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Welcome back Phil and Davell


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6 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Looks like Texas is going to be a major recruiting focus going forward.  Forte has strong connections in the grass roots programs in the state.

Yeah, we've been dabbling for years under every post-Spoonhour regime but haven't been able to pull a solid recruit from there yet.  The Texas A&Ms and TCUs are struggling right now.  There's a small window of opportunity here.

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1 minute ago, 3star_recruit said:

Yeah, we've been dabbling for years under every post-Spoonhour regime but haven't been able to pull a solid recruit from there yet.  The Texas A&Ms and TCUs are struggling right now.  There's a small window of opportunity here.

Over the past week the whole focus of our recruiting outside of the Midwest has now shifted away from the East Coast to the South.  Every new hire on the staff is from the south.  Demographics were going to make this the case eventually for the Billikens if they want to stay competitive.  The South and the West, especially Texas, is where the kids are.  

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It will be interesting to keep an eye on our recruiting in Texas moving forward, but also important to add that Travis Ford has very strong recruiting ties in Texas. LeBryan, Nash, Marcus Smart, Forte, Joe Burton, Jawun Evans were some of Ford's bigger recruits and were all out of the Dallas area. 

That said, I think this hire reinforces that we should expect local recruiting to continue to be the lifeblood of our program. Forte seems like a super promising assistant, but he has only two years of recruiting experience (at the low-major level). It's hard to expect him to come in and land many impact players off the bat. That's not a knock, as I'm a fan of the hire and think he's a great addition to the staff. Giacoletti seems to be getting back in the swing of things (Mason Madsen and Jalen Quinn were/are Giacoletti targets), but he was out of recruiting for 4-5 years and has spent the majority of his career in the Pacific Northwest. He does have strong international ties which is a nice plus on this staff. 

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Looking at the backgrounds of this staff, here are the regions they would seem to know best:

Ford: Kentucky, New England, Oklahoma
Tate: St. Louis, Missouri, downstate Illinois
Giacoletti: Illinois, Northern Midwest, Great Plains, Mountain West, Pacific Northwest, International
Forte: Texas, Oklahoma
Wilson: Texas, Oklahoma
Nunez: NYC Metro, New York State
Maruggi: Minnesota
Dziagwa: Florida, Oklahoma, Europe
Roby: Tennessee, Europe

This is obviously a pretty rudimentary way of looking at it and I'll be paying attention to where they seem to be going and whatnot.

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1 minute ago, Pistol said:

Looking at the backgrounds of this staff, here are the regions they would seem to know best:

Ford: Kentucky, New England, Oklahoma
Tate: St. Louis, Missouri, downstate Illinois
Giacoletti: Illinois, Northern Midwest, Great Plains, Mountain West, Pacific Northwest
Forte: Texas, Oklahoma
Wilson: Texas, Oklahoma
Nunez: NYC Metro, New York State
Maruggi: Minnesota
Dziagwa: Florida, Oklahoma, Europe
Roby: Tennessee, Europe

This is obviously a pretty rudimentary way of looking at it and I'll be paying attention to where they seem to be going and whatnot.

I think Nunez has some connections in Florida through the Dominican basketball community.  

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37 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Looking at the backgrounds of this staff, here are the regions they would seem to know best:

Ford: Kentucky, New England, Oklahoma
Tate: St. Louis, Missouri, downstate Illinois
Giacoletti: Illinois, Northern Midwest, Great Plains, Mountain West, Pacific Northwest, International
Forte: Texas, Oklahoma
Wilson: Texas, Oklahoma
Nunez: NYC Metro, New York State
Maruggi: Minnesota
Dziagwa: Florida, Oklahoma, Europe
Roby: Tennessee, Europe

This is obviously a pretty rudimentary way of looking at it and I'll be paying attention to where they seem to be going and whatnot.

Adding the disclaimer (which I'm sure most already know): only the first four of those are allowed to recruit.

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I don't know if you'll picked up, in his bio, that Forte had a 95.5% FT year, which is 4th best all-time in the NCAA.  I remember that our Euro was a 90% + FT shooter, but it's strange that the two best FT shooters on the team are Coaches.

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32 minutes ago, Compton said:

Feels like it's been a while since some really good news came across the board. Excited to have Davell back in the mix. 

He had a rough 4 years to be a Billiken.  He always kept competing and he kept producing.  I am sure he was frustrated that the team overall was not what he thought it would be (i.e. he joined a top 25 team that fell to the bottom of the A10 when he arrived). He never let that frustration that I assume was present become a distraction or bring his commitment to the team in question.  I hold Roby in as high regard as Lisch, Goodwin, Highmark, or any other Billiken.  I am excited he is back.

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17 minutes ago, SLU_Lax said:

He had a rough 4 years to be a Billiken.  He always kept competing and he kept producing.  I am sure he was frustrated that the team overall was not what he thought it would be (i.e. he joined a top 25 team that fell to the bottom of the A10 when he arrived). He never let that frustration that I assume was present become a distraction or bring his commitment to the team in question.  I hold Roby in as high regard as Lisch, Goodwin, Highmark, or any other Billiken.  I am excited he is back.

Absolutely agree. As bad as some of those teams were, I can’t think of a single time that Davell ever sulked or complained or didn’t give 100% effort. Couldn’t be happier to have him back! Really happy with the Phil Forte hire too. We were due for some good news. Today is a good day to be a Billiken!

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19 hours ago, brianstl said:

I think Nunez has some connections in Florida through the Dominican basketball community.  

I'm not sure of his Florida connections but he definitely follows a lot of Latin American players on Twitter.

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I don't view the addition of Forte as some type of strategic decision to prioritize recruiting in Texas - Ford himself already built plenty of connections in that area from his time at Okie State. I see this more of a situation where he views Forte as an up and coming assistant. Obviously he has had a long relationship with him and is someone that he feels comfortable working with. I think that won the day as opposed to trying to make some recruiting inroads in Texas. 

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35 minutes ago, ACE said:

I don't view the addition of Forte as some type of strategic decision to prioritize recruiting in Texas - Ford himself already build plenty of connections in that area from his time at Okie State. I see this more of a situation where he views Forte as an up and coming assistant. Obviously he has had a long relationship with him and is someone that he feels comfortable working with. I think that won the day as opposed to trying to make some recruiting inroads in Texas. 

But clearly Forte has the more current connections based on the flurry of recent offers, all of whom Forte was already recruiting.  Off the top of my head, I am not coming up with any TF, SLU signings from TX. 

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