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Femi John or Scott Suggs. John is 6'4 200. Powerfully built guard with a great mid range pull up jumper and good athleticism. Suggs is a 6'6 sweet shooting wing. He played pg on his high school team as a freshman, but is considered a wing by most experts. Like John he has an advance midrange game that sets him apart. He shoots the 3 well also. Potential to play 3 positions.

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Femi John has decent size, athleticism and a good basketball body.

He's got a nice looking jumpshot, but he's not a great shooter. It definitely has potential and he'll definitely get better. John could be a nice player in a few years with some good coaching and once his jumper is more consistent.

Suggs is a couple inches taller, more versatile and a much better shooter. Suggs can play the point, which I haven't seen John do, and has a well-developed mid-range game. He's also a good passer, though his high school teammates don't always shoot when he gets them wide-open shots.

Suggs is just at a higher level right now. I don't know all of John's scholarship offers, but he's more of a mid-major type prospect while Suggs is a high-major prospect.

Maybe the best way to explain this would be to call John a Danny Brown type player while Suggs would be a Tommie Liddell type player.

That's not to say John won't be better than Brown. John has a lot of potential and could be a nice college player.

- Nate

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I know you have seen him play far more than me, but when I have seen John his mid-range shot has looked really good. It was when he got outside of 15 that his shot struggled. Am I right about his mid-range game or did I just see some games when he was hot?

There is no doubt from what I have seen that Suggs is the far superior player, but I really like John's game.

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It's kind of interesting that he hasn't verballed now the we've got a celeb coach. Given his two teammates have verballed to SIU, am just wondering what other options he's weighing. As Nate said, right now he's a good mid major prospect, and while we may be viewed today as mid major, we have the potential to become a Utah like mid major down the road. Not sure what you'd call that category...major mid major?

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Nate pretty much repeated what I said, but added that Femi's midrange jumper was good, but not great. I'll take that. He does shoot it very high like Rasheed Wallace and shoots it at the top of his jump and can shoot off the dribble both ways. That's very hard to do. I think the reason that he doesnt shoot as well from the 3pt line is that it takes so much strength to pull up off the jumper and shoot so high that. Richard Hamilton and Luol Deng have similar problems when they extend their range beyond the 3pt line. John isn't weak, he's 200lbs on a 6'4 frame, its just very hard to shoot the way he does and shoot 3's. He really has to step into his shot to make 3's. He's money from midrage though.

Disclaimer: I dont think Femi John is Richard Hamilton or Luol Deng. I'm dont saying he is

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slu72 said,

"It's kind of interesting that he hasn't verballed now the we've got a celeb coach. Given his two teammates have verballed to SIU, am just wondering what other options he's weighing."

it is my guess, no knowledge, that femi john hasnt been offered by the new coach. soderberg did and from what we know from the channel 5 feature piece that was done on john, he was very high on soderberg and slu then, but obviously it made no sense to verbally commit at that time (winter of his junior year in high school) so as a good player that would have options should do, john waited to test other waters. because we cant approach him, he has to approach us, majerus and company were somewhat limited to what they could do until femi comes to them. which apparently will be this weekend.

it wouldnt surprise me that majerus closes the deal on this one quickly as well.

what we have are seeing is that majerus is picking off the recruits that soderberg had all but closed and now majerus is finishing the deal. nothing wrong with that, in fact it is very smart to take advantage of the good positioning on top players asap, get them out of the way and move on to the next target. i love it!

here's hoping we get verbal #2 this weekend from femi john!!

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>I know you have seen him play far more than me, but when I

>have seen John his mid-range shot has looked really good.

>It was when he got outside of 15 that his shot struggled.

>Am I right about his mid-range game or did I just see some

>games when he was hot?

>

>There is no doubt from what I have seen that Suggs is the

>far superior player, but I really like John's game.

I've seen John when he was on and when he was very off (vs. Gateway Tech, he was four for 12 shooting, including 0 for 5 from 3-point land).

I think John has the potential to be a very good shooter, but he's not there yet. He's streaky.

John's a nice player. One of the underrated things about McCluer North winning the state championship was how John played unselfishly and deferred to Torres Roundtree in the title game. That helped get the team rolling.

- Nate

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>what we have are seeing is that majerus is picking off the

>recruits that soderberg had all but closed and now majerus

>is finishing the deal.

Unfortunately, Soderberg had a terrible track record of "finishing the deal" in the past.

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Roy,

When I asked Femi about his recruitment during the playoffs, he said he was going to wait and take time to evaluate all his options.

I know Channel 5 made it look like John was ready to become a Billiken, but I've also had people tell me he wasn't interested in SLU.

I honestly don't know which scenario is more accurate. All I know is what John told me.

The truth about Soderberg's recruiting the class of 2008 was that he didn't land any of those players. None of them committed to SLU when Soderberg was the coach. I'm not taking a shot at the coach, because he was certainly recruiting them and might have gotten commitments from some of them, but he didn't close any of them.

Now that SLU has a high profile coach, the Billikens are going to get better players. Majerus already has as many early commitments as Soderberg did in his last two recriting classes.

- Nate

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actually, it is my opinion that soderberg's recruiting targets were off last year. in previous seasons he closed the players he wanted to get (except maybe grimes). the argument might be that he targeted the wrong players, but by and large he would get his man. last year he likely aimed higher than he should have and it indeed cost him. of course the end result of last year's fall failure is majerus which is good for us.

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nate said,

"The truth about Soderberg's recruiting the class of 2008 was that he didn't land any of those players. None of them committed to SLU when Soderberg was the coach."

most juniors dont commit prior to may of their junior year in high school nate. when are you going to admit that instead of insinuating that the norm is the opposite?

nate said,

"I'm not taking a shot at the coach, because he was certainly recruiting them and might have gotten commitments from some of them, but he didn't close any of them."

your continued attempts to make sure that soderberg didnt get commits from high school juniors prior to his firing imo, is a shot. i would think you would allow the fact that soderberg and his staff did do a fine job of greasing the skids for those players instead the opposite.

and "might have gotten commits from some" is all that majerus will get as well. we have yet to hear bradenberg say anything positive about slu so one would assume he has star eyed acclike aspirations that even majerus cant overcome. fine for john. i hope he is very happy on the east coast. dont ask me to compliment him after he makes that commit though. once he is done with his home town, he can write off st louis as far as i am concerned. and i believe most of st louis will treat him the same way.

nate said,

"Now that SLU has a high profile coach, the Billikens are going to get better players. Majerus already has as many early commitments as Soderberg did in his last two recriting classes."

now who is the spin master? of course majerus has 6 scholarships to offer as opposed to the 2 that soderberg had each of the last two summers. it would seem to make sense that there would be less commits when there are less spots to fill at the same point in time.

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i wouldnt be bringing plan b recruits to campus for unofficial visits in may. i would be bringing plan a recruits.

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both are shooting guards and right now I wouldnt be overwhelmed with a committment of femi john. He can walk on. haha, Im just kidding, but really, after this committment of BT, I feel like we should only get 4 star recruits.

And Nate comparing John to DB doesnt make me jump out of my seat either. I have heard all about FJ's offense, but how is the defense? Vtime, Nate? If he could be a josh fisher on defense than I think that would be an outstanding pick up. If he is danny brown on defense. I would look elsewhere. Hows the D?!?!

Nick

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suggs is a marquee player that knows he steps over any player to the starting lineup wherever he signs.

now if you want to say the likes of a john or a roundtree wouldnt sign here if suggs had already signed here, that makes sense, but suggs wont fear any player that signs.

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Nice spin job.

As for this ...

>we have yet to hear bradenberg say anything positive about slu so one would assume he >has star eyed acclike aspirations that even majerus cant overcome. fine for john. i hope >he is very happy on the east coast. dont ask me to compliment him after he makes

>that commit though. once he is done with his home town, he can write off st louis as far >as i am concerned. and i believe most of st louis will treat him the same way.

It has been posted several times here — and in the Post-Dispatch — that Brandenburg had positive things to say about SLU after the hiring of Majerus. As usual, you only hear what you want to hear.

But nice of you to bash a high school kid for saying months ago that he wanted to play in the ACC — something probably Tommie Liddell and Kevin Lisch would have liked to do had they had the opportunity.

Its good to know "most of St. Louis" will "write off" a kid if he chooses not to play basketball at St. Louis University.

Wow.

- Nate

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