Recruiting - 2021

[3star_recruit]

36 minutes ago, Billiken4life5 said:

Couple Billiken targets at the MoKan training camp last weekend/this week.  Tarris Reed (playing up with 17U most of the time) and Larry Hughes Jr. (there but banged up with a minor injury).  Lot of Stl kids there overall...Damien Mayo from Chaminade, Matt Enright from WG, Thomas Redmond from DeSmet among others. 

If Mayo grows to 6'4, I'd take him over any local guard in the 2022 class.  

[Billiken4life5]

18 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

If Mayo grows to 6'4, I'd take him over any local guard in the 2022 class.  

No doubt he's explosive as any local guard. Didn't look like he hit a growth spurt during quarantine to me though, still somewhere in the 5"11 or 6"0 range

[3star_recruit]

28 minutes ago, Billiken4life5 said:

No doubt he's explosive as any local guard. Didn't look like he hit a growth spurt during quarantine to me though, still somewhere in the 5"11 or 6"0 range

If Mayo is only 6'0, Earl Austin and yours truly are suffering from an optical illusion.  Because he looks 6'2 to us.

[TheChosenOne]

2 hours ago, 3star_recruit said:

If Mayo is only 6'0, Earl Austin and yours truly are suffering from an optical illusion.  Because he looks 6'2 to us.

Yeah, he certainly looked to be every bit of 6’2 when I saw him play this winter. If he is only 5’11, he has crazy athleticism. Love his mentality, kid is a bulldog. Not sure how the football coaches never got him to throw the pads on.

[Billiken4life5]

Rivals has him at 6"2 haha maybe all the length at the MoKan camp had my scale messed up. 

2 hours ago, TheChosenOne said:

Yeah, he certainly looked to be every bit of 6’2 when I saw him play this winter. If he is only 5’11, he has crazy athleticism. Love his mentality, kid is a bulldog. Not sure how the football coaches never got him to throw the pads on.

 

[TheChosenOne]

7 hours ago, Billiken4life5 said:

Rivals has him at 6"2 haha maybe all the length at the MoKan camp had my scale messed up. 

Did you have a chance to watch MoKan? If so, any thoughts on the kids you saw (sorry if it came across as me quibbling about Mayo's height).

[SLURadioBoy]

It’s behind a paywall that I couldn’t read much of, but according to a story on Rivals, Nesbitt is planning on trimming his list in the next few days. Hopefully SLU will make the cut.

[Ibruce]

“HIs Top 10 list should drop the first week of next month, then Nesbitt plans to make a final decision some time this fall, possibly on his birthday October 1.”

[SLURadioBoy]

Eric Bossi from Rivals just wrote an article about Nesbitt's recruitment that's free to read. In the article, Jordan discusses the programs that are recruiting him the hardest.

Nesbitt discussed a few of the programs that have been making pushes.

Alabama: "I love the way they play because that's more how the NBA plays now. They get in transition, they shoot a lot of threes and get up and down"

Illinois: "I love Illinois. They have a great fanbase. You get messages from their fans like every day. Direct messages and all of that, they really love their school."

Iowa State: "They had the big guard Tyrese Haliburton so that is appealing. I feel like I could maybe play like that and be at a position like him if I could go there."

Memphis: "They haven't offered yet but they have really stepped it up and are talking to me a lot. Coach Penny (Hardaway) he's a real cool guy, a down to Earth guy and I talk to him a lot and ask him for pointers about my game."

Saint Louis: "That's just home. All of my family could see me play and it is family oriented. I know all of the players so that's great."

Seton Hall: "They've been coming really hard lately. Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."

[ACE]

7 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Eric Bossi from Rivals just wrote an article about Nesbitt's recruitment that's free to read. In the article, Jordan discusses the programs that are recruiting him the hardest.

Nesbitt discussed a few of the programs that have been making pushes.

Alabama: "I love the way they play because that's more how the NBA plays now. They get in transition, they shoot a lot of threes and get up and down"

Illinois: "I love Illinois. They have a great fanbase. You get messages from their fans like every day. Direct messages and all of that, they really love their school."

Iowa State: "They had the big guard Tyrese Haliburton so that is appealing. I feel like I could maybe play like that and be at a position like him if I could go there."

Memphis: "They haven't offered yet but they have really stepped it up and are talking to me a lot. Coach Penny (Hardaway) he's a real cool guy, a down to Earth guy and I talk to him a lot and ask him for pointers about my game."

Saint Louis: "That's just home. All of my family could see me play and it is family oriented. I know all of the players so that's great."

Seton Hall: "They've been coming really hard lately. Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."

It seems like Illinois will be our biggest challenge. 

[SLURadioBoy]

3 minutes ago, ACE said:

It seems like Illinois will be our biggest challenge. 

That's how I've felt for quite a while. Looks like he likes it when fans send him messages on Twitter. Maybe our fan base needs to step up our games?

On the plus side, he seems to like the players on SLU's roster and the fact he would be close to his family.

[brianstl]

16 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

That's how I've felt for quite a while. Looks like he likes it when fans send him messages on Twitter. Maybe our fan base needs to step up our games?

On the plus side, he seems to like the players on SLU's roster and the fact he would be close to his family.

I can't wait for another meltdown from Illini fans led by the DJ/brain surgeon when Nedbitt picks SLU.  

[Box and Won]

59 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Illinois: "I love Illinois. They have a great fanbase. You get messages from their fans like every day. Direct messages and all of that, they really love their school."

What a buncha flippin' weirdos they are.

[3star_recruit]

1 hour ago, SLURadioBoy said:

That's how I've felt for quite a while. Looks like he likes it when fans send him messages on Twitter. Maybe our fan base needs to step up our games?

On the plus side, he seems to like the players on SLU's roster and the fact he would be close to his family.

The Illini fans' social media neediness is a running joke in the college bball message board community.  It's not a good look.  And based on their recruiting success with top 50 recruits over the last decade, it hasn't been effective.  If Nesbitt chooses them, it will be in spite of the stalking admirer tendencies of their fanbase, not because of it.

[cgeldmacher]

1 hour ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Eric Bossi from Rivals just wrote an article about Nesbitt's recruitment that's free to read. In the article, Jordan discusses the programs that are recruiting him the hardest.

Nesbitt discussed a few of the programs that have been making pushes.

Alabama: "I love the way they play because that's more how the NBA plays now. They get in transition, they shoot a lot of threes and get up and down"

Illinois: "I love Illinois. They have a great fanbase. You get messages from their fans like every day. Direct messages and all of that, they really love their school."

Iowa State: "They had the big guard Tyrese Haliburton so that is appealing. I feel like I could maybe play like that and be at a position like him if I could go there."

Memphis: "They haven't offered yet but they have really stepped it up and are talking to me a lot. Coach Penny (Hardaway) he's a real cool guy, a down to Earth guy and I talk to him a lot and ask him for pointers about my game."

Saint Louis: "That's just home. All of my family could see me play and it is family oriented. I know all of the players so that's great."

Seton Hall: "They've been coming really hard lately. Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."

I found his comments somewhat enlightening with regard to how kids look at the recruiting process.  You could tell that several of his comments were taken right out of the pitch that he's being given by the individual school.

The most interesting one, for me, was his comment about Seton Hall.  He said "Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."  Question for those that may know better than me:  Is having a system and a plan on the court a drawback for recruits?  As a fanbase, we are always wanting to believe that the players on Team Blue are playing within a structured system that results in actually having some idea what's going to happen out on the court.  However, his comments make me wonder if the recruits themselves don't want to go to a school with a system, but would rather go somewhere where they have freedom to do what they want.  This would seem counter indicated to success, but if that's what it takes to bring in high level recruits, it certainly creates a Catch 22.

[Pistol]

9 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

I found his comments somewhat enlightening with regard to how kids look at the recruiting process.  You could tell that several of his comments were taken right out of the pitch that he's being given by the individual school.

The most interesting one, for me, was his comment about Seton Hall.  He said "Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."  Question for those that may know better than me:  Is having a system and a plan on the court a drawback for recruits?  As a fanbase, we are always wanting to believe that the players on Team Blue are playing within a structured system that results in actually having some idea what's going to happen out on the court.  However, his comments make me wonder if the recruits themselves don't want to go to a school with a system, but would rather go somewhere where they have freedom to do what they want.  This would seem counter indicated to success, but if that's what it takes to bring in high level recruits, it certainly creates a Catch 22.

I think it depends on how well the coaches communicate how the recruit fits into that system. A lot of systems can maximize certain players' production. It's just all about fit, and it's on both sides to identify that correctly.

Seton Hall can point to Myles Powell, who managed to be a first team All-American, Big East POY, and Jerry West award winner this past season within that system. Being undersized and putting up the numbers he did at Hall seems to indicate that there's some freedom for the right players.

Virginia is another example, running that Bennett system that Soderberg did here at SLU. And yet they've had 8 guys drafted since 2012, all Bennett recruits (he took over in 2009).

Short answer is no, not necessarily, but you have to illustrate how it can work out for a player.

[BilliesBy40]

1 hour ago, Box and Won said:

What a buncha flippin' weirdos they are.

The irony in their creepiness it they could be committing recruiting violations in the process (although I realize the NCAA has basically been forced to ignore this fact).

[NH]

1 hour ago, cgeldmacher said:

I found his comments somewhat enlightening with regard to how kids look at the recruiting process.  You could tell that several of his comments were taken right out of the pitch that he's being given by the individual school.

The most interesting one, for me, was his comment about Seton Hall.  He said "Even though they have more of a system they allow freedom to play your game."  Question for those that may know better than me:  Is having a system and a plan on the court a drawback for recruits?  As a fanbase, we are always wanting to believe that the players on Team Blue are playing within a structured system that results in actually having some idea what's going to happen out on the court.  However, his comments make me wonder if the recruits themselves don't want to go to a school with a system, but would rather go somewhere where they have freedom to do what they want.  This would seem counter indicated to success, but if that's what it takes to bring in high level recruits, it certainly creates a Catch 22.

In my opinion, what matters more is how the coach communicates the "system" to the recruit than how the team actually plays. I think there have been tons of examples of recruits citing a school's system, without that actually reflecting the way the team plays. To be honest we've even seen this with Ford, where players discuss our style of play as more free-flowing and uptempo than it actually is.

In terms of your actual question, I think there are systems that limit players' ability to make decisions and there are systems that require players to make decisions. For instance, a guy like Majerus had an incredibly detail-oriented offensive gameplan. But he allowed playmakers a lot of flexibility to make decisions coming off of ballscreens or in other certain actions we ran a lot. To a greater degree, Dayton had a very specific offensive system last year that was built around reading and reacting to the defense, as opposed to players following a specific set of instructions throughout the possession. I think players just want to be somewhere that they have freedom to create, and don't have to feel like they are following a strict set of rules on offense "first I do A, then B, then I pass to C, then I screen to D, etc."

 

[Box and Won]

2 hours ago, BilliesBy40 said:

The irony in their creepiness it they could be committing recruiting violations in the process (although I realize the NCAA has basically been forced to ignore this fact).

And if these yahoos are that vocal with kids who haven't even committed yet, imagine how they respond when players on their team miss a crucial free throw at the end of a game or blow a defensive assignment.  I'm sure those DMs are a real blast to receive.

As my favorite Muppet once said:

[slu72]

I’ll go old school on offense. Ball screens or off ball screens against a man to man; if you get the ball and have a good shot you take it unless u spot some one else wide open. Against a zone your bigs become PG’s. They get the ball inside, figure the collapse is coming, and look for an open guy on the perimeter. It ain’t exactly rocket science. 

[HoosierPal]

Two statements kind of sum up Ford’s offensive. 
Late last season Ford said he doesn’t run plays for Goodwin. He lets Jordan create his own offense. 
On Coach Stuen’s podcast last night he said Coach Ford wasn’t critical on shot selection. 
Add those two up and you can see Ford doesn’t have a strict structure on offense. 

[teamarete]

1 hour ago, slu72 said:

I’ll go old school on offense. Ball screens or off ball screens against a man to man; if you get the ball and have a good shot you take it unless u spot some one else wide open. Against a zone your bigs become PG’s. They get the ball inside, figure the collapse is coming, and look for an open guy on the perimeter. It ain’t exactly rocket science. 

As a long time coach, best players get the most and best shots.

[SLURadioBoy]

7 hours ago, 3star_recruit said:

The Illini fans' social media neediness is a running joke in the college bball message board community.  It's not a good look.  And based on their recruiting success with top 50 recruits over the last decade, it hasn't been effective.  If Nesbitt chooses them, it will be in spite of the stalking admirer tendencies of their fanbase, not because of it.

Yeah, I was just kidding about us stepping up our games. The amount of tweets recruits get from Illini fans is borderline scary. I just checked out an Illinois message board and they had the same story posted. I enjoyed seeing this response...

He had some nice things to say about Illinois...but some REALLY NICE things to say about SLU.

[SLURadioBoy]

I also found this on their message board. I have no idea how legit this is.

[SLURadioBoy]

Another new 2021 offer...