ACE Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 One disappointment from the Spoonball era was that I felt like Charlie really failed to capitalize on the success of back-to-back trips to the Big Dance. He was able to land a few decent, but unspectacular players like Walker, Frazier and Cobbin, but he failed to land any stars to replace Scott, Erwin and H. Spoon also had a lot of big misses around that time: Barentine, Cranford, the kid from West Virginia, Eric Jones, that fat kid from New York... and some really mediocre players: Simmons, Robertson, Luchtefeld, Diener. It wasn't really until he landed Hughes that the recruiting started picking up a bit. I bring this up because we are again coming off of back-to-back trips to the Big Dance. We have to be able to sell this recent success to quality recruits. Too many recruiting screw-ups like Spoon had could really set this program back. Spoon must have had some poor recruiters on staff at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I'd offer that Spoon's ONLY recruit was Hughes. And that was a combination of hiring his high school coach Derek Thomas and Larry's little brother's situation. Spoon never got anybody after his two glory years. If you count Clagg and Hmark as Grawere recruits, and you give Dobbs, Waldman and Robinson to Spoon, that's about it. Who was the fat kid from New York? Wasn't Adkins the kid from WVa? Also, Cranford was from New York, are you confusing two players into one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 I'd offer that Spoon's ONLY recruit was Hughes. And that was a combination of hiring his high school coach Derek Thomas and Larry's little brother's situation. Spoon never got anybody after his two glory years. If you count Clagg and Hmark as Grawere recruits, and you give Dobbs, Waldman and Robinson to Spoon, that's about it. Who was the fat kid from New York? Wasn't Adkins the kid from WVa? Also, Cranford was from New York, are you confusing two players into one? I think that fat kid was named Hardin. In fairness, after Larry, Spoon landed Love, Jeffers and Marque. He should have been able to get players of that caliber on the heels of the back-to-back trips to the Tourney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I think that fat kid was named Hardin. In fairness, after Larry, Spoon landed Love, Jeffers and Marque. He should have been able to get players of that caliber on the heels of the back-to-back trips to the Tourney. greg hardin was indeed the fat kid. i thought spoon's biggest joke recruit though was ricky cranford. my gosh, the fanfare and expectations were incredible. and i will never forget his first appearance. what a sham. ace is correct on love, jeffers, marque. hughes leaving was huge. the rumor was had hughes stuck around even for another year, there was a 2-3 big names that would have came to play with larry legend but switched off the day hughes announced to the nba draft. one i believe went to cincy, one to georgia tech, and i am drawing a blank on the third. spoon used the juco route to slu to an excess imo. while he garnered some good role players via juco, it prevented us from ever building any sustained team imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kappy96 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 greg hardin was indeed the fat kid. i thought spoon's biggest joke recruit though was ricky cranford. my gosh, the fanfare and expectations were incredible. and i will never forget his first appearance. what a sham. ace is correct on love, jeffers, marque. hughes leaving was huge. the rumor was had hughes stuck around even for another year, there was a 2-3 big names that would have came to play with larry legend but switched off the day hughes announced to the nba draft. one i believe went to cincy, one to georgia tech, and i am drawing a blank on the third. spoon used the juco route to slu to an excess imo. while he garnered some good role players via juco, it prevented us from ever building any sustained team imo. Agree with your point about Spoon relying on JUCO's too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonwich Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Semi-OT, but why is the athletic establishment/media the only place that still uses the grossly archaic term "JUCO"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archy McNally Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I saw Matt Baniak on a couple top 100 lists. And I thought Justin Tatum was a pretty good recruit. I thought his last 3 classes were good, following a couple very poor ones. His problem was he tried to recruit too many jucos when he first got here and they could never get in. Alexander originally from Hazelwood and the 6-7 wing that ended up at SIU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I'd offer that Spoon's ONLY recruit was Hughes. And that was a combination of hiring his high school coach Derek Thomas and Larry's little brother's situation. Spoon never got anybody after his two glory years. If you count Clagg and Hmark as Grawere recruits, and you give Dobbs, Waldman and Robinson to Spoon, that's about it. Who was the fat kid from New York? Wasn't Adkins the kid from WVa? Also, Cranford was from New York, are you confusing two players into one? Love Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraveDigger Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 One thing that should draw more interest from recruits that we didn't have when Spoon was here, is Chaifetz Arena. Having an on-campus facility like this is a big deal on an urban campus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 When Spoon got here he was recruiting to a crappy arena and the worst on campus practice facility in the country. It is testament to Spoon, Romar, and Grawer that they were able to land any decent players. I think people tend to underestimate how bad West Pine was and the impact it had on the program for decades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billikan Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I'd offer that Spoon's ONLY recruit was Hughes. And that was a combination of hiring his high school coach Derek Thomas and Larry's little brother's situation. Spoon never got anybody after his two glory years. If you count Clagg and Hmark as Grawere recruits, and you give Dobbs, Waldman and Robinson to Spoon, that's about it. Who was the fat kid from New York? Wasn't Adkins the kid from WVa? Also, Cranford was from New York, are you confusing two players into one? I remember Adkins well--in the blue/white game before the season he scored about 20 points and looked like a star--then he never did anything! I got to know Spoon pretty well and knew his assistants even better and learned through the process that Spoon really hated recruiting high school kids with all of the butt kissing and related nonsense that goes into all of that. As gregarious as he was in public, he was a private guy who liked sitting telling stories with old friends and he just did not like all the the bs involved in recruiting high school kids who thought they were special, etc. Recruiting jucos was more to his liking because he identified with those kids as a rough and tumble coach who came up the hard way and he could recruit them through their coaches who generally loved Spoon and his stories and jokes. But he captured the imagination of the media and for a few years we had great success and great fan support. When Larry announced he was leaving Spoon was devastated because he really thought a combination of Love and Hughes with the other players would give him a real chance to make a big statement on the national stage. But Larry left and Love got hurt and things were never the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 My bad ----- Love, Jeffers and Perry were all good to better recruits than OUR norm. Baniak, Tatum and Heinrich all peaked with Hughes and were never the same after that first year. Of course, Tatum never really played w/Hughes what with his admission issues. Hughes made those guys all better. I guess I remember Spoon more for his letdowns (Cranford, Adkins, etc.) than his gets. And Hughes casts a huge shadow over real results ---- Larry was THAT good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moytoy12 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I wish we had a Jamal Johnson on our team every year Biles and Malik were dang good players, but had different reasons for not fulfilling their potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted March 30, 2013 Share Posted March 30, 2013 Spoon has to scratch and claw for players. You guys are forgetting some names. Jeff Harris was a helluva player. Dobbs of course was an incredible recruit. Corey Frazier was sidelined with injuries which hurt his career. He should have been big time. Cobbin was an above average player. Dave Fergerson was a nice role player. The Spoon teams that weren't successful just needed one more guy to get them over the hump. Outside of Hughes & Love he just couldn't recruit or develop an all conference talent. Add in to the fact that we played in an extremely competitive league and we finish .500. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted March 30, 2013 Share Posted March 30, 2013 Charles "Don't Call Me Ricky" Cranford ended up putting some nice seasons together for Northeastern. http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/northeastern/charles-cranford Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted March 30, 2013 Share Posted March 30, 2013 Charles "Don't Call Me Ricky" Cranford ended up putting some nice seasons together for Northeastern. http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/northeastern/charles-cranford What I remember about him, the little we saw ... was that he was a walk machine. Probably got the Jordan step in NYC but his NYC rep really didn't impress the college officials Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamminJamalJohnson Posted March 30, 2013 Share Posted March 30, 2013 I wish we had a Jamal Johnson on our team every year Damn Right Biles and Malik were dang good players, but had different reasons for not fulfilling their potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSLU68 Posted March 30, 2013 Share Posted March 30, 2013 Spoon was very burned out by the time we got him; he sure could recruit short junk yard dogs with heart, though. Was double D the tallest center that Spoon played? It sure seemed like he he played four guards and a rebounder. Those were exciting years when we had jump shooters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Spoon was very burned out by the time we got him; he sure could recruit short junk yard dogs with heart, though. Was double D the tallest center that Spoon played? It sure seemed like he he played four guards and a rebounder. Those were exciting years when we had jump shooters. Donnie Dobbs was about 6-2 or 6-3. You should never use "tallest" in the same sentence with him. In 1992-93, Brian Smith was still around. Was Bickel still with the Bills then? And then there was also Evan Pederson, I believe. The next year Pederson was definitely there and Donnie Campbell and David Robinson were there. Still not a tall team by any means, but Dobbs was never the tallest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Donnie Dobbs was about 6-2 or 6-3. You should never use "tallest" in the same sentence with him. In 1992-93, Brian Smith was still around. Was Bickel still with the Bills then? And then there was also Evan Pederson, I believe. The next year Pederson was definitely there and Donnie Campbell and David Robinson were there. Still not a tall team by any means, but Dobbs was never the tallest. I'm pretty sure Bickel was at SLU for my freshman year - 93-94. I think he left after that season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billboy1 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Anybody hear how the visit went this weekend with the 6'10" JUCO? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobile-iken Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 What was the kid's name from Houston that We couldn't get in academically? Having him in the mix with Bonner could have done a lot for the program. Maybe he and Bonner could have handled Tyrone Hill and Xavier's other big. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmbilliken Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 What was the kid's name from Houston that We couldn't get in academically? Having him in the mix with Bonner could have done a lot for the program. Maybe he and Bonner could have handled Tyrone Hill and Xavier's other big. That was Craig Upchurch and he was eligible, but the administration wouldn't let him in school. They said he first had to pass a bridge program over the summer. He passed it and they still wouldn't accept him. He was good enough to get us to the next level. That destroyed Grawer's recruiting base. He was a St. Louis kid and ended up at Houston where he graduated with a degree in psychology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOldie Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Anybody hear how the visit went this weekend with the 6'10" JUCO? Was in on Thursday. No news is good news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSLU68 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Robinson and Pederson were both forwards that after tip off stopped being centers. That's the equivalent of saying Izzak Ohannon was our center All great contributors Heinrich, IV, even skinny Willie were centers in my opinion. RM was being honest calling most of his bigs forwards. Manning could be a center I sure hope he steps ups and beefs up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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