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Will a St. Louis native ever play for the Bills again?


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Great post! We couldn't have gotten McLemore or Young eligible, so we can toss them out the window.

Tatum is going to be a big time prospect. Most likely a top 10-15 type kid, and if he keeps growing and developing, possibly top 5. Some people don't realize that it's not realistic to expect us to land kids like that. I think we'll have more of a chance with him than we did with Beal, but still it's a huge long shot.

Yeah, honestly, we should offer him now. I think Soderberg offered Griffey when he was in 8th grade.

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Who cares where a student athlete is from? I wouldn't have "liked" Brian Conklin more if he was from Parkway North High School. I thought it was cool he decided to come to school here in St. Louis all the way from Oregon. The world is getting smaller every day. Break out of your tired ways.............

Agree 100%.
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I think that this is also a function of Majerus's national network, pipelline, insider friends.

His contacts help him save time, and he is able to find 1*-2*-3* players that his sources verify as having much higher potential and character.

So he plays in a bigger pond than Sodie and some of his predecessors IMO.

And, of course, the 4* & 5*'s in SL will never stay here anyway when they can go to The Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big East.

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It was a little tough seeing Berry pick Butler over SLU given his legacy ties to SLU. But some on here have suggested RM was the reason Berry went elsewhere. Who knows for sure. But why is it important SLU bring in locals, especially if they're marginal? RM won't do it. No good coach would. Does anyone ask Calipari, hey, how come you didn't recruit that McCoy kid from Butcher Hollow instead of that 5 star from Brooklyn? But the implication here is that RM ignores locals when that simply is not the case. In that interview he stated they went after Beals and another kid, who I'm assuming is Berry or Scheinheld(?), even when he knows he stands little chance of getting them to SLU. Let's move on to the next relevant topic, the greatest locals we could have had but went on to star elsewhere. Does anyone remember the name Blake Ahern?

Larry, Calipari or Rickma would do well to recruit McCoys from Butcher Hollow. They can all shoot (hoops or shotguns) and Loretta Lynn could join the Saintsations as a bonus. But never, ever, under any circumstances recruit an a@$*&^# Hatfield from West Virginia. They're the worst, worse than Jayhawkers or gang members.
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Larry, Calipari or Rickma would do well to recruit McCoys from Butcher Hollow. They can all shoot (hoops or shotguns) and Loretta Lynn could join the Saintsations as a bonus. But never, ever, under any circumstances recruit an a@$*&^# Hatfield from West Virginia. They're the worst, worse than Jayhawkers or gang members.

Depends, Jim, I hear that Hatfield pipeline is pretty solid, and they hate to lose. Hope all's well w/you.

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What would a list of STL-area players in (or graduated from) D-I during Majerus' tenure look like?

College/Graduated/Pro:

Bradley Beal (2011)

Cameron Biedscheid (2012)

Jordon Granger (2012)

Roosevelt Jones (2011)

Ryan Rosburg (2012)

Darrell Johnson (2012)

Ben McLemore (2010)

B.J. Young (2011)

High School:

Nolan Berry (2013)

Jordan Swopshire (2013)

Jordan Barnett (2014)

Malcolm Hill (2013)

Darius Austin (2014)

Derreon Reddick (2014)

Jayson Tatum (2016)

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What would a list of STL-area players in (or graduated from) D-I during Majerus' tenure look like?

College/Graduated/Pro:

Bradley Beal (2011)

Cameron Biedscheid (2012)

Jordon Granger (2012)

Roosevelt Jones (2011)

Ryan Rosburg (2012)

Darrell Johnson (2012)

Ben McLemore (2010)

B.J. Young (2011)

High School:

Nolan Berry (2013)

Jordan Swopshire (2013)

Jordan Barnett (2014)

Malcolm Hill (2013)

Darius Austin (2014)

Derreon Reddick (2014)

Jayson Tatum (2016)

Josh Harrelson would have been nice to have as well. I place the blame for that one more on Soderberg though.

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Josh Harrelson would have been nice to have as well. I place the blame for that one more on Soderberg though.

Sodie had Harrelson and Ahearn, two quality players that by all accounts wanted to play for SLU out of high school, but neither was offered. RM has not had situations like that. I am not aware of any QUALITY local players who were interested in playing in for SLU, that RM did not offer. The fact that no names can be provided, shows this is a non-issue. Our board's newest poster is getting schooled.

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As some posters might remember (most likely not so fondly) the subject of recruiting area players is very interesting to me. The fact is that Rick Majerus has successfully recruited two local players, Femi John and Ruben Cotto. Looking back, I would say we should've only recruited Femi (who's career downfall would do to nothing more than misfortune). We recruited one or two local guys hard (Tyler Griffey) and shown vague interest in some, but never really thrown all we had at them (Suggs, Berry, Beal). To say it's those players fault for not coming to SLU is unfair, they were recruited harder by the schools they eventually did choose and those schools had a better pedigree. However, it's a bit of a two-edged sword: those guys weren't recruited as hard because they were always unlikely to come to SLU. Beal, Berry, Young, Mclemore, Suggs etc. were most likely not going to come to SLU regardless of what RM did, so why spend the effort?*

With that in mind, I have no problem with RM not really pursuing many local kids till now. I did originally worry about complaints that he alienated some local coaches, but that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

People on this board always talk about how they don't care where players are from, and I guess I would agree. I would rather have Mike McCall than a worse player from St. Louis any day. That said, there can be an intrinsic value to recruiting local players. And you often have an advantage recruiting local players that you wouldn't have when recruiting a guy like McCall. For example, just this year C.J. Rivers and Darius Austin (two '14 recruits from across the river) attended more than a handful of games last year and, based on their tweets, really enjoyed themselves. You couldn't do that with a recruit from Milwaukee.

In short, I think there is an advantage to recruit local players and I approve of how the staff has been moving in that direction.

Dark horse: I wouldn't be opposed to, when a coaching staff position becomes available, seeing Justin Tatum looked at for the position.

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As some posters might remember (most likely not so fondly) the subject of recruiting area players is very interesting to me. The fact is that Rick Majerus has successfully recruited two local players, Femi John and Ruben Cotto. Looking back, I would say we should've only recruited Femi (who's career downfall would do to nothing more than misfortune). We recruited one or two local guys hard (Tyler Griffey) and shown vague interest in some, but never really thrown all we had at them (Suggs, Berry, Beal). To say it's those players fault for not coming to SLU is unfair, they were recruited harder by the schools they eventually did choose and those schools had a better pedigree. However, it's a bit of a two-edged sword: those guys weren't recruited as hard because they were always unlikely to come to SLU. Beal, Berry, Young, Mclemore, Suggs etc. were most likely not going to come to SLU regardless of what RM did, so why spend the effort?*

With that in mind, I have no problem with RM not really pursuing many local kids till now. I did originally worry about complaints that he alienated some local coaches, but that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

People on this board always talk about how they don't care where players are from, and I guess I would agree. I would rather have Mike McCall than a worse player from St. Louis any day. That said, there can be an intrinsic value to recruiting local players. And you often have an advantage recruiting local players that you wouldn't have when recruiting a guy like McCall. For example, just this year C.J. Rivers and Darius Austin (two '14 recruits from across the river) attended more than a handful of games last year and, based on their tweets, really enjoyed themselves. You couldn't do that with a recruit from Milwaukee.

In short, I think there is an advantage to recruit local players and I approve of how the staff has been moving in that direction.

Dark horse: I wouldn't be opposed to, when a coaching staff position becomes available, seeing Justin Tatum looked at for the position.

You raise some good points. In the case of Suggs, RM mentioned that he had him in for some visits, but Romar had established a relationship with the kid a long time ago... apparently going back to grade school. We weren't going to get him. I know we were one of the first to offer the kid from Ritter, but it wasn't good enough to land him.

The one point you make that I take issue with is that there is an advantage to recruiting locally. That's not necessarily true. You have to take it on a case by case basis. I agree with your point that it is more convenient to get them out to games, etc. But not all kids want to stay home. For many kids, being "local" is a disadvantage.

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As some posters might remember (most likely not so fondly) the subject of recruiting area players is very interesting to me. The fact is that Rick Majerus has successfully recruited two local players, Femi John and Ruben Cotto. Looking back, I would say we should've only recruited Femi (who's career downfall would do to nothing more than misfortune). We recruited one or two local guys hard (Tyler Griffey) and shown vague interest in some, but never really thrown all we had at them (Suggs, Berry, Beal). To say it's those players fault for not coming to SLU is unfair, they were recruited harder by the schools they eventually did choose and those schools had a better pedigree. However, it's a bit of a two-edged sword: those guys weren't recruited as hard because they were always unlikely to come to SLU. Beal, Berry, Young, Mclemore, Suggs etc. were most likely not going to come to SLU regardless of what RM did, so why spend the effort?*

With that in mind, I have no problem with RM not really pursuing many local kids till now. I did originally worry about complaints that he alienated some local coaches, but that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

People on this board always talk about how they don't care where players are from, and I guess I would agree. I would rather have Mike McCall than a worse player from St. Louis any day. That said, there can be an intrinsic value to recruiting local players. And you often have an advantage recruiting local players that you wouldn't have when recruiting a guy like McCall. For example, just this year C.J. Rivers and Darius Austin (two '14 recruits from across the river) attended more than a handful of games last year and, based on their tweets, really enjoyed themselves. You couldn't do that with a recruit from Milwaukee.

In short, I think there is an advantage to recruit local players and I approve of how the staff has been moving in that direction.

Dark horse: I wouldn't be opposed to, when a coaching staff position becomes available, seeing Justin Tatum looked at for the position.

Good post and I basically agree. One downside to locals is everyone else local seems to want to weigh in on everything that happens good or bad with the kid and they all seem to have inside info.

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You raise some good points. In the case of Suggs, RM mentioned that he had him in for some visits, but Romar had established a relationship with the kid a long time ago... apparently going back to grade school. We weren't going to get him. I know we were one of the first to offer the kid from Ritter, but it wasn't good enough to land him.

The one point you make that I take issue with is that there is an advantage to recruiting locally. That's not necessarily true. You have to take it on a case by case basis. I agree with your point that it is more convenient to get them out to games, etc. But not all kids want to stay home. For many kids, being "local" is a disadvantage.

I agree it's a case-by-case, but it's certainly easier to recruit a kid who lives down the street than one who lives in California.
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The answer is quite easy. SLU will attract St. Louis players commensurate with its national or regional rankings. If its a top notch program such as Duke or Kansas, it can get the Brandon Beal types. If the program is of a lesser quality, we can get the lesser kids. History repeats itself.

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I agree it's a case-by-case, but it's certainly easier to recruit a kid who lives down the street than one who lives in California.

I'd play devil's advocate on this. It may be easier to stay directly in such kids' line of sight, but I'd submit that the most recent season was the first time in a very long time that we've given higher-talent local kids a strong reason to stay local.

Majerus' multiyear plan hit one of its major milestones this year. If we keep playing at this level, then it really will be easier to recruit a kid who lives down the street. If we actually start getting an honest to goodness fan base, all the better.

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I agree it's a case-by-case, but it's certainly easier to recruit a kid who lives down the street than one who lives in California.

Yeah, but what if the kid down the street wants to go to school in California, Florida, NC, etc, which seems to be the case over the last 20 or so years. We can't be upset if a kid wants to go to FL, KY, Duke whereever. They like the exposure. And for them it's like the class valedictorian going to Harvard. There's a prestige associated w/ going to these schools vs SLU. Now Berry chose Butler. Granted they had those 2 final 4's, but they still aren't a big time BCS'er. That's the one local kid we might say got away from us. Beals? No. McElmore? No.They had their sights set on BB royalty.

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As some posters might remember (most likely not so fondly) the subject of recruiting area players is very interesting to me. The fact is that Rick Majerus has successfully recruited two local players, Femi John and Ruben Cotto. Looking back, I would say we should've only recruited Femi (who's career downfall would do to nothing more than misfortune). We recruited one or two local guys hard (Tyler Griffey) and shown vague interest in some, but never really thrown all we had at them (Suggs, Berry, Beal). To say it's those players fault for not coming to SLU is unfair, they were recruited harder by the schools they eventually did choose and those schools had a better pedigree. However, it's a bit of a two-edged sword: those guys weren't recruited as hard because they were always unlikely to come to SLU. Beal, Berry, Young, Mclemore, Suggs etc. were most likely not going to come to SLU regardless of what RM did, so why spend the effort?*

With that in mind, I have no problem with RM not really pursuing many local kids till now. I did originally worry about complaints that he alienated some local coaches, but that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

People on this board always talk about how they don't care where players are from, and I guess I would agree. I would rather have Mike McCall than a worse player from St. Louis any day. That said, there can be an intrinsic value to recruiting local players. And you often have an advantage recruiting local players that you wouldn't have when recruiting a guy like McCall. For example, just this year C.J. Rivers and Darius Austin (two '14 recruits from across the river) attended more than a handful of games last year and, based on their tweets, really enjoyed themselves. You couldn't do that with a recruit from Milwaukee.

Dark horse: I wouldn't be opposed to, when a coaching staff position becomes available, seeing Justin Tatum looked at for the position.

A few things in response to this:

-I think the rumblings of Majerus having alienated local coaches have been greatly exaggerated. My hunch is that in more cases than not, Majerus' style of dealing with people may not have been satisfactory to certain coaches' egos. For the most part by now, they've either gotten over it, left, or never had that much of a problem in the first place.

-There are absolutely advantages to recruiting locally, but as ACE and Skip point out, it's not in every kid's interest to play locally. It works out well for some- playing in front of friends and family, representing their HS and college well, improving enough to play at a pro level somewhere- but it doesn't work out for just as many. Lot of reasons for this.

-I don't see Tatum ever coaching at SLU. Maybe I'm wrong, just don't see it and don't feel like getting into the reasons why. I will say, though, that the practice of hiring a recruit's high school coach or AAU coach or relative just to land him is a shady one, and one that wouldn't exactly make me proud to be an alum of a program that does it.

-When you look at the list of recruits from Majerus' time here and start looking at their profiles and relevant articles, it's clear that SLU did offer a lot of them. We seem to be getting to them early and extending offers; we haven't been in the top few finalists for a lot of them, though, and that's probably more on the kids than on SLU. And you're right, this is where our staff has been good in knowing when to let off the gas and land the right recruit from another town. We never had that balance between Romar putting too much time into 5-stars that weren't coming and Soderberg not even trying with them, but we now seem to be at least putting ourselves into the mix, and that's incredibly important locally. Let the local 4- and 5-stars know that we want them- it's a good message and long-term strategy that will eventually pay off. When I look at the list I put together (updated below), SLU offered just about all of these kids at one point and was the first or second in many cases. That's the right thing to do.

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Looking through the current HS list, there are some nice players coming through the pipeline. Given the general consensus above that it's just nice to have great players, no matter where they come from, I still think it'd be great to land a few of the 2013-2016 kids. We're in the hunt with a lot of big-time programs, and that's who we want to compete with, not the smaller regional programs.

Strikethrough indicates guys that couldn't have been eligible at SLU, as Majerus has indicated. I'll update this list with guys I forgot if I think of any more or if people say.

College/Graduated/Pro:

Jared Swopshire (2008) - IMG/Louisville/Northwestern

Ben McLemore (2010) - Everywhere/Kansas

B.J. Young (2011) - McCluer North/Arkansas

Bradley Beal (2011) - Chaminade/Florida/Washington Wizards

Roosevelt Jones (2011) - O'Fallon/Butler

Cameron Biedscheid (2012) - Ritter/Notre Dame

Jordan Granger (2012) - McCluer North/Auburn

Ryan Rosburg (2012) - Marquette/Mizzou

Darrell Johnson (2012) - Parkway North/Kansas State

High School:

Nolan Berry (2013) - DeSmet/Butler

Malcolm Hill (2013) - Belleville West/Illinois

Jordan Swopshire (2013) - Montrose Christian (MD) - SLU, Arizona, Florida, Louisville, Illinois, Iowa, Marquette, Mizzou, SIUC, Texas

Derreon Reddick (2014) - Belleville East - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Michigan, DePaul, SIUC, and Tennessee are in the mix. DePaul has offered for sure.

Darius Austin (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Illinois, Iowa, DePaul, Cincinnati, Michigan, and Tennessee are in the mix. SLU and DePaul have definitely offered.

C.J. Rivers (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Illinois, Mizzou, and Tennessee are in the mix.

Jordan Barnett (2014) - CBC - SLU, SIUC, Mizzou, Michigan State, Butler, and Purdue are in the mix.

Patrick McCaw (2014) - CBC - SLU and Mizzou are listed.

Justin Diecker (2014) - Freeburg - SLU, Marquette, SIUC, Iowa State, Missouri State, Illinois State, Murray State, and Tennessee State are in the mix.

Jordan Barnes (2016) - CBC - Guard, also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

Jayson Tatum (2016) - Chaminade - Projects as a potential 7-footer (6-5 now) and top-tier recruit. Named a top 5 player at the Fab Frosh Camp last week in Atlanta, which features the early top 100 players in the class.

Will Gladson (2016) - Chaminade - Post player, already 6-6. Also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

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Looking through the current HS list, there are some nice players coming through the pipeline. Given the general consensus above that it's just nice to have great players, no matter where they come from, I still think it'd be great to land a few of the 2013-2016 kids. We're in the hunt with a lot of big-time programs, and that's who we want to compete with, not the smaller regional programs.

Strikethrough indicates guys that couldn't have been eligible at SLU, as Majerus has indicated. I'll update this list with guys I forgot if I think of any more or if people say.

College/Graduated/Pro:

Jared Swopshire (2008) - IMG/Louisville/Northwestern

Ben McLemore (2010) - Everywhere/Kansas

B.J. Young (2011) - McCluer North/Arkansas

Bradley Beal (2011) - Chaminade/Florida/Washington Wizards

Roosevelt Jones (2011) - O'Fallon/Butler

Cameron Biedscheid (2012) - Ritter/Notre Dame

Jordan Granger (2012) - McCluer North/Auburn

Ryan Rosburg (2012) - Marquette/Mizzou

Darrell Johnson (2012) - Parkway North/Kansas State

High School:

Nolan Berry (2013) - DeSmet/Butler

Malcolm Hill (2013) - Belleville West/Illinois

Jordan Swopshire (2013) - Montrose Christian (MD) - SLU, Arizona, Florida, Louisville, Illinois, Iowa, Marquette, Mizzou, SIUC, Texas

Derreon Reddick (2014) - Belleville East - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Michigan, DePaul, SIUC, and Tennessee are in the mix. DePaul has offered for sure.

Darius Austin (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Illinois, Iowa, DePaul, Cincinnati, Michigan, and Tennessee are in the mix. SLU and DePaul have definitely offered.

C.J. Rivers (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Illinois, Mizzou, and Tennessee are in the mix.

Jordan Barnett (2014) - CBC - SLU, SIUC, Mizzou, Michigan State, Butler, and Purdue are in the mix.

Patrick McCaw (2014) - CBC - SLU and Mizzou are listed.

Justin Diecker (2014) - Freeburg - SLU, Marquette, SIUC, Iowa State, Missouri State, Illinois State, Murray State, and Tennessee State are in the mix.

Jordan Barnes (2016) - CBC - Guard, also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

Jayson Tatum (2016) - Chaminade - Projects as a potential 7-footer (6-5 now) and top-tier recruit. Named a top 5 player at the Fab Frosh Camp last week in Atlanta, which features the early top 100 players in the class.

Will Gladson (2016) - Chaminade - Post player, already 6-6. Also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

I would add a few guys in there:

Raymond Doby (2014) - CBC

Austin Gillman (2014) - Oakville

Also, I coached Barnes. His work ethic and bball iq is top-notch. If he grows just a little bit he could be a VERY good point guard. CBC is going to be really good these next two years.

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Looking through the current HS list, there are some nice players coming through the pipeline. Given the general consensus above that it's just nice to have great players, no matter where they come from, I still think it'd be great to land a few of the 2013-2016 kids. We're in the hunt with a lot of big-time programs, and that's who we want to compete with, not the smaller regional programs.

Strikethrough indicates guys that couldn't have been eligible at SLU, as Majerus has indicated. I'll update this list with guys I forgot if I think of any more or if people say.

College/Graduated/Pro:

Jared Swopshire (2008) - IMG/Louisville/Northwestern

Ben McLemore (2010) - Everywhere/Kansas

B.J. Young (2011) - McCluer North/Arkansas

Bradley Beal (2011) - Chaminade/Florida/Washington Wizards

Roosevelt Jones (2011) - O'Fallon/Butler

Cameron Biedscheid (2012) - Ritter/Notre Dame

Jordan Granger (2012) - McCluer North/Auburn

Ryan Rosburg (2012) - Marquette/Mizzou

Darrell Johnson (2012) - Parkway North/Kansas State

High School:

Nolan Berry (2013) - DeSmet/Butler

Malcolm Hill (2013) - Belleville West/Illinois

Jordan Swopshire (2013) - Montrose Christian (MD) - SLU, Arizona, Florida, Louisville, Illinois, Iowa, Marquette, Mizzou, SIUC, Texas

Derreon Reddick (2014) - Belleville East - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Michigan, DePaul, SIUC, and Tennessee are in the mix. DePaul has offered for sure.

Darius Austin (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Mizzou, Illinois, Iowa, DePaul, Cincinnati, Michigan, and Tennessee are in the mix. SLU and DePaul have definitely offered.

C.J. Rivers (2014) - Cahokia - SLU, Xavier, Illinois, Mizzou, and Tennessee are in the mix.

Jordan Barnett (2014) - CBC - SLU, SIUC, Mizzou, Michigan State, Butler, and Purdue are in the mix.

Patrick McCaw (2014) - CBC - SLU and Mizzou are listed.

Justin Diecker (2014) - Freeburg - SLU, Marquette, SIUC, Iowa State, Missouri State, Illinois State, Murray State, and Tennessee State are in the mix.

Jordan Barnes (2016) - CBC - Guard, also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

Jayson Tatum (2016) - Chaminade - Projects as a potential 7-footer (6-5 now) and top-tier recruit. Named a top 5 player at the Fab Frosh Camp last week in Atlanta, which features the early top 100 players in the class.

Will Gladson (2016) - Chaminade - Post player, already 6-6. Also played at the Fab Frosh Camp.

V-Time says there are several hundred players missing from your list.

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