Unverified Voracity Picks Up The Pieces
I mean it's still okay guys. Bummer city for basketball recruiting over the past couple days. Let's survey the carnage on 24/7's rankings:
It's gonna be fine.
Class sizes vary so widely in college basketball that team recruiting rankings often spit out absurd results—would you rather have MSU's class of #34 and #75 or Wisconsin's class of #84 and four guys ranked #145 or lower—but here Michigan's also at the top in per-recruit quality. They'd drop some if Jace Howard was re-added; they'd still be ahead of the rest of the league.
Michigan's going to continue going after high end guys and some are going to come. Josh Christopher deciding that Arizona State is better for his Global Brand™ than Michigan… well, let's say that's a one-off. Just have to have a little more patience. In the meantime here's this top 50 center Michigan beat Duke for and a couple other top 100 croots.
[After THE JUMP: moist]
Unless they stop coming entirely. NBA level players are increasingly ditching college entirely. The new G-League salaries are only going to increase the trend:
While the NBA G League has yet to officially sign a high school prospect, the option is becoming more intriguing and potentially more lucrative to high school prospects, multiple industry sources have told 247Sports. When the G League announced their intentions of creating a program that would harbor prospects that opted out of college, the salary released to try and entice potential players was $125,000. Sources have indicated to 247Sports that the G League is now willing to pay more for the right prospects.
Isaiah Todd might land there. College now has a choice between slowing this trend by allowing name and image rights to revert to the players or continuing to put their fingers in their ears and saying "la la la." It'll probably be the latter, but if there's suddenly a revenue crunch the definitions of amateurism might get more malleable. College basketball is more marketable with Zion Williamson than without.
Terrance Williamson signs. A recruit who will actually be on campus:
Michigan is getting a versatile, team-first player, a "sky-is-the-limit youngster" according to ESPN.
Williams was always tall for his age; as a result, he was initially stationed in the paint. He developed a variety of post moves, watching film of NBA stars like Jayson Tatum and the late Kobe Bryant for inspiration. Shimmying, initiating contact, stepping back -- these became part of his arsenal.
But Williams understood modern basketball. Often as a game progresses, he takes his game farther from the basket. He attempted the most 3s on the Gonzaga High School team last season, hitting around 37 percent according to his coach, Steve Turner.
"He's not afraid to bang in the paint but his ability to stretch the floor with his shooting is what makes him special," Turner said.
I had an all caps section about how Williamson probably knows Donna from Parks and Rec given this biographical fact…
His dad is a Metrobus driver during the week. On the weekends…
“He travels with this R&B artist called Ginuwine,” Williams said, unsure if the reporter at the other end of the phone would be familiar with the late 90s/early 2000s star behind hits like “Pony” and “So Anxious.” Williams’ dad is singer’s tour manager.
…but then I remembered I'd already yelled about this before. I will still take any opportunity to bring this item up, as I have just demonstrated.
Don't click here. I usually put these at the end but THERE ARE NO SPORTS and I HAVE TO MAKE THE CONTENT so look here's a song featuring Justin Trudeau and his backup ASL translators.
You're probably going to Google "wtf speaking moistly" so I'll save you the click if you're looking for an explanation of anything in this crazy mixed-up world:
Nice to see someone in a position of power who has the capacity for introspection.
Ruiz rising. Cesar Ruiz appears to be solidifying a spot as a late first or early second round pick as the NFL draft approaches:
Cesar Ruiz is a joy to watch as a puller - quick, vision to redirect. This is the best IOL in the 2020 #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/FY0kTKRMlb
— Brad Kelly (@BradKelly17) April 15, 2020
PFF has him 43rd on their final board of 250, the top ranked Michigan player. Uche is 66th, Onwenu 127th, Bredeson 141st, Peoples-Jones 159th (woof), Mike Danna 162nd, Lavert Hill 177th, Khaleke Hudson 192nd, and Jon Runyan Jr 214th. No Shea Patterson, Josh Metellus or Sean McKeon.
I'm surprised Hill is that low and Metellus absent entirely.
A Luke Walton all star. Duncan Robinson leads this year's team of NBA players who had to scrap their way to major roles. Zach Lowe:
Erik Spoelstra sat with Robinson before Miami sent him to the G League last season, and delivered two messages. First: Shoot 20 3s in at least one game. "His eyes bulged out," Spoelstra recalled. Second: You are going to guard the other team's best wing scorer every night. "You're gonna get torched," Spoelstra warned. "Picked on, targeted, everything. It's going to be ugly. But I'm not going to judge you. You will be better for this."
Also this tidbit:
Spoelstra still makes him run wind sprints for pump-faking out of 3s.
I thought Stauskas would be Duncan Robinson. So did the league. Funny how things turn out.
Breaking the habit. This probably won't be a huge effect since people are aware of road games but I do think this athletic director is correct:
One additional point of concern an AD acknowledged about the prospect of games with no fans: that some fans may become less inclined to come back, thinking the experience of watching from their couch of games in HD is much cheaper, more time-efficient and may seem more practical.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) April 15, 2020
There's a chunk of any fanbase that continues to attend in person largely because it's a social habit, and once those social habits get blown up you're going to see some attrition. CFB could get some more butts in the seats by lowering prices and limiting commercial—pfffffft lol no.
These folks were likely to drop out at some point but you're accelerating the trend.
Portillo's gear. Probably won't have a ton of opportunity to see this during the season:
Exclusive first look at @ErikPortillo20’s custom @BauerHockey setup for next year at @umichhockey.
— Goalie Gear Nerd (@GoalieGearNerd) April 15, 2020
#GoalieGearNerd #GGNBauer #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/X6mOPkpE4s
Does seem to confirm that Portillo isn't being put off by Strauss Mann.
The office. Brendan Brisson highlights from the past season:
That one-timer from the right side of the slot might be Michigan's top power play option by game three. I enjoyed Kyle Connor in that spot, however briefly.
Also points to the Chicago Steel's old-timey play-by-play guy. This man wears a fedora and deserves to.
Bored? Cooped up? Fingers tingling? Feeling slightly high for reasons unrelated to substance abuse? Already understand orbital mechanics because of Kerbal Space Program? Try HyperRogue, a game set in a universe where two parallel lines infinitely diverge!
You can never return from whence you came. Emerge from lockdown with an intuitive sense of geometries other than our own, or maybe just a slight headache.
Etc.: DDJ is announcing his destination tomorrow; Michigan is not an option. Devin Gil has chosen USF. Scottish Premiere League is riven with chaos! Clint Dempsey oral history hell yes. Drew Henson profiled by the NY Post? Appears so. Remember that time RichRod turned down Alabama? Brisson and Bordeleau land in the late portions of this first round NHL mock draft.
Love Spoelstra's comments to DR...telling someone that you'll fail, but you'll be better in the long run because of it. As someone who loves to coach, I really appreciate this.
Stauskas couldve been Robinson if he had landed in Miami. Good coaching never forgets.
Yeah, there's a reason oodles of young guys flame out at certain places, and Sacramento this last decade was a prime example of a poorly run operation screwing guys up.
Sacramento is where young talent goes to die. I think if Buddy Hield, De'Aaron Fox, Harry Giles, WCS, Skal Labiserre, Stauskas and Bogdan Bogdanovic had all ended up elsewhere they'd be much better off
one. hundred. percent.
stauskas played for four coaches in his first two seasons - mike malone, tyrone corbin, an uninterested and on-fumes george karl, and a tanking brett brown. it's pretty safe to say he didn't get consistent or strong coaching until...well, did he? ever?
the difference between that and erik spoelstra is gigantic, and that doesn't even address sheer luck and timing. there are all sorts of players who coulda shoulda woulda, if they'd landed somewhere different, or a year earlier or later than they did. it's a bummer that stauskas is one of them, but i'm glad duncan robinson got his shot. he always seemed like a good dude.
Love the Duncan story... he ended up in a great spot with the Heat and Spoelstra/Riley. They are one of the few NBA teams that seem to have a great player development program (Spurs also come to mind... Pistons do not). Howard coming from that coaching tree will hopefully pay dividends in the near future.
Shoot 20 3's in a game is a challenge I accept at the local rec. I'll pass on guarding the other teams best scorer tho...
If I'm guarding someone, there's a decent chance they become the other team's best scorer.
I'll guard anyone who is more or less my size (thus greatly limiting the pool of options) and do a passable job. I can play defense without embarrassing myself.
I can be guarded by a traffic cone, however.
Why wasn't UofM's offense better in 2019 with Ruiz #43rd, Onwenu 127th, Bredeson 141st, and Jon Runyan Jr 214th on the OL? Seriously, what was the problem, especially in big games? Shea? Playcalling? Game plan? What?
I'd say your 1st guess is a pretty good one. The second guess isn't bad either. I'd also throw in a lot of dropped balls, but that might be the first guess too.
It is a great question. I don't have the stats in front of me but I think our running game was solid and our pass protection was pretty good. Those were two problems that plagued us for a decade. I do think scheme, play-calling / creativity, and execution were all parts of it. But a BIG piece of the puzzle was listed in that same paragraph. Shea isn't even ranked on draft boards. The NFL is a league that over-rates any QB with two arms and a pulse but Shea, a 4-year power-5 starter, isn't likely to hear his name called. That's pretty telling right there. Some of that falls to the coaches I guess, but we'll never know how much of the erratic offense was due to missed reads, inaccurate throws, bad decisions, or lack of growth by Shea himself.
Yet another example of how important a player's mindset is. According to reports, Shea was more interested in playing golf than in working to improve his football skills and chemistry with team mates during the summer. Contrast that to Mike Hart, who got every bit of positive results possible from his limited physical abilities.
This has been beaten like a dead horse but it was all of the above, i.e. QB play, playcalling, and early season gameplans. And dropped balls against PSU.
Shea. Watching the amount of open receiver he would just blatantly miss during games watching from the student section was infuriating. He had multiple receivers open almost every game and just decided to not throw it to them
A QB can't see every WR at the same time. He has to go through some type of progression. The biggest issue, by far, with Patterson was the slow processing time to get from Read 1 to Read 2.
RPOs really are perfect for him. Pre-snap, one read, done.
Michigan finished 19th offensively in SP+. Michigan also faced 7 of the top 30 defenses, including 6 of the top 15.
So I’d say a reason our offense wasn’t “better” would be playing top 15 defenses in half of our games... not the only reason, but surely a reason.
Kinda surprised Hudson is ranked so low.
Not really, he's a LB/S tweener. Not a true S because he's not a cover/space player. Too small to play LB and when he does play LB, he struggled. He is at his best at going downhill. Since he's only 5'11" and sub 220 lbs, not much room for him to find a role in the NFL defense.
April 16th, 2020 at 12:31 AM ^
In the end, I guess he really was a 3 star recruit.
That’s the thing with recruiting rankings. It’s hard to rank a player who doesn’t really have a position. It’s hard to rank a 6’5” 255 lb offensive line prospect. There’s too much projection that is entirely based on development and fit at the school that the kid chooses. But that is why a kid like Hudson can be a phenomenal player at a school like Michigan that can find a way to use him.
April 16th, 2020 at 12:04 PM ^
Hopefully Hudson can carve out a role and extended career as a special teams maven.
That should be his calling cards. Find a way to contribute on ST and make it stick. Plenty of NFL players got their shot because of ST
Kudos Brian for not taking the doomsday approach to basketball recruiting. While we're going to have some major roster construction challenges in the next two years we shouldn't overlook the fact that Dickinson is our highest rated recruit since the Irvin, Walton, Chatman types. (Iggy was not ranked as an international player.) It is also the first time we have signed three top-100 guys since the GR3-McGary-Stauskas group.
(LINK for data)
I want to challenge something that people seem to take as a given: "college basketball is more marketable with Zion Williamson than without." Is it? Have there been any studies of the time period before Freshman were allowed to go directly to the NBA, compared first to the time period when they were allowed to go, and then to the time period after they were not again? Was there a drop in ratings, revenue etc when Kobe, Garnett, Lebron et all skipped college, and then did it bounce back up when players had to play at least one year?
It might be hard to do because there would be other variables. For instance has there been a steady almost straight line increase in college basketball interest over time? My sense is that while OSU fans might like to picture Lebron having that one season with the Buckeyes, or Michigan fans getting one season out of Garnett, that the totality of the interest in and popularity of college basketball was negligibly impacted, if at all.
College basketball brings a different excitement than the NBA, for reasons not contingent on a few thunderous Zion Williamson dunks for a season (or in his case part of a season). Some fans prefer the college game, others the NBA, and some may like them equally, but I would like to see the one and done-ers whose sole reason for attending college is because they are "required" to, removed from the equation. As others have said more eloquently than I some form of payment beyond scholarships, exposure, contacts, tutors, trainers and nutritionists, will not solve many of the problems- under the table payments one might hope to eliminate, some will always want more (and some will pay). Justifying payments on a fairness basis if it can be worked out has some appeal but that is a separate issue.
College basketball would have sucked watching LeBron in an OSU jersey, Kobe in a Duke jersey and Garnett letting everyone believe he was going to Michigan then deciding to go to Maryland.
April 16th, 2020 at 12:37 AM ^
I don’t believe it. Michigan had crazy recruiting momentum in those days. Still riding the high of the Fab Five. Maryland wasn’t shit at that time. The good Gary Williams and Steve Francis years wouldn’t come until the early 2000’s. Garnett wasn’t from DC and had no known reason to go to Maryland.
I don’t feel like most one and dones are that important to the viewership of the NCAA. Of course Zion Williamson boosts viewership but he was an absurd talent. If all of the say #5-20 recruits in the country all go play in the G League or internationally, hardly anyone is going to notice.
April 16th, 2020 at 12:33 PM ^
Removing one-and-done will have ZERO effect on college basketball. 90% of the average sports fan's interest in college basketball is March Madness, and that will always be a huge event regardless of whether the top 20 high school kids come to play for one year or not.
If anything the one-and-done's ruin the sport because it is very hard to get behind a team with the roster flipping over so much each year. I actually might like the sport more if colleges only recruited guys who had minimal pro potential and planned to play for four years.
College basketball fans will always watch college basketball. However, I think one and done players bring in an NBA audience who normally wouldn't watch college basketball to watch the guys their team might draft and who might take the NBA by storm
Kudos for getting the last name of our Top 70 bball wrong. Off to a good start.
I can't even go to my sports blog without seeing Socky McBlackface.
Nice to see someone in a position of power who has the capacity for introspection.
Meh. Trudeau urged Canadians not to go to secondary residences or visit family for Easter and then . . . went to his secondary residence to visit family.
I didn't watch any of the video and don't know what that thing is about, but to the extent I skimmed through that, I assumed Brian was being farcical.
If not it's just poor judgment of character, perhaps driven by politics.
Trudeau is a phony. He dressed in blackface. You don't need to know much more about him than that. But, there's more. He dressed in blackface more than once. That's sufficient. Don't need to know anything else, that's sufficuent to know he's a prick. But, there's more. After the multiple times came out, he said he did no know how many more instances may surface. He's a phony and a prick, full stop.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:50 PM ^
Your a disgusting peasant. It's a different standard. Chicago Mayor needed a haircut and that's fine bc her hygiene matters. Peasants like you can scrounge in the dirt and turds and don't need a haircut.
I am fine with the attempt and loss of 5 stars Todd and Christopher. It is the subsequent (caused or non-caused) of players that the team has invested in DeJulius and Castleton that..... fill in the blank.
I understand the ADs be might concerned about people not coming back, but if the alternative is not playing a season at all and people start to realize how nice it is to have their fall Saturday's back, maybe they don't tune in whenever it does come back.
Far more important, from a business perspective to keep those Saturdays blocked off in people's minds and their calendars and keep them engaged with the sport.
So sure, you'd ideally like to have fans in stands but if that's not possible, you have to do whatever you can to give people football, right?
Still a great recruiting class....I think T. Will is going to be a great player for the long term
Who is Williamson ???
I'm actually really excited for Terrance Williams. I think he gives a lot of versatility as a player and will be one of those guys who stays for 4 years and is a 4 year contributor. Reminds me a lot of Grant Williams for Tennessee. Might not be as good down low, but will likely be a better shooter. The thing that stuck out the most to me was actually a Sam Webb interview with Greg Brown's dad where he said that Terrance Williams would probably be the #1 player in the 2020 class if he was like 3 inches taller. I found this really interesting because Greg Brown's dad is a very no BS, no filter dude
Hello, really excited Terrance Williams. I, myself, am ambivalent Terrance Williams. So, yeah.
April 15th, 2020 at 10:33 PM ^
lol just reread that comment and realized how many errors there were
Bball isnt going to have a play making guard next season.
Terrance Williams or Williamson? Not once, not twice, but 3 times.
April 15th, 2020 at 11:46 PM ^
Does wearing blackface help stop the virus too? Maybe Trudeau can tell us.
April 16th, 2020 at 12:23 PM ^
"College basketball is more marketable with Zion Williamson than without. "
But is it a better game? This is a subjective question that's not easy to answer. I don't personally think the Kentucky model is one that makes college basketball better. Minor league baseball and hockey arguably do make those two sports in college a smaller market. At the same time, is that a bad thing? I think it would be a very difficult thing to argue that kids who come to school for a year and then leave - burning their scholarships - benefits them more than a year in a d-league. Some, maybe, but most? No, not so much.
It's selfish to assume our desires to see these kids play in our uniforms overrides what's best for the players.
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