Emarion Ellis to MU

[Newsdreams]

TR had better hair than game. Highly touted outta Cali...game and hair. Only the hair was legit.

I disagree watching him play 10th row from court side to his Sophomore year he seemed legit. After that he had trouble and hair was a bonus.

[Lennys Tap]

This seems like an overreaction to what Rocky said. I read it as maybe we arent the immediate tournament team without a rebuild that people expect.

If I misinterpreted Rocky’s remarks I apologize but it seems to me that he often tried to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (Wojo) and that he’s thrown a bit of shade Wojo’s way.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

Rocky

You projos just won’t give up. You know Aidoo never signed a NIL with us, right? He blew up AFTER his verbal - I never expected to see him in Milwaukee, Wojo or no Wojo. Snide (and false) remarks about MU fans expecting a slew of 5 stars won’t get it either.

Nobody expects miracles. Everybody (other than a few of you holdouts) expects a greatly improved product. The bar for that is pretty low, IMO. But I’m not surprised that the projos are skeptical. They’ve been wrong for 7 years - why quit now?

Lighten up, Francis.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Does it feel to you guys that quality players are beating a path to Shaka's door?  Feels that way to me. Every day it seems like we've taken a step forward.  I'm fully expecting Joplin committing tomorrow and think we have a great shot at Bates.  Plus Garcia seems to be headed one of only two directions; either to a paycheck or back to the Al with his teammates.  All good.

That might end up being the case, but we're not there yet. So far the only player who has come to MU that wasn't going to is Ellis. I fully expect that by the end of this offseason we will be there.

When Shaka was hired my hopes for this offseason were:
1. Retain Carton
2. Retain Garcia
3. Retain Lewis
4. Retain Aidoo
5. Retain Mitchell
6. Retain Oso
7. Build the rest of the roster with the best combination possible of: other MU players, other MU recruits, Texas recruits, and/or transfers

So far he's don't well but not perfect. Seems to have locked down priorities 1, 3, 5, and 6. Missed on priority 4. TBD on priority 2. We'll see how #7 shakes out. If it ends up being Ellis, Joplin, Dexter, Jose, and Greg, personally I'd be underwhelmed, especially if Garcia goes pro. I expect that we'll get at least 2 more additions.

[DoctorV]

That might end up being the case, but we're not there yet. So far the only player who has come to MU that wasn't going to is Ellis. I fully expect that by the end of this offseason we will be there.

When Shaka was hired my hopes for this offseason were:
1. Retain Carton
2. Retain Garcia
3. Retain Lewis
4. Retain Aidoo
5. Retain Mitchell
6. Retain Oso
7. Build the rest of the roster with the best combination possible of: other MU players, other MU recruits, Texas recruits, and/or transfers

So far he's don't well but not perfect. Seems to have locked down priorities 1, 3, 5, and 6. Missed on priority 4. TBD on priority 2. We'll see how #7 shakes out. If it ends up being Ellis, Joplin, Dexter, Jose, and Greg, personally I'd be underwhelmed, especially if Garcia goes pro. I expect that we'll get at least 2 more additions.

How come underwhelmed?

In a bubble, if you told me MU would fire Wojo without knowing the replacement, I would have expected to lose at least 2/3 of Carton, Lewis, Garcia if not all 3. I would have also expected to lose one or two of Aidoo, Mitchell, Cam.

I would have expected new coach to then patch up and fill the roster with some good players, some being incoming freshmen and others transfers/jucos, and begin building for the future. That would have made this upcoming season a rebuilding year.

I adjusted my expectations when Shaka came aboard, but I find it hard pressed to feel underwhelmed.
-Keeping Carton, Lewis, Oso, and Greg (yes you need upperclassmen that can shoot and lead by example) along with the others is great. I know we were fooled last season but Perez and Dex will contribute as well.
-Adding a top 75 6’7 forward along with a borderline top 100 6’5 guard within weeks is very nice.
-He’s likely not done yet, hopefully another impact rotation player will join.

Dawson’s return to MU will likely make or break the quality of next years squad- imo Shaka needs DG33 to dance next year.
That said, it’s looking like next season definitely won’t be a “rebuilding” year- which I would have fully expected in most cases- it’ll be a tournament contending squad in year 1 for Shaka.

[rocky_warrior]

Rocky

You projos just won’t give up. You know Aidoo never signed a NIL with us, right? He blew up AFTER his verbal - I never expected to see him in Milwaukee, Wojo or no Wojo. Snide (and false) remarks about MU fans expecting a slew of 5 stars won’t get it either.

Nobody expects miracles. Everybody (other than a few of you holdouts) expects a greatly improved product. The bar for that is pretty low, IMO. But I’m not surprised that the projos are skeptical. They’ve been wrong for 7 years - why quit now?

OK.  But none of that debates the facts of my post. 

I'm impressed with the staff Shaka has put together.  Based on what we expected, and what we now have we've lost Aidoo and gained Ellis.  (Ignoring that by the time I catch up here again tomorrow AM Joplin will probably have joined).

I'm also happy that people are optimistic.  I'll surely jump on that train once MU starts winning more basketball games.  I'll also defend Shaka to get a fair chance for the next few years.   Since he's retaining guys (which  I'm happy about from a University standpoint), it looks like it'll be a few years before he'll have a full slate of "his guys". 

But hey - go ahead and create arguments 

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

How come underwhelmed?

Because I don't think a 10-man roster of Carton, Lewis, Elliott, Perez, Akanno, Ighodaro, Mitchell, Joplin, Ellis, and Jones is good enough to make the tournament....If they do, it would be a huge testament to Smart's coaching ability. Also because looking at the transfer portal there are many better options than the players on our roster. But like I said, I don't Shaka will stop with Joplin and Ellis, meaning I have good chance of being overwhelmed or at least whelmed.

[rocky_warrior]

10-man roster of Carton, Lewis, Elliott, Perez, Akanno, Ighodaro, Mitchell, Joplin, Ellis, and Jones

I notice you left off Garcia

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

I notice you left off Garcia

I won't count him as back until he is back. All it takes is listening to the advice of one wrong person for a disappointing draft day for all parties

[D'Lo Brown]

There's a pretty substantial amount of evidence that playing multiple sports & even taking significant breaks from your primary sport, is actually beneficial & not harmful.

1. Lower risk of overuse injuries

2. Happier/lower risk of burnout, anxiety, depression

3. 2-3x lower risk of major injuries in the long-term, such as ACL

4. Vast majority of NCAA athletes & an even greater proportion of pro athletes played at least 2 sports growing up

The motor skills, neural processes, etc developed in other sports are often directly transferable & beneficial... Same reason that working out math problems in childhood develops your ability to work out non-math problems later on.

Shaka & many many other coaches place value in athletes that play other sports.

[willie warrior]

OK.  But none of that debates the facts of my post. 

I'm impressed with the staff Shaka has put together.  Based on what we expected, and what we now have we've lost Aidoo and gained Ellis.  (Ignoring that by the time I catch up here again tomorrow AM Joplin will probably have joined).

I'm also happy that people are optimistic.  I'll surely jump on that train once MU starts winning more basketball games.  I'll also defend Shaka to get a fair chance for the next few years.   Since he's retaining guys (which  I'm happy about from a University standpoint), it looks like it'll be a few years before he'll have a full slate of "his guys". 

But hey - go ahead and create arguments 

I think Rocky has a good perspective here. Retaining players is a plus, but they were already here, and are Wojo recruits  so giving Shaka full juice credit for those guys is not totally fair. Ellis looks like he has great upside but we just don't know. Somebody here said it looks like recruits are beating a path to Shaka. Who? So far it has been only one or two guys that were his recruits at Tx
We still must wait and see. He has not picked up anybody from the Portal. Hopefully his recruiting prowess will shine for next years class.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

"Recruits are beating a path to Shaka's door" is the new "Wojo always gets his man."

[DoctorV]

Because I don't think a 10-man roster of Carton, Lewis, Elliott, Perez, Akanno, Ighodaro, Mitchell, Joplin, Ellis, and Jones is good enough to make the tournament....If they do, it would be a huge testament to Smart's coaching ability. Also because looking at the transfer portal there are many better options than the players on our roster. But like I said, I don't Shaka will stop with Joplin and Ellis, meaning I have good chance of being overwhelmed or at least whelmed.

Fair enough.

2 counterpoints:
1) just because there is someone better in the portal doesn’t necessarily mean it would be better for Shaka to chase off one of our guys to bring in someone else. It could be that the current guys are much better than they showed, or were able to show, under wojo. It could also be that continuity and team unity would be rattled making it harder to find success.

2) By my count with the current 10 players (counting the Joplin egg before it hatches and excluding Dawson) there are 6 top 100, or very near top 100 ranked recruit on the team
Carton, Lewis, Oso, Mitchell, Joplin, Ellis.
6’3        6’7     6’9       6’2       6’7    6’5

If you add Garcia that’s a 7th at 6’11.
All of them outside of Carton and Garcia are back end top 100 or just outside the top 100 guys but that’s still a nice crop to have in your first year.

That said, how many top 100s did Crean have in year 1? How about wojo and Buzz?
I would be willing to bet that Shaka is going to have a lot more to work with next season than any of the previous 3 did.
Also, if I’m not mistaken 7 top 100s was the most either Buzz (who was hard to quantify because of the Juco angle) or wojo had at one time?

Let’s get Joplin and bring back Dawson!

[brewcity77]

1) just because there is someone better in the portal doesn’t necessarily mean it would be better for Shaka to chase off one of our guys to bring in someone else.

Even if Joplin commits today, there are still two open scholarships and a number of high-level players in the portal that could be immediate impact players. Marquette could add players without chasing anyone off.

2) By my count with the current 10 players (counting the Joplin egg before it hatches and excluding Dawson) there are 6 top 100, or very near top 100 ranked recruit on the team

**Cringes in advance**

That said, how many top 100s did Crean have in year 1? How about wojo and Buzz?

...And there it is. As we belabored repeatedly, Wojo had Juan Anderson, Steve Taylor, Luke Fischer, Jajuan Johnson, Deonte Burton, Duane Wilson, and Sandy Cohen, not to mention a fringe top-100 in proven scorer Matt Carlino.

I look at this team and see promise. I think there are a lot of great building blocks. But I do believe that adding one or two proven pieces could put them in contention for a NCAA bid next year. Otherwise, it's hoping for a team of largely underclassmen to come together quickly.

[RubyWiscy]

One if the problems last season was no upper classman or "proven" leader on the team to take over games. Yes, there were moments when a player stepped up in a given game but not on a consistent basis. I would feel much better with 1 or 2 proven xfers for next year.

[DoctorV]

It wasn’t a promo/mojo argument, I honestly didn’t know that Steve had so much to start. The narrative around here was that Buzz left the cupboard bare, but I always thought that didn’t make sense because I remembered otherwise.

Sounds like he had 8 top 100 type kids on that first year roster. Wojo was classic at making the sum of the parts worse than the parts themselves on paper so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Looking at this list of names I’d rather have this years crop but we shall see. Also, yes I do realize that hs rankings aren’t an end all but it’s interesting to see the type of talent available based on recruiting service rankings.

How many highly ranked kids did Buzz and Crean start with?

[The Lens]

There's an infamous Luke Winn tweet out there (he deleted his account when he left SI) where he was realized MU had more Top 100 RSCI players than the rest of the Big East combined (or something to that effect).  I believe he tweeted that in the preseason of Henry's freshman year.

[Galway Eagle]

It wasn’t a promo/mojo argument, I honestly didn’t know that Steve had so much to start. The narrative around here was that Buzz left the cupboard bare, but I always thought that didn’t make sense because I remembered otherwise.

Sounds like he had 8 top 100 type kids on that first year roster. Wojo was classic at making the sum of the parts worse than the parts themselves on paper so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Looking at this list of names I’d rather have this years crop but we shall see. Also, yes I do realize that hs rankings aren’t an end all but it’s interesting to see the type of talent available based on recruiting service rankings.

How many highly ranked kids did Buzz and Crean start with?

Well you sort of are making both sides of the argument here. On recruiting rankings Wojo had a crap ton to work with. But the fact is those players were extremely inexperienced (Juan), overrated (Steve, JJJ), coming off a year not playing (Duane, Fischer), didn't want to be here (Burton). If we match up those top 100s with similar players at their rankings each year I'd wager almost every one of them underperformed in their collegiate career.

Buzz had the three amigos and Lazar as seniors and after coaching them a year. Regardless of any young top 100 recruits or bench talent that team was making the tournament.

[The Equalizer]

It wasn’t a promo/mojo argument, I honestly didn’t know that Steve had so much to start. The narrative around here was that Buzz left the cupboard bare, but I always thought that didn’t make sense because I remembered otherwise.

Sounds like he had 8 top 100 type kids on that first year roster. Wojo was classic at making the sum of the parts worse than the parts themselves on paper so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Looking at this list of names I’d rather have this years crop but we shall see. Also, yes I do realize that hs rankings aren’t an end all but it’s interesting to see the type of talent available based on recruiting service rankings.

How many highly ranked kids did Buzz and Crean start with?

Crean: 0
Buzz: 3 (#36 James, #57 McNeal, #61 Matthews)

[Galway Eagle]

Crean: 0
Buzz: 3 (#36 James, #57 McNeal, #61 Matthews)

Hayward was #75 on 247 idk about RSCI or anything.

[MU82]

One if the problems last season was no upper classman or "proven" leader on the team to take over games. Yes, there were moments when a player stepped up in a given game but not on a consistent basis. I would feel much better with 1 or 2 proven xfers for next year.

DJ already has shown some ability to take over games. He will be a junior. He will be well-coached. So right there, that's 1. We'll see who else emerges.

[MU82]

There's a pretty substantial amount of evidence that playing multiple sports & even taking significant breaks from your primary sport, is actually beneficial & not harmful.

1. Lower risk of overuse injuries

2. Happier/lower risk of burnout, anxiety, depression

3. 2-3x lower risk of major injuries in the long-term, such as ACL

4. Vast majority of NCAA athletes & an even greater proportion of pro athletes played at least 2 sports growing up

The motor skills, neural processes, etc developed in other sports are often directly transferable & beneficial... Same reason that working out math problems in childhood develops your ability to work out non-math problems later on.

Shaka & many many other coaches place value in athletes that play other sports.

All outstanding points ... though you did take more than 5 paragraphs to make it! 

[keefe]

Terry had Faux Rasta hair

Terry Reason didn't have a Rasta Do. He sported 100% Jheri Curl.

[real chili 83]

Terry Reason didn't have a Rasta Do. He sported 100% Jheri Curl.

Yep.

Had him in speech class.  He was "interesting".

[Goose]

real

We were likely in the same speech class. If so, I did not attend on regular basis.