kshoe Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 Last night there was a faculty event hosted by Coach Majerus. Much of the storytelling was what we heard last week at Tip-Off Club. Many of the players came and were introduced. It's pretty obvious he is thrilled about this freshman class, especially Mitchell, Conklin, and Cassity. He called Eckerle an "Einstein," and singled out the seniors for working hard and being on target to graduate next year. Kudos to them. There was some good talk about basketball strategy and about the student-athlete aspects of the game. The big news, in light of the latest commit from Remekun: Coach expects not one but 2 Australians to commit! No names given, which is against the rules, but both should sign this fall. One is a 1-2 guard, the other a 3-4 big. Coach says he will be heading to New Zealand this summer to watch these two play on Australia's world team, not sure if that means the Aussie nationals or a youth national team. If this is accurate (and a follow-up question indicated that it is accurate), that would give us 4 signings for fall! According to Nate's site, it looks like this is a done deal. Congrats to the coaching staff on landing another player! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 Its not clear to me just how good this AIS team is. If its a direct feeder program for the Aussie national team and he's being called a role player in that context then its considerably better than calling someone a role player in U.S. highschool basketball. Its all relative to how good this Aussie program is relative to U.S. highscholl basketball. At the end of the day, I have to believe RM and our new Aussie assistant know what they are doing on this one. AIS is the main youth program in Australia. It is operated by the government. Bogut is probably the most famous alumn. He is an aticle from Katz with a list of players from last season in D1. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/stor...&id=3152793 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 This past Spring, Christian played for the under-19 Australian team in an international tournament. He scored 15 points in the bronze medal game against the US, and put up double figures in several other games. To get an idea of the caliber of competition, the US team in this tournament was primarily comprised of mostly 4 and 5-star recruits (e.g., Travis Releford-KU, Wally Judge 5-Star Recruit, etc.). The details are available here: http://www.basketballvictoria.com.au/fs_ne...1c=8&O10c=3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Iken Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 AIS is the main youth program in Australia. It is operated by the government. Bogut is probably the most famous alumn. He is an aticle from Katz with a list of players from last season in D1. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/stor...&id=3152793 To call the AIS a 'direct feeder' to the national program is an overstatement. A number of players progress on, but a number don't. Most of the top basketball players would go if they got a scholarship to it, but not all. It does mean leaving home and moving to Canberra, and some kids are comfortable in their own environment. I guess it is kind of like the soccer residency program now operated in Florida for the US - they have great players, but not always all or even the best. It is the elite sports centre in the country though and has produced most Australian Olympians (it's particularly useful for those sports where the players would have no other elite training alternative -i.e. athletics (track and field), gymnastics, etc). Each state (not province) also has their own state-funded instutute (i.e. New South Wales Institute of Sport). QLD is not known as the basketball hotbeds - Victoria, NSW and SA are where the majority of players come from. By the way, if you ever find yourself in Canberra, you can tour the AIS. Disclosure: I'm Australian and spent almost a decade back in Australia following university prior to moving on a few years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isotope Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 not to be a buzz kill, but let's wait until the chicken goes over the damn before we count on anything this is, after all, the slu billikens I don't comment often, but hate to see negative comments when they are unproductive or uninformative. If you are going to be derogatory about SLU and the Billikens then at least spell correctly - damn is incorrectly spelled in the context of your sentence! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bauman Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 According to Nate's site, it looks like this is a done deal. Congrats to the coaching staff on landing another player! when you say it's a done deal what are you refering to, CS or both? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westy03 Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 when you say it's a done deal what are you refering to, CS or both?CS not both Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 AIS is the main youth program in Australia. It is operated by the government. Bogut is probably the most famous alumn. He is an aticle from Katz with a list of players from last season in D1. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/stor...&id=3152793 Well let's just hope we end up with the next Andrew Bogut and not the next Andrew Latimer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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