GATA

I wonder if that will be part of today's workout.

That would be quite disappointing...

Well, the kid can jump. If we land him, I assume he'll be the next Victor Oladipo.

Good sleuth work.

Well alrighty then. Back at it. For this year? And will they commit today? For this fall and possibly. Do you have a name?

I'm not trying to rain on the parade. I think the class of Hammond, Smith and Ayegba is solid, but certainly nothing great in the B1G. I think Fuller should be able to help out next year. We had a great opportunity to take advantage of some positive momentum from March on, and we basically struck out.In Miles I trust, but that doesn't mean I'm pleased with how things have gone since our season ended. Struck out in '14, perhaps. Even that's a little strong, though, because we got a couple in the spring. The big test is '15. That's the class where we need to parlay the success of our NCAA run in getting some bigger name players to commit. It's the November class that really counts for a lot. Cornish matters not to the '15 class. (By '15 class, I'm talking about the guys who sign in November of '14 and would start their careers in the fall of '15.) And the positive momentum we hope to capture from our NCAA run doesn't end with the spring '14 signing period. There's some significant lag on that surge. It takes awhile for it to get here. Probably ramps up gradually, not suddenly. The bigger wave will probably hit as we approach November. Meanwhile, I think we have to cast a broad net, which appears to be exactly what Miles is doing, frankly. Make as many offers as possible and beat the pavement looking for guys who have flown under the radar as well as guys who have flown right into the radar that respond to our recruiting efforts. By no means am I willing to write the epitaph on the success we hoped to see in recruiting following our better-than-expected season this year. I think the recruiting bump is something we'll probably see more for the '15 class than the '14 class. But '15, we better ink some players. Gotta hit a recruiting home run this fall. I don't necessarily disagree with anything you wrote, and admittedly I am looking at this as a short-term loss. The big payoff needs to come in 2015. But since our season ended, we added Ayegba and lost Hawkins and Vooch (not huge losses) while failing to close on Deng and Cornish or any of the impact transfers that hit the market (as of yet). It's a disappointment, but certainly not the end of the world.

No, I believe everyone who's disappointed that we didn't fill the scholarships in the late period is referring to filling the class with recruits of a certain quality. Everyone understands that they could just fill the class if they wanted by lowering standards. No one's talking about that. I think most of us agree that it will need to be filled by transfers, hopefully one of which is a 5th-year guy (and hopefully a SG type).

Who's saying that?

I'm not trying to rain on the parade. I think the class of Hammond, Smith and Ayegba is solid, but certainly nothing great in the B1G. I think Fuller should be able to help out next year. We had a great opportunity to take advantage of some positive momentum from March on, and we basically struck out. In Miles I trust, but that doesn't mean I'm pleased with how things have gone since our season ended. That's what I was saying. You have every right to not be pleased with how things have gone since the season ended. But saying the offseason was a disapointment is a leap in my book. We missed out on some guys yes, but its because of last season that we were even in the discussion. Not to nitpick, but by offseason I meant since the season ended. I think we're arguing semantics now. It's all good.

Pretty disappointing IMO...we haven't seemed to have been seriously pursuing any of the other available transfers (see the Transfer thread). It looks like we put all our eggs in the Deng and Cornish baskets, and didn't pursue some transfers in parallel. So now we are starting all over it appears. If our intent all along was to pursue transfers i would hope we've been doing that all along, not only after Cornish and Deng fell through. A lot of transfers are teams' Plans C and D, so they're waiting to see how things shake out. Hopefully we snag a guy soon enough. Petteway was a late addition, no?

I'm not trying to rain on the parade. I think the class of Hammond, Smith and Ayegba is solid, but certainly nothing great in the B1G. I think Fuller should be able to help out next year. We had a great opportunity to take advantage of some positive momentum from March on, and we basically struck out. In Miles I trust, but that doesn't mean I'm pleased with how things have gone since our season ended.

Agreed. We're obviously well ahead of schedule, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing. We're in on some good players, but we haven't proven to be closers just yet. Hopefully another good year and a trip to the Sweet 16 will change things. We've covered this ground before, but NU's success largely came after most of the top recruits had signed back in November. The success we had this year should plough the ground for recruiting improvements in November. If you look at the places we've lost players to, it's not mid majors. It's always a bummer to see a player pick another school, but Deng went to a school coming off a sweet 16. Cornish is going to a school that's had a lot of recruiting success and has a track record of success. We were right in that mix. It might not be the progress we want to see, but it is progress. This isn't an instant gratification deal, but we should see a little more fruit of the labor of this season over the summer and in the fall. Stay the course, fellas, don't get downtrodden, it's way too early for that. As I said, we're ahead of schedule, so there's a lot to be excited about, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be disappointed in how things have turned out since our tournament run ended. Obviously there are transfers out there to be had, so hopefully we snag at least one who can play right away. But that's just it, I don't think there's anything to be disappointed about. On a micro level, perhaps, but anything bigger than that, I don't think there is at all. I guess I'm not the optimist you are. And I don't want anyone to take this as doom and gloom or that I'm being a Chicken Little, it's just disappointing that we couldn't capitalize on the opportunities we had to add some extremely talented players to our program.

Agreed. We're obviously well ahead of schedule, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing. We're in on some good players, but we haven't proven to be closers just yet. Hopefully another good year and a trip to the Sweet 16 will change things. We've covered this ground before, but NU's success largely came after most of the top recruits had signed back in November. The success we had this year should plough the ground for recruiting improvements in November. If you look at the places we've lost players to, it's not mid majors. It's always a bummer to see a player pick another school, but Deng went to a school coming off a sweet 16. Cornish is going to a school that's had a lot of recruiting success and has a track record of success. We were right in that mix. It might not be the progress we want to see, but it is progress. This isn't an instant gratification deal, but we should see a little more fruit of the labor of this season over the summer and in the fall. Stay the course, fellas, don't get downtrodden, it's way too early for that.As I said, we're ahead of schedule, so there's a lot to be excited about, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be disappointed in how things have turned out since our tournament run ended. I'm not an "instant gratification guy" per se. I didn't expect us to land all of our targets, but we're right there at the end with some pretty good prospects and we aren't closing the deal. It's OK to admit that it's not all puppy dogs and ice cream. That's just how things go sometimes. It doesn't mean Miles is failing or the staff is failing. But it does mean that they have some work left to do. I believe they'll get there.Obviously there are transfers out there to be had, so hopefully we snag at least one who can play right away.

Agreed. We're obviously well ahead of schedule, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing. We're in on some good players, but we haven't proven to be closers just yet. Hopefully another good year and a trip to the Sweet 16 will change things.

In that hat's defense it probably was made in 1995 since that was the last time people wore Rebels gear.

Nebraska hat is first in the picture! Done deal! Right?

At this point, I honestly don't care. I expect him to pick UNLV and I won't be surprised or feel let down if he does. And, at this point, if he happens to pick us, I'll probably be like whatever. My enthusiasm meter for this particular prospect is about bottomed out. Agreed, Norm. I'd like to have him, and I'd be surprised if we do land him, but at this point I'm kind of meh to the whole thing. Perhaps that's just a byproduct of recruiting in general. The near misses are sapping my enthusiasm. I'm at the point where you can just wake me up when recruiting season is over.

He won't make any decision based off some random tweet. But that was incredibly stupid.

Illinois has a bit of a pipeline going again at Simeon, so that could be a nice draw.

I guess Cornish could look at it one of two ways: It's off-putting to run off players to fit me in and maybe it'll be me in two years, or they like me so much they're willing to make room for me!

It appears Eron Harris is gonna be in the Big Ten next year... http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/05/14/report-three-schools-stand-out-to-west-virginia-transfer-eron-harris/

Can anybody give us a synopsis?

Like I stated above I think this is more about his age than anything. When it comes to your chances in the pros, the older you get the less chances you get. If he has the aspirations to go pro his window shrinks every year he's in HS/Juco/4 yr school. My guess is this is something that was talked about in several conversations and is the best for both parties right now. When you say pros do you mean NBA or overseas? Maybe both? I don't mind Nebraska "placing" him in a juco because I think that's probably for the best. He might not get the necessary coaching that will develop his skills as much as he would in Lincoln, but I think it buys us time to get recruits that will be more of an immediate help. My hope is that with a big 2014-15 season we'll be able to close on some big-time (top 100) recruits. If Pinder plays well enough that we honor the scholarship, that's awesome.

I'll see what I can do.

Maybe I'm just a blind optimist, but I'm thinking we'll be able to land a much better player with this scholarship than Pinder.