Fullbacksympathy

Sorry. I was talking more in terms of his speed/athleticism. I don’t think he’s an elite offensive talent.

I love this get. Kid is elite in transition and can really play defense. Easily a good enough ball handler to run point and already has a lot of B1G experience at a program traditionally better than ours.

Think Juwan Gary at guard. Extremely fast, elite defender, unpolished but pretty effective at times offensively. Serviceable shooter. Impacts the game in many ways. For our newly found identity, great fit if we can get him. Definitely could play PG.

All true, but again with the smaller populations there is basically no AAU. Supreme is trying to get it going in Kearney though.

Fair, sorta, but the AAU coaches who get hired to coach high school have already demonstrated success at the AAU level. The AAU coaches that coach in HS dress up like anyone else does for HS games. Summer ball is what it is. My personal opinion is that every HS coach, whether or not currently employed, should be required to have a teaching certificate to be in that sort of an intense environment with public school students. I think it would weed out a lot of bad apples who make it into the HS ranks. Why would an AAU program start up anywhere in Nebraska outside of Lincoln or Omaha? That would make no sense. There is no population to support it. It isn't even a relevant issue in smaller communities where they have one, maybe two teams per grade and no one ever gets cut. My experience as a player and coach in a larger population is that relationships are established on club teams well before kids even know who coaches high school are or where they will attend.

I mean, I generally agree, but didn't you just complain about AAU creating inequity in your own situation? How do you reconcile those two things? It sounds like the kid you mentioned who skipped the game had more of an ethics problem than an AAU one. I personally believe club sports should be a younger kid thing and summer/offseason thing for HS kids, but I'm not the only person allowed to determine what has equitable value. Some people value club sports more. It is what it is. That said, the pageantry of HS crowds and student culture, to me, will always make HS way better than AAU anything, and I think it will always lure great athletes.

I think this is sound advice for small schools, but there are some rarely discussed privileges that come from playing lower competition in terms of opportunities. Not very many kids can play two or three sports in Class A because they aren't good enough (I think it's only like 30% at that level). The higher up you go in class competition, the lower percentage of kids playing multiple sports, and not all kids even like three sports. If a kid is talented enough to letter in more than one sport, they definitely should do it though, I agree. And, yes, college coaches look for multi-sport athletes because they are obviously the best athletes. Most kids don't have that gift. Most kids' ceiling in bigger districts is high school athletics and, in most instances, they have to work extremely hard to make one high school team before their athletic career ends at 18 (at the oldest). I'd rather a kid have to push through emotional burnout than never be able to experience high school athletics at all. I'm not sure what the solution is in bigger populations. I also think emotional burnout happens to kids who are constantly playing a sport and have no true offseason. I loathed going straight into basketball from football after the basketball season had already started in high school. It was multiple sports that personally burned me out and made me skip a spring sport to recharge. I see it now with kids I coach who begin baseball training in the middle of basketball season. For younger kids, it's important to expose them to multiple sports and let them decide, but I'm a pretty big proponent of keeping them physically active year round whether they like multiple sports or not given childhood obesity has tripled in the past 30 years. Basketball, specifically, should focus on individual skills in the summer and less games. Unfortunately, that trend is the polar opposite in many programs. I think kids should play 15-20 basketball games max in the summer (April-July), but a lot of them are playing 40-50 which is awful.

There are so many opportunities in the city of Lincoln for children to experience and incredibly wide range of things via public education. It's actually incredible. Sports is just one of them. But I will always scream to the rooftops that private donations to public schools (i.e. paying for this theater to be built for this specific school) should be completely illegal and instead go to LPS pot to be distributed evenly.

I can only speak from personal experience. There are pros and cons to both based on what I've seen. Pros of teacher-coaches: the educator is 1) available during the day 2) generally more reliable in terms of communication skills 3) typically is aware of building culture and what standards to uphold. Cons of teacher-coaches: they don't always know how to coach. Pros of non-teacher coaches: 1) the coach is usually going off multi-year relationships with players/families before they ever begin high school (they are constantly coaching in and out of the HS system) 2) they typically have good relationships with personal trainers to hook up their players with in the offseason to continue establishing good individual skills. Cons of non-teacher coaches: they are often undereducated and communicate in a substandard way (think basic grammar in some instances). They also tend to approach the culture as a representative of their AAU program rather than the HS. So, in their mind, HS is almost an extension of their program, sort of like a fun exhibition. It's interesting. So it's really a wash at this point as far as what's best for the kids. I'm the rare educator that only coaches AAU at this point. I've seen the beautiful and ugly on both sides.

I'm not sure that's true. There are the Erick Stricklands of the world who could go pro in three sports, and the just good athletes who need the advanced skills required to have their college paid for at a lower level. More kids in the area are getting opportunities to play collegiate sports because of specialization. I understand your sentiment though.

and he and Armon weren’t allowed to coach how they wanted to until Matt was gone. We played pretty well after Matt left. Oklahoma will be interesting to watch this season. That said, Fred brought in some absolute masterminds and I give him full credit for that.

He’s a less refined Bando for sure. Very apt comparison. And I loved having Bando here.

I don’t think he is anywhere near Verge offensively (once he bought in) or Mack as a passer. There’s nothing about his game or numbers to this point that points to either of those guys. The perfect PG for Fred will still be able to shoot. Sam wasn’t an elite shooter, but he was a threat and hit some big shots. But I’m a defense first person anyway. I definitely wanted Sallis here and am disappointed we didn’t get him. You always find room for kids that athletic and that kind of ceiling. I just don’t think this is a Keyontae situation. Not even on the same planet of tragic.

I love Sallis as a defender and transition player, but the other true transfers we have so far are better basketball players at this point. Sallis may never pan out as an offensive threat because of his shooting. The kid is a 25% threat from 3 with a 1:1 a:to ratio.

Yep. I’m thinking Lawrence, Lloyd, and Kesei could be really good with the 6’7” guard we are already bringing in. Wouldn’t mind adding Sallis’ athleticism to that bunch, but no need to settle for anyone at this point unless we don’t have Keisei back.

I’m not sure if this has changed all that much. It was happening when I was playing 20 years ago. That said, AAU was really just picking up then and basketball was becoming a year round sport. I’m watching in real time now as youngsters start specializing. It really does separate them quickly in terms of skills, and they become closer with the kids that don’t play baseball, for example. The very best athletes can still do it all though. I think, moving forward, there probably won’t be as many transfers in Lincoln because anyone worth their salt plays AAU and gets the same training now. There will be too many good players for transfers to make much of a difference in playing time. But right now, in this moment, the first kids that got the crazy amount of training are shopping around and talking to one another in the spring/summer on their AAU teams.

I’m glad class A finally got a shot clock. I’m also fine with kids going to school where they want. If transfers weren’t allowed last season in Lincoln, a lot of starter level players wouldn’t have gotten nearly as many minutes. These are kids that play AAU year round and work very hard on their game. The drama of the above scenario is that high schools are observing who is running youth AAU teams and hiring those coaches in hopes of a pipeline, so most high schools are now directly or indirectly affiliated with at least one AAU team. This leads to outright recruiting. I know for a fact there have been tampering complaints in Lincoln with a coach texting kids on other teams during the season. The problem is probably impossible to manage on an Omaha scale considering the NSAA didn’t do anything about Lincoln. I’m sure there will be another free agency shakeup this summer.

Great points here.

Hoping this goes well. I’m guessing he’s priority #1 as of now.

I think WB can learn a whole lot from Mast and still has plenty of upside. Remember WB is a pretty gifted passer. If he can become a little bit more of an offensive threat (improve outside shooting and 1v1 skills) I think his passing will be more effective. He needs to add 20lbs and decide to be a full time 5 though. He has no business athletically playing any other spot. I think he can be a very serviceable backup C with a serious summer.

They are very similar. Keisei is a little quicker, but this kid is a lot bigger, a better ball handler, and has a scary midrange post game to go along with a similar outside shot.

This kid can ball. He is an elite one on one scorer and shooter and needs basically no room to fill it up. Probably won’t be a great defender, but he’ll outscore most of his matchups from day 1.

I think we're trying to get both him and Hugley.

I’m gonna guess Fred pulls off Williams/Sallis/Hugley, which would be nuts.

Yes please to Sallis.