Newcomer Impact Rankings

[Shooter McGavin]

So you would have passed on Butler to keep that scholarship open?

This is a circular argument.  He is saying that he is glad the scholarship was open in order to pick up what he thought would be an impact player like Butler.

[Pakuni]

So you would have passed on Butler to keep that scholarship open?

The point is, Butler wasn't some guy MU recruited just to fill out the 12th/13th spot on the roster. He was recruited because, with Christopherson leaving, they needed a wing player to come in and be a part of the rotation.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

The point is, Butler wasn't some guy MU recruited just to fill out the 12th/13th spot on the roster. He was recruited because, with Christopherson leaving, they needed a wing player to come in and be a part of the rotation.

Right.  He wasn't a project to cut if it didn't work out.

Look, I am not saying we should always leave scholarships open.  I just don't need to return to the days of "hey let's recruit Yous Mbao and see how that works out."  If you can find quality players for those scholarships, that's great.  Otherwise, it just seems like a waste of resources with only miniscule upside.

[BCHoopster]

In the transfer era, having 13 kids on scholarship is ridiculous.  Can not keep them all happy, sure, it is nice to take a prospect once in awhile, like Akanno, but more often then not they are like McMorrow or Mbao.  If you are taking a prospect, nice to take a big like Kaminsky who obviously worked out for the Badgers

[bilsu]

In the transfer era, having 13 kids on scholarship is ridiculous.  Can not keep them all happy, sure, it is nice to take a prospect once in awhile, like Akanno, but more often then not they are like McMorrow or Mbao.  If you are taking a prospect, nice to take a big like Kaminsky who obviously worked out for the Badgers

Akanno was not highly rated, but that did not mean that Wojo did not think he could play. The fact that Wojo was willing to redshirt him would indicate that Wojo thought he had a good future.
Wojo has been very good identifying players early. The trouble he has had is that some of his early finds blew up and he ended up losing them to bigger programs.

[BCHoopster]

I saw Akanno last year in those scrimmages, thought enough that he could help, even more than Torrence. Thank DWade on this recruit. Every once in awhile you get lucky, Jimmy Butler, was an ad-on recruit, that worked.

[The Equalizer]

The point is, Butler wasn't some guy MU recruited just to fill out the 12th/13th spot on the roster. He was recruited because, with Christopherson leaving, they needed a wing player to come in and be a part of the rotation.

Except we already had Fulce coming in for that role.

And Christopherson was never going to play the wing--he was a 3 point sniper. The notion that we needed Butler to replace Christopherson in the rotation is just silly--they were completely different players. 

And as it turned out, it was extremely fortunate that we had Butler because Fulce suffered a knee injury pre-season.

And that's the point. The empty scholarship saved for a mid-year transfer wouldn't have helped us at all when Fulce was injured.   Butler did. 

[Its DJOver]

This is really kind of a silly argument.  It all depends on whether Buzz saw JFB as a "true project", i.e. Mbao, McMorrow, Ike level, or a back of the rotation type project like Dex, or Dawson.  IIRC because of the lack of JC scouting there wasn't a ton of info widely available on him, so really the only one that can truly answer this question is Buzz, good luck getting him to pick up your call.

[muwarrior69]

Back to the topic at hand: I suspect that Carton and Dawson will have the most impact as newcomers.

...and we manage to have a season I will be watching to see how the players develop this year and if Wojo can coach team ball and not hero ball.

[BCHoopster]

Talent is there, sure young, so what, so is Kentucky and Duke every year. I do not expect the talent to be that good, but both coaches get the kids to play together.  This year is on Wojo! You have talk about 2 kids maybe going to the pros and one kid who this summer who played against pros and fit in. Hope there is great improvement by February.

[bilsu]

Talent is there, sure young, so what, so is Kentucky and Duke every year. I do not expect the talent to be that good, but both coaches get the kids to play together.  This year is on Wojo! You have talk about 2 kids maybe going to the pros and one kid who this summer who played against pros and fit in. Hope there is great improvement by February.

It is hard to quantify the effect of missing 14 days of practice on a young team. However, I have to believe it will negatively impact the start of the season.

[Dr. Blackheart]

If I'm not mistaken, Butler was a late add made possible when a scholie opened up due to Scott Christopherson transferring. So, I'm not sure he qualifies for this discussion.

Buzz was exceptional at roster management. Balancing classes, adding in complementary parts to his system, taking a flier, and yes, making Buzz cuts.

In this instance, SC was moved along. He was a Crean recruit but not a fit for what Buzz wanted to do. The fact that he signed Jimmy late without a campus visit qualifies here to the discussion point.

Now, one knock on Buzz is he didn't recruit shooters. Scott was a shooter but Jimmy fit Buzz's system. Jimmy was a a raw talent, almost quit, and then finally was molded by Buzz. Yet, he has continued to peak each year in the NBA.

A strong case can be made that Jimmy was a late flier. Scoop wanted his schollie revoked as a source for this assessment.

[Nukem2]

Buzz was exceptional at roster management. Balancing classes, adding in complementary parts to his system, taking a flier, and yes, making Buzz cuts.

In this instance, SC was moved along. He was a Crean recruit but not a fit for what Buzz wanted to do. The fact that he signed Jimmy late without a campus visit qualifies here to the discussion point.

Now, one knock on Buzz is he didn't recruit shooters. Scott was a shooter but Jimmy fit Buzz's system. Jimmy was a a raw talent, almost quit, and then finally was molded by Buzz. Yet, he has continued to peak each year in the NBA.

A strong case can be made that Jimmy was a late flier. Scoop wanted his schollie revoked as a source for this assessment.

I would have to say that Buzz was better at getting talent to fit his needs than in balancing classes per se.