Recruiting - 2019

[bauman]

7 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

From what I've seen (only videos) and heard of Yuri, I think he is a player who will outperform his recruiting.  By this I mean that I think that unless he gets picked up by a very good program, I think he will be a steal for some team.  I hope it's SLU.  His passing skills are very unique among today's high school kids.  I hope Ford makes a serious push for him like he did with Goodwin, French, Gordon & Thatch.  Make Yuri understand that his skills are appreciated and will be valued at SLU more than elsewhere.

I have never seen him play, but I intend to this year.  A lot of you seem very impressed with him.

[wgstl]

10 minutes ago, bauman said:

I have never seen him play, but I intend to this year.  A lot of you seem very impressed with him.

Same here.  whats his size, isnt it like 5'7 or something crazy like that?

[bauman]

2 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Same here.  whats his size, isnt it like 5'7 or something crazy like that?

Sounds like Yuri and Graves could have a battle of little men.  That would be fun to watch.

[Pistol]

1 hour ago, wgstl said:

Same here.  whats his size, isnt it like 5'7 or something crazy like that?

He's listed at 5-10 or 5-11 most places.

[wgstl]

18 minutes ago, Pistol said:

He's listed at 5-10 or 5-11 most places.

ahhh, so probably a true 5'9, still taller than I thought. 

[cgeldmacher]

On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 0:53 PM, bauman said:

I have never seen him play, but I intend to this year.  A lot of you seem very impressed with him.

Most recruiting videos show the same things: some wide open dunks, some wide open threes, an assist or steal sprinkled in just because.  His video is loaded with impressive precision passes to guys for open layups or threes.  He looks to pass first and is very good at it.  I don't put much stock in most recruiting videos, but his showed something unique.

[Coach314]

2 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:

Most recruiting videos show the same things: some wide open dunks, some wide open threes, an assist or steal sprinkled in just because.  His video is loaded with impressive precision passes to guys for open layups or threes.  He looks to pass first and is very good at it.  I don't put much stock in most recruiting videos, but his showed something unique.

Pretty much sums him up.  Good kid...family values education.  St. Mary's will be one of the top teams in the STL this year.  

[billiken_roy]

http://www.bnd.com/sports/high-school/prep-basketball/article170118542.html

Nice article on EJ Liddell.   very little mention of the billikens.    he's the real deal.   

[Littlebill]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

http://www.bnd.com/sports/high-school/prep-basketball/article170118542.html

Nice article on EJ Liddell.   very little mention of the billikens.    he's the real deal.   

Do you think he is in the same ballpark as Goodwin?

[billiken_roy]

10 minutes ago, Littlebill said:

Do you think he is in the same ballpark as Goodwin?

goodwin plays harder.  (probably only Lisch compares to effort in my lifetime of watching high school players) but liddell's size and skills and potential are off the chart.   i expect next summer he becomes the beagles goto guy and his recruiting will explode.  all the big boys will come running.  hopefully tate made some endrows and maintains.   While Justin Love was at West we had an in, Love is now gone though, so now it is the beagle connection we have to rely on imo.  

[Coach314]

4 hours ago, billiken_roy said:

goodwin plays harder.  (probably only Lisch compares to effort in my lifetime of watching high school players) but liddell's size and skills and potential are off the chart.   i expect next summer he becomes the beagles goto guy and his recruiting will explode.  all the big boys will come running.  hopefully tate made some endrows and maintains.   While Justin Love was at West we had an in, Love is now gone though, so now it is the beagle connection we have to rely on imo.  

I heard Wiseman is coming back to BBE next summer but Liddell will certainly get his share of touches 

[Pistol]

Updated Rivals Top 150 rankings for 2019 offer list - Name, New Rank (Previous):

Vernon Carey, 1 (3)

Ashton Hagans, 6 (9)

Armando Bacot, 13 (15)

Jalen Lecque, 19 (32)

Christian Brown, 20 (11)

Francis Okoro, 26 (26)

Kofi Cockburn, 36 (30)

Isaiah Stewart, 39 (40)

Josh Nickelberry, 46 (49)

Jalen Wilson, 47 (60)

Malik Hall, 49 (84)

Bryce Wills, 52 (47)

Aundre Hyatt, 55 (50)

Grant Sherfield, 56 (42)

Marcedus Leech, 62 (53)

Ismael Massoud, 70 (66)

Mario McKinney, 73 (74)

Kahlil Whitney, 79 (87)

C.J. Walker, 85 (89)

E.J. Liddell, 96 (93)

Maxwell Lorca-Lloyd, 114 (98)

John Bol Ajak, 116 (117)

Xzavier Jones, 121 (103)

Jaylin Williams, 123 (106)

Michael Christmas, 130 (NR)

Joe Girard, 141 (NR)

Joe Toussaint, 146 (NR)

Not Ranked: James Bouknight, Yuri Collins, Nobal Days (98), Terrence Hargrove, Anderson Mirambeaux, Quinn Richey.

Other names of note:

James Wiseman, 2 (6)

Al-Amir Dawes, 120 (NR) - interest list

Paul Mulcahy, 142 (NR) - interest list

[Old guy]

Thank you Pistol

[Pistol]

1 hour ago, Old guy said:

Thank you Pistol

You got it, my man.

Also, TONS of updates in the Recruiting Lists thread. Nothing imminently SLU-related at the moment, but my general observation is that on the whole, the 2019 players we offered early all continue to rise in stock, while the 2018 names have slid. I think part of this is natural, as the kids who get early offers are going to end up being the best players, and then over time the top 150 gets more crowded as more guys emerge and it's harder to rank them. But I also think Ford & Co. are doing an outstanding job of identifying talent and have no fear offering kids just because they're going to get attention from bluebloods.

No clue how 2019 is going to shake out as a class for us, but I say with confidence that I would gladly take a commitment right now from literally anyone we've offered. I can't say the same about 2018.

[STL Hoops Insider]

For years I was told it made no sense to offer 20-30 guys per class. Thank you Pistol.

[ACE]

7 minutes ago, STL Hoops Insider said:

For years I was told it made no sense to offer 20-30 guys per class. Thank you Pistol.

A lot of revisionist history going on there.. you were told it made no sense for SLU to offer a bunch of 3rd rate local players whose best offers were from SEMO or Division 2 and JUCO schools. Fortunately, Ford is NOT following your advice and is recruiting at a much higher level than what you were advocating. He's landing the caliber of players that in the past you would champion choose SPUMAC or some other BCS program that you perceived to be superior.

[STL Hoops Insider]

3 minutes ago, ACE said:

A lot of revisionist history going on there.. you were told it made no sense for SLU to offer a bunch of 3rd rate local players whose best offers were from SEMO or Division 2 and JUCO schools. Fortunately, Ford is NOT following your advice and is recruiting at a much higher level than what you were advocating. He's landing the caliber of players that in the past you would champion choose SPUMAC or some other BCS program that you perceived to be superior.

I never said anyone was too superior to play for SLU, that's s lie. And my argument was always to recruit inside out, but I was always told that was too many offers. Of Ford' freshman commitments/signees so far, it's been mostly local, while still recruiting out of area on a big scale. That's all I ever asked. SLU and Mizzou appear robbed on great footing and I couldn't be happier. I expect NCAA tourney appearances from both.

[Pistol]

7 minutes ago, STL Hoops Insider said:

For years I was told it made no sense to offer 20-30 guys per class. Thank you Pistol.

By my count, we still have 29 open offers ("open" = "recruit has not eliminated SLU officially" and yes, I'm aware that unofficially a lot of these are not fresh from SLU's standpoint or in consideration by the recruit) for the class of 2018 and 33 for 2019.

Ford said recently that with the current generation, recruits generally don't want schools to hang around and just show interest for a while. They want to know if they have an offer or not. There aren't many kids where I see SLU showing interest and not offering; just a few for each class. Obviously there are many more kids on their radar that may get offered later but that they haven't publicly expressed interest in.

So I think the big numbers are a function of this time period (what recruits want, along with access to information), as well as this staff's efforts. I'm reminded constantly how out of touch Crews was, as I watch Ford and his staff navigate the recruiting landscape.

I also think it's a function of the place we occupy within college basketball. The top schools can be more patient with offering kids, waiting to see how things play out with their players going pro, what the top tier of recruits are after, and so forth. The lower conferences aren't going to offer many top 200 kids, especially later in their HS careers. But we're in the spot where we need to make more of an effort than power schools, but also have a legitimate shot at a lot of top 200 players. You see similar offer numbers from schools like DePaul, St. John's, Seton Hall, Memphis, and South Florida, to name some of the schools I'm seeing a lot of offer overlap with.

The other important thing I'll note is that the level of talent we're offering is higher than ever before. Look at the 2019 offers: 27 of 33 are in the Rivals top 150, and a few of the rest have a strong case. None of our previous coaches were shooting for this level. Romar may have, given a little more time; the information was a lot harder to compile back then, though, so it's tough to compare. With every Crews offer and commit, I had a lot of uncertainty. And, of course, most of them wound up being stretches. But Ford is really making noise in a lot of regions of the country, and he's being very strategic about the local kids he's offering.

[JMM28]

Recruiting has also changed a lot in the last 10 years. That strategy didn’t work with old systems and rules how they were. Now it’s a different story. 

[STL Hoops Insider]

10 years ago we couldn't lean on a recent run of NCAA berths so we had less recruiting leverage and needed to offer even more kids to cast a wider nets, not necessarily top 250, but needed to offer more kids to not lose out on top choices and not have so many last minute spring signings where we settled for crumbs

[billiken_roy]

The players you were suggesting we recruit were "crumbs".   Some weren't even starters on their high school teams and no other D1 schools were offering.   Sorry ace is telling it like it was

[jimbofive]

3 hours ago, ACE said:

A lot of revisionist history going on there.. you were told it made no sense for SLU to offer a bunch of 3rd rate local players whose best offers were from SEMO or Division 2 and JUCO schools. Fortunately, Ford is NOT following your advice and is recruiting at a much higher level than what you were advocating. He's landing the caliber of players that in the past you would champion choose SPUMAC or some other BCS program that you perceived to be superior.

 

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

The players you were suggesting we recruit were "crumbs".   Some weren't even starters on their high school teams and no other D1 schools were offering.   Sorry ace is telling it like it was

Ace has a mind like an aluminum can trap.  Nothing gets past him.  Better check yer books.  Ace gon' come collectin'...

[STL Hoops Insider]

Not true. I was always very specific about whether I said take a look at and which kids I said offer. I called Harrellson and McLemore before anybody.

[almaman]

So Pistol does this mean if one of these 29 decides to come here he calls TF tells him, we sign and other 28 offers go away? Being simple but real. Seems like in most of the past it would of been pointless to pursue only top 150's, maybe only thing different is TF size balls to ask the best?

[STL Hoops Insider]

3 minutes ago, almaman said:

So Pistol does this mean if one of these 29 decides to come here he calls TF tells him, we sign and other 28 offers go away? Being simple but real. Seems like in most of the past it would of been pointless to pursue only top 150's, maybe only thing different is TF size balls to ask the best?

You have to be in it to win it