Scott Suggs update

[Nate Latsch]

Rivals.com has another story on Washington's Scott Suggs.

http://mosports.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=551734

The article says Suggs now has a scholarship offer from Kansas, to go along with his previous offers from Missouri, St. Louis U. and Washington. According to the story, Suggs does not have an offer from Illinois but could get one soon.

- Nate

[SLU_Nick]

Which means...we basically lost him right? Atleast we were on him first, and kramer is his boy. We really need to have a stellar season this year, to get top talent in the area in the future.

[slufanskip]

Nick ... what's up? Why does a story on rivals mean we've lost him.

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[Orange Julius]

Washington was on him first. He doesn't have an offer from Kansas yet, but he does have an offer from Illinois.

[Majerus Magic]

I know you are pretty close with the Suggs family, as I have seen you at many Washington games with them. What are the odds that we can land Scott?

[slufanskip]

Is this just a really bad article then. Thet quoted him as saying he didn't have an offer from the Illini. Either they made up the quote ... or he doesn't have an Illini offer. I'm sure he wouldn't say he didn't if he did.

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[SLU_Nick]

I mean, it seems like the way things go are....we offer, someone who is always in the tournament with tradition offers and then we lose. Rare cases, SLU has more to offer, (KL's mom wanting SLU, LH's brother in hospital).

I think it is huge that Kramer is playing with these people though. UB talking to parents in the stands. With all that said, we still have to win, because if we win 10 games, even UB cant blame suggs and others for not picking us

[slufanskip]

I ageree ... if we win, good players will come. If we don't it is of course much harder.

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[Nate Latsch]

> I ageree ... if we win, good players will come. If we don't

>it is of course much harder.

>

This is what it comes down to.

Like I've said before, I think SLU has a decent chance to land Suggs, Brandenberg and Griffey.

But I wouldn't be too surprised if Suggs and Griffey ended up at North Carolina and Brandenburg goes to Duke. (My point is they will all have plenty of options.)

- Nate

[Taj79]

.. reading Nate's post above, let's say Nate's right and the two go to UNC with the other to Puke. Did Brad fail? (Short answer, yes) But I would be curious to know, in your opinion, what he should have done differently to prevent this from happening?

[slufanskip]

that's easy ... gotten hired at Duke ... either that or he could have offered them in nursery school

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[Hardball]

Under this theory we shouldn't have recruited Larry Hughes?

I believe it was a foregone conclusion that Larry probably could have had a scholarship anywhere he wanted but chose SLU. Why is it so hard to believe that you can win some (not all) of these recruiting battles. And all it takes is one Larry Hughes to right the ship and SLU will be on their way........BUT

You can't win the battle if you are not willing to fight!

[moytoy12]

"Why is it so hard to believe that you can win some (not all) of these recruiting battles."

Not every Larry Hughes caliber recruit has a little brother with a heart prob, which creates a strong desire for the recruit to stay close to home (and while the little brother receives top rate medical care).

"And all it takes is one Larry Hughes to right the ship and SLU will be on their way........BUT"

Not necessarily true, we had one LH and he didn't right the SLU ship in the long-term.

[SLUDrew]

Before this program gets anywhere we need to let go of the idea that we are second class and that we shouldn't expect to get kids who receive interest from big-time schools. On a regular basis someone on here will say something along the lines of "of course we didn't get him, KU offered."

I am a realist and realize that the names of those schools alone carry a lot of weight and Brad really has a challenge in front of him in terms of getting these kids to consider SLU. However, if you keep at it long enough and get next to these kids early, you can win some kids away from the big schools. In fact, you HAVE to win some of these kids away if you ever want to really improve.

Other schools with seemingly much less going for them than SLU have drastically improved their programs. Why do so many of SLU's own fans not think SLU can do the same?

[Pistol]

I couldn't have said it any better, Drew. How do people think we're going to become a tournament team by giving up on the best recruits? You can only go so far by trying to get the most out of blue-collar-type players, and a program that relies on that type of player will be a mid-major forever.

[Hardball]

Drew you are 100% correct this is the exact attitude that has to stop and stop now.

I didn't suggest the reason why LH stayed home because I was not 100% sure it was correct. But if it was the reason, this only illustrates that someone found a way to make SLU attractive and it worked. Spoon faultered by not using the LH committment as a springboard to follow-up recruiting.

Whatever the reason coaches all over the country fiqure something out and SLU's staff should do the same. I chuckle when I hear people suggest that Brown did someting slimy when he offered Danny Manning's father a job. Was this legal..absolutely. If need be why shouldn't SLU do the same in the same situation? All Brown did was find a way to make Kansas more attractive than other schools. Is the job offer any worse than providing world class healthcare to secure a recruit? I am a believer in using every legal advantage you have and never looking back.

In all seriousness why shouldn't SLU get the same caliber players as Memphis or Xavier? Does Memphis and Xavier really have that much more to offer that St. Louis? Calipari and Matta (now Miller) found a way to position both Memphis and Xavier in the best light and get top recruits. SLU should be doing the same. Romar at Washington competes regularly and wins recruits against USC,UCLA at Arizona.

It is all a mindset and why SLU can't believe in ourselves enough to go after Top 100 recruits boggles my mind.

[3star_recruit]

"In all seriousness why shouldn't SLU get the same caliber players as Memphis or Xavier?"

Building a clean winning program is a process. Xavier won with 3 star recruits before they were able to sign the occasional 4 star recruit. Recruiting has steadily improved -- that part of the process is moving in the right direction. It's Brad coaching not to lose instead of to win that is the biggest impediment to the advancement of the program. We got crushed by a St. Joe's team TWICE when we had roughly equivalent talent. Tommie is as good as Jalloh and Ian is better than any big man they have.

[Pistol]

All of Xavier's coaches in recent history have been able to recruit better players than the rest of the conference. Skip Prosser, Thad Matta, and now Sean Miller are getting great recruits, not just 3-star players. It's not a stream of McDonald's All-Americans, but they've landed highly-regarded talent. A few guys on their roster now were recruited all over the place (Duncan, Burrell, Lavender, plus a few commitments), plus the guys before that (West, Sato, Chalmers), and even before that (Tyrone Hill, James Posey, Aaron Williams, Brian Grant). Today they just landed a player many thought would transfer to the ACC.

Xavier has padded the rest of the roster with 3-star recruits, but you'd have to go back a long time to find a time when they relied on them for wins. This is a very similar school to SLU, and there is no reason we can't be at least on their level in recruiting.

[tseugnekillib]

There is no reason why SLU can't accomplish what some of the other Jesuit schools have accomplished.....namely the likes of Creighton, Xavier, Gonzaga, Marquette, BC and Georgetown. You have to win consistently, get some NCAA appearances, and build from there.

Obviously, the Big East/ACC Jesuit schools have an advantage with the huge pull of the BCS conferences. But getting to the Creighton, Xavier, Gonzaga level is very do-able. The A-10 is a quality conference ,and hopefully some wins, and the attraction of the new on-campus arena will get SLU the players to get over the hump.

[3star_recruit]

"Tyrone Hill, James Posey, Aaron Williams, Brian Grant"

I'm afraid you're way off base here Pistol. Hill, Williams and Grant were not highly recruited. And if you went to the Musketeer Madness message board claiming that David West and Stanley Burrell were "recruited all over the place", you'd get laughed out of the joint. Xavier became Xavier precisely BECAUSE they signed and developed players that the high majors didn't want.

XU builds success with raw material

[Pistol]

First off, nice article- I don't know how in the world you found that somewhat obscure piece from 1998, but good work.

These weren't exactly project players, though- NBA lottery picks don't develop overnight. Prosser is at Wake now because of his ability to evaluate talent and elevate a program. SLU can't just count on getting lucky and hope that underrated players will fall in our lap.

Secondly, Burrell may not have been a ranked player out of high school, but got national attention because he was a very good player at Hargrave Military Academy. David West also went there, and Xavier kept that pipeline going. SLU fans should know that just putting on a Hargrave jersey is going to get a player looks from a lot of coaches, and these two excelled there. I don't think any XU fan would laugh about saying these two were recruited hard.

[davidnark]

>It's Brad coaching not to lose instead of to win

>that is the biggest impediment to the advancement of the

>program. We got crushed by a St. Joe's team TWICE when we

>had roughly equivalent talent. Tommie is as good as Jalloh

>and Ian is better than any big man they have.

[slufanskip]

I was being sarcastic. I agree we need to recruit the best players. Lets not just have the naysayers come out and declare how bad UB is when one decides to go to IU over SLU. When some of us understand that ... it doesn't mean we accept mediocrity because we not on Bills.com declaring our frustrations.

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[slu72]

There are so many factors for a recruit to consider it's hard to say why they choose a particular school. However, SI did a poll of top players from the top 6 conferences last year, the over riding factor is the coach and his system. 3 star's got it right when he says our plodding style is not very attractive to the 4 star players. They don't want their talents/skills completely muzzled by the coach or his system. This is not to say these kids don't realize they will have to play within a system or scheme , but they also don't want to be penalized or chastised when they take the occasion to go outside the system. We all know how that goes over with UB. UB's got his system and maybe this would all be different if we had a couple of invites under our belt....but to date that hasn't happened.

[billiken_roy]

hey i am all for going after the big fish. however, back in the romar day, i was pretty much all alone defending romar going after the big fish and finishing second countless times. i constantly preached, "eventually he will land one and then it could be a domino effect" and was ridiculed for defending him.

now we have a coach that has calculated he needs to steadily improve the talent base by upping the talent gradually and pursuing the up and comer or hidden gem recruits. and the _ _ _ says that is unacceptable that we should be regularly signing top 100 players.

i am beginning to think that what the fan base wants is to strike gold one time and damn the future. imo, that is pretty hard to accomplish though with constant change. because that is what you are going to get. what makes anyone think they are going to hire roy williams or pitinolike coach? and fishing for that next great star assistant coach or the emerging mid major coach is no guarantee. in fact it is a bigger long shot than can be imagined.

gonzaga had dan fitgerald as their coach for about 10 years and never won what you all expect yesterday. yet they patiently allowed him to grow the program and recruit not only gonzaga players but coaches to build the program with him. eventually coach fitzgerald had dan monson, mark few and bill grier as his assitants.

monson takes over and amazingly wins big. also, few and grier stay on the staff. monson then moves on to minnesota and few takes over. few continues to win with the exact same program and methods that dan fitgerald put in place over a long period of time.

btw, grier is still on few's staff and most believe that if few leaves grier will take the reins and retain the coaches that few has brought on and retained since he was named the coach.

stability. that is what i want the program to strive for. as i believe that with that stability will come long term success.

oh hell, let's just hire a new coach every year. maybe we can implement vtimes recruiting tactics and use the "what the ncaa doesnt know wont hurt anyone" attitude as well. just win.