that is to have a viable plan B that he can implement when he fails to land plan A.    I have no idea if it will be in the early signing period or not (I lean toward not), but I expect that he will land two more players (and maybe more) that meet his standards.

[GGGG]

I disagree with banking scholarships because we are way too early in the process.  Buzz has shown an ability to find talent late in the game, with prospects like DJO signing late.  I trust that he has a Plan B that might include someone like Derrik Wilson, God's Gift, or another JUCO that we haven't heard of.

If you are saying, "hold open a scholarship until spring" I would agree with that.  There very likely could be a player that is in the 200 range that "blows up" this year and makes it worth our while to offer a scholarship.  There could be decommits.  There could be transfers.

But calling for "banking" scholarships for the Class of 2012 in late October 2010 doesn't make a great deal of sense.

[Hards Alumni]

Never, ever bank scholarships nowadays.

1 year renewables... just sayin'.

[chapman]

Never, ever bank scholarships nowadays.

1 year renewables... just sayin'.

+100000000.  It would be beyond stupid to self-impose a two scholarship penalty on your program simply because you missed on top 50 recruits.  Bring marginal recruits like the Mbaos of the world into the mix for a year if you have to, but never ever refuse to fill a roster.  I hope we've had enough of the short roster issues over the past two years to know better than that.

[bilsu]

What I don't understand is that for the most part, any 4-5 star PF-C (Big Man), will have the opportunity to start, if not log in huge minutes as a freshman in the Big East. Yet, we are having trouble landing any of them. Besides Merritt and R. Jackson, MU has been very unsuccessful landing bigs. Yet, numerous bigs will opt to go to schools where they are 2nd or 3rd on the depth chart...

Good centers are hard to find. A good power forward will not come to MU, because he will end up playing center.

[NYWarrior]

It would be beyond stupid to self-impose a two scholarship penalty on your program simply because you missed on top 50 recruits. 

'zactly.

[bilsu]

Another reason to keep recruiting is that you never know what will happen with your current players. What if DJO went pro or a player has a career ending injury andyou have stopped recruiting for 2011. Buzz will keep recruiting for next year until summer of next year.

[kmwtrucks]

How many commits did we have at this point last year? (2) and we had 5 spots to fill not 3. We missed out on some top 40 player's. So did 5-6 other schools.  If we throw in the towel now we would not have gotten Smith, Crowder, and Gardner. We are fine and I'm not a fan of ever banking more than 1 schlorship and I'm sure buzz would never bank more than 1 either.

[martyconlonontherun]

The reason why a lot of people, including me, didn't take the opening post seriously is because of all the doom and gloom.

"I am at a loss to explain why Marquette can't sign players".....
We are talking about a top 4 player in the country and a couple guys from across the country that chose to stay home. We were long shots to begin with but its worth the risk. Eventually we will get one.

I also don't get the point of banking a spot if we don't get a top 100 guy.
Do you seriously think we can or even need to have every roster spot filled by a Top 100 guy?

Your second thought is definitely thought provocative but don't understand why everyone is freaking out.

[Rockmic87]

I also don't get the point of banking a spot if we don't get a top 100 guy.
Do you seriously think we can or even need to have every roster spot filled by a Top 100 guy?

Your second thought is definitely thought provocative but don't understand why everyone is freaking out.

Yes, we play in the Big East, not the A10 or C-USA. If there not top 100, they need to be at least a high 3 star coming out of HS!

[CTWarrior]

Yes, we play in the Big East, not the A10 or C-USA. If there not top 100, they need to be at least a high 3 star coming out of HS!

There are 73 Schools in the 6 major conferences plus a dozen or more other (Memphis, Gonzaga, Temple, Xavier, Butler, Utah, etc) top flight basketball schools.  If everybody only got top 100 players there wouldn't be enough players for everyone to put 5 guys on the court.  At 100 players per year going only to these schools, an average team from this group would get maybe 5 top 100s every 4 years.  Buzz's run rate so far is better than that, and just as importantly, he's finding sub-top 100 guys who are upper echelon college players in every respect.

Of course I'm disappointed we didn't get one of our top priorities this week, but no complaints about recruiting here.

[Aughnanure]

I hope Otule reads stuff like this thread and gets super-motivated to prove we already have that big man piece. Just "What If" Otule has a breakout year, what would that do for future big-man recruiting?

He's been here 3 years, I dont completely get why everyone thinks his max potential is to be a big body clogging up the lane and grabbing down boards.

[BCHoopster]

He will be here for 2 more years after that.  I think he will be better than you think.  Particularly his senior year.
Otule, Williams,Wilson, Blue, Cadougan - still a pretty good group with Jones, Smith, Gardner, Anderson as back-ups.
A total senior frontline, 4 seniors starting, not bad. 

[Lennys Tap]

I hope Otule reads stuff like this thread and gets super-motivated to prove we already have that big man piece. Just "What If" Otule has a breakout year, what would that do for future big-man recruiting?

He's been here 3 years, I dont completely get why everyone thinks his max potential is to be a big body clogging up the lane and grabbing down boards.

I like a lot of things about Otule. Size, strength, can run the floor. His achilles heel appears to me to be weak/bad hands. He gets to rebounds, for example, but has big trouble securing them. I don't know if reps, weight training or something else can fix it, but until he can catch the ball and secure it his contributions will be limited.

[nyg]

I like a lot of things about Otule. Size, strength, can run the floor. His achilles heel appears to me to be weak/bad hands. He gets to rebounds, for example, but has big trouble securing them. I don't know if reps, weight training or something else can fix it, but until he can catch the ball and secure it his contributions will be limited.

That is his weakness from observations of his limited play.  Not only in rebounding, but when they want to pass the ball into the low or high post, he bobbles it and then cannot make the pass back out.  Maybe that has changed with basically three years of practice time, but we will soon see.  If he cannot execute that important aspect of Buzz's offensive system, he sits.  I hope he has improved.

[BCHoopster]

If he has not inmproved, then it is coaching???

[MU Avenue]

It's a discussion board. Who said a prerequisite was knowing everything that is going on with recruiting. We should be encouraging more people to start threads - not disparaging them when they do so.

It is encouraging to come across MarquetteNation, who values and welcomes a variety of viewpoints.

More people here should end their hostility. Instead, they should read, consider and reply to viewpoints that disagree with their own.

It is amusing that so many posters here are so quick to dismiss or slam those whose who see things differently.

The people I knew at Marquette were not like that.

[El Duderino]

There are 73 Schools in the 6 major conferences plus a dozen or more other (Memphis, Gonzaga, Temple, Xavier, Butler, Utah, etc) top flight basketball schools.  If everybody only got top 100 players there wouldn't be enough players for everyone to put 5 guys on the court.  At 100 players per year going only to these schools, an average team from this group would get maybe 5 top 100s every 4 years.  Buzz's run rate so far is better than that, and just as importantly, he's finding sub-top 100 guys who are upper echelon college players in every respect.

Of course I'm disappointed we didn't get one of our top priorities this week, but no complaints about recruiting here.

No kidding

Sometimes i wonder about so many fans of non-traditional powers like North Carolina, Kansas, UConn, etc. that don't grasp just how hard it is to land top 100 recruits, especially schools with a poor recruiting base like Wisconsin is compared much larger states who consistently churn out top 100 kids.

Buzz generally has to go out and get his quality recruits from outside the state of Wisconsin and that's not easy to do. Not only do a sizable percentage of kids prefer to stay close to home and play for schools they grew up cheering for, those upper tier kids also are usually being recruited by multiple good basketball schools from outside their state.

If Buzz can land at least one top 50-100 recruit in each class ad mix in 1-3 three more guys in the top 101-200 range that fit what Buzz wants for his team, he'll likely have a quality product on the court each year. To expect nothing but top 100-150 recruits in each class for a school like Marquette is way beyond wishful thinking, it's crazy thinking.

[GGGG]

Very good point.  The two highest recruits...well a recruit and a transfer...that Buzz has landed have come from in-state.  We are in the mix for a couple big ones in 2012.  (Tokoto and Nolan)  If we land either...or even both...people are going to feel reall good about that class.

[brewcity77]

Good centers are hard to find. A good power forward will not come to MU, because he will end up playing center.

+1

Very good point, especially when you look at the past few years and our tendency to play guys out of position. Last year, Lazar frequently was required to play the 4 and 5 when he was best suited to be a college 3. Two years ago, Lazar at the 4, and Dwight Burke, who probably would have been best as a 4 played the 5. Novak, a guy we placed in the NBA, also spent most of his time at the 4 and 5 when his strengths were more suited to play the 3.

I think the problem is that we don't need a big man, we need two big men. If we were able to land a legitimate 4-star center then we would have the right pitch for a 4-star power forward in that we could tell him "you will play the position you are most comfortable with". As it stands, anyone with a bit of meat that stands 6'8" or taller is probably going to be thrown in at the 5. Hopefully either Otule or Gardner can emerge over the next year as not necessarily a star, but enough of a quality Big East player so that we can tell incoming power forwards they will get to spend most of their time at power forward.

While I'm sure Shaw knew he'd be in line for ample playing time at Marquette, there's also little doubt that he'd have been spending plenty of time at the 5, and for kids looking to get to the NBA (which they all are) I'm sure it'd be reassuring to know they will actually play in position rather than out of it.

[rocky_warrior]

I trust that he has a Plan B that might include someone like Derrik Wilson, God's Gift, or another JUCO that we haven't heard of.

I'm just hoping he signs God's Gift who absolutely explodes and takes Marquette to another Final Four.  I'm not even Catholic but that would be an amazing marketing story...

[bilsu]

That is his weakness from observations of his limited play.  Not only in rebounding, but when they want to pass the ball into the low or high post, he bobbles it and then cannot make the pass back out.  Maybe that has changed with basically three years of practice time, but we will soon see.  If he cannot execute that important aspect of Buzz's offensive system, he sits.  I hope he has improved.

I believe bad hands has to do with eye hand co-ordination. Otule is basically blind in one eye and therefore it will be hard to improve in that area.

[brewcity77]

I believe bad hands has to do with eye hand co-ordination. Otule is basically blind in one eye and therefore it will be hard to improve in that area.

Really? I never heard that 

[bilsu]

That is why Otule wears those goggles when he is playing.

[🏀]

I believe bad hands has to do with eye hand co-ordination. Otule is basically blind in one eye and therefore it will be hard to improve in that area.

O'Tule has a droopy eye lid known as Ptosis. He is not blind, and his vision is not effected by it.

[NotAnAlum]

Another thing that has handicapped Buzz in signing a true power forward is that he just hasn't had any top level PF/C talent come out of the southeast Wis / Northern Ill area where you can make a case that MU has the "home team" advantage.  Most of the big kids 6'9" and above have been upstate boys of the big somewhat "hulking" type that were better suited to UW's style of play and were pretty much destined to go to UW from kindergarden on.  We all know that top 100 PF/C types are a very limited and sought after commodity.  Look at who Buzz has lost the ones he went after to; Shaw to Illinois (home state school), Tarik Black to Memphis (home town school).  Buzz did sign Maymon who should have been a power forward but we all know that story.  I'm pretty sure that if Milwaukee were to produce a Damon Key or Robert Jackson Buzz would be the odds on favorite to sign him.  Unfortunately we haven't been fortunate to gain that built in advantage.  Instead we have been going up against others who have that advantage and we haven't been able to over come.

[GGGG]

Here ya go.

http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=8&c=1&nid=4811242

Philip Nolan, Class of 2012

[TedBaxter]

Here ya go.

http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=8&c=1&nid=4811242

Philip Nolan, Class of 2012

Is Nolan still considered a local kid now that he's attending a prep school out in West Virginia?  Nolan has a chance to be a player, but needs to get about 20 pounds on his bones and be more aggressive to become a Big East level player.

[4everwarriors]

With this reasoning, we should be the odds on favorite to land J.P.

[GGGG]

Is Nolan still considered a local kid now that he's attending a prep school out in West Virginia?  Nolan has a chance to be a player, but needs to get about 20 pounds on his bones and be more aggressive to become a Big East level player.

Would you call Buycks a local kid...or an Iowa kid?

Nolan would be playing close to home.

[HoopsMalone]

Hopefully Nolan gets his "I wonder what it would be like to live away from home" out of his system with his prep school.  Nolan would be a great grab for Buzz.

[NotAnAlum]

With this reasoning, we should be the odds on favorite to land J.P.

OK I'll amend my comment.  We'll have a better chance of landing a local PF/C
Unless that player turns out to be one of the top 10 players in the class and draws interest from every elite program in the country.  Jezzzz

[brewcity77]

I definitely feel Nolan should be our top target for next year, honestly he might be a bigger get for us than JP Tokoto. Despite all the recruiting disappointments this year, we could have an immense class next year if Buzz manages to simply win over the hometown guys.

And while I think Nolan is more of a need, I do think we have to be viewed as a major contender for JP. He's been here for the past two Marquette Madness events, Buzz's Backyard BBQ, and the NCAA Selection Show last year. Pretty much every major event we have here Tokoto shows up for. We may not get him, or even be the favorite, but it'd be silly not to think we're probably on the shortlist of five or so teams.