Swan88

Wow. That's pretty depressing. There is something pretty screwed up about that story. First, the AAU guy gets guardianship and actually does something pretty admirable: puts him in what appears to be an excellent foster home that provided stability for seven months: "His foster parents bought him an extra-long mattress and scheduled meetings with teachers to get him on track academically. They brought him on family vacations (they have four other children as well), and he began referring to them as “Moms” and “Pops.” For the first time, his world seemed stable." But then the AAU guy interfered with that stability: "So his coaches stepped in again—without consulting his foster family—this time sending him three hours away, to Sunrise Christian Academy, a small prep school with a high-profile basketball program. Mr. Clark initially resisted." Such interference pops up several times throughout the story. Sounds like the player ultimately made his own choice for MSU and rejected the AAU guy's push elsewhere. Hope things work out for him. But what happens to this player if pro basketball doesn't work out for him? Kinda disturbing!

That is apparently true. The list of schools Ali has "heard from" since his change of plans does not include Nebraska.

I don't imagine we'll be on Ali's short listWhy not? We were on his short list before, at least according to yesterday's report by the UConn campus newspaper that bb73 links above. Here is a portion of that report: "Ali is ranked as the fourth best player in the state [of Florida] by ESPN. He chose UConn over finalists UCLA, Nebraska, Georgetown and Illinois." Moreover, Ali committed to UConn back in November of 2013--that's prior to Nebrasketball making it's fourth-place run in the B1G conference portion of the season.

Maryland's 247 Sports has a premium article on Andrew White, but comments on the article can be seen by non-members. Thought everyone would enjoy a comment on the article shown below, and we can only hope that the person who posted the comment actually knows whereof he speaks: MdBbReporter 353 posts May 27, 6:23 PM JeffErmann said... (original post) Kansas Transfer White Talks Terp Maryland recruited Andrew White, then a consensus top-50 player, in 2012 before he chose Kansas. Now on the market again, the Terps are once again interested in the 6-6 guard. http://maryland.247sports.com/Board/67/Contents/Kansas-Transfer-White-Talks-Terps-Re-Recruitment-28765605 COMMENT: he is a Nebraska lean right now, and will most likely commit to the Huskers soon.

"With Danny Manning at Wake and Maryland close to his home, I'd think they would be the favorites." Here is a lengthy Andrew White statement reported in an article on the Wake Forest Rivals board about close-by options for Andrew White: "Where I live there's great basketball, ACC country. It's a strong conference, so there's a lot of big opportunities here, but I'm not limiting myself to being in the Virginia, North Carolina region. If there's a situation good enough to where I think I'll be able to play and continue doing well in school I will go a lot farther out of Virginia. Kansas was 20 hours away, so I don't mind going far away if there would be a good enough basketball situation for me."

"Nobody else recruited Ayegba." According to the Lincoln Journal Star, the foregoing statement is not accurate. Here is a blurb from an article on the subject: "Ayegba said his relationship with Hunter played a key role in him coming to Nebraska. Indiana, Boston College, Miami and Long Beach State also showed interest in Ayegba as a transfer, he said."

Hate to be a downer, but the source for the new article is Robin Washut's recent article on Andrew White. So, information in the new article is, actually, nothing new around here. However, Washut's information appears to be getting exposure in a number of outlets--hope this development is both positive and significant.

My, aren't we picky these days. A four-star with Rivals 51 and ESPN 48 national rankings, with many high-major offers, with official visits to Louisville, Texas and West Virginia, and a commitment to Kansas--plus current interest from high level programs! Yeah, it's obvious why we would be skeptical of his potential because some anonymous poster(s) from Kansas questioned his foot speed after his departure announcement. Yeah. That's the ticket. Actually, Andrew White appears to be a quintessential Tim Miles recruit: high work ethic and effort, high character, academically smart, excellent citizen and representative of the program, along with excellent athleticism and high basketball skills. Sounds like a knock-it-out-of-the park possibility for Nebrasketball. Also, Huskerville appears to offer a great opportunity to Mr. White: he plays a position of need here, and the Tim Miles track record for high-production from transfers is abundantly apparent.

Here is the comment from the Kansas guy (Nebraska visit reference is on the last line): Hello - Matt from the 247 Kansas site TheShiver.com here. Andrew is a great kid. He is someone that once you meet you know right away that he will be successful in whatever he does. He didn't want to leave KU, but knew that he wouldn't get PT over guys like McLemore, Wiggins, Selden, Oubre, Brannen Greene and now Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk. He started off this past season as the 6th or 7th guy, but then he got injured and never worked his way back. He can play though. Offensive abilities weren't the question with White. He is just a bit too slow on the defensive end to cover SF's at this level. However, one thing I know about White is that he will work his tail off to get better every single day. His [Roy Williams Voice] "want to" is second to none. Whatever program that gets him is getting a kid that is a great lead by example dude. Also - I'm told he will visit Nebraska. Not sure if any other visits have been set yet though.

We like our recruits "long, lean and underrated." Tim Miles.

Here are a couple blurbs on Jamall Gregory from a Washington Post article: "the 6-foot-4 Gregory has an uncanny ability to dunk. He [also] has, according to Coolidge Coach Vaughn Jones, a gift for timing blocked shots that very few high school players have." "But what isn’t known outside the District’s basketball circles is Gregory’s hunger to bust out of his highlight-reel reputation. Few know that he is shooting 500 jumpers every day, putting shot after shot up before and after the Colts practice each evening. On game nights, he has also worked relentlessly to not just find a variety of ways to score, but to also take out the garbage for Coolidge (9-3), and his rebounding numbers are among the best in the city."

The Kreklow walk-on status is probably the most sincere and unfeigned expression by Kreklow that anyone could ever make on where he believes his services are most greatly needed. Assuming the walk-on report is true, Kreklow is betting his own money that he can play--a lot--for Creighton during his final year and that he might not be needed as much at other schools that have schollies available. Hope it works out for him.

Now that we've had our Dang Deng and Cornish Hen (ok, I stole those distorted names from other people--sorry) disappointments, thought it might be a good time to revisit some star issues. First of all, this basketball occasion is reminiscent of Bobby Bowden receiving high-plaudits for having six players drafted in the first round, when a national sports-guy opined that Tom Osborne was a much-more-impressive coach because he had similar team results but with only a few players drafted (fyi, I disclaim accuracy of memory on details of the foregoing--but the general sense is correct). Anyway, while some schools like UNLV struggle to develop consistency (heck, even an NIT bid) with multiple four- and five-star upper-classmen on their teams, Tim Miles achieved great success this past year with the following sohpomore players as the main guys (star rankings are by ESPN): Shavon Shields--2 stars; Walter Pitchford--2 stars; Terran Petteway--3 stars; Benny Parker--1 star. Don't have any idea whether Tim Miles can evaluate talent better than others, or that he can develop talent better than others, or that he can utilize talent better than others, or that he is just lucky. But the reality is that, (i) he has been achieving such over-performance from less-than-highly-ranked players his entire career, (ii) he is one heck-of-a coach, and (iii) there is no reason to believe he will do anything other than excell greatly in the future--just like he always has in the past. Hammond and Smith and Ayegba are a good start towards future success, and here's guessing Tim Miles and Co. will lasso another player or two for 2014 who will contribute signifcantly toward future success.

According to a rumor posted on the free Rivals message board for UNLV, the Rebels will be jettisoning Deville Smith to make room for Mr. Cornish. Mr. Smith was a Rivals four star out of Jackson, Mississippi, who spent a season at Mississippi St., then a JUCO year, then a year at UNLV, followed by a transfer (if the rumor is true).

Tim Miles & Co. have, over each of the past two seasons, left one scholarship open and used it for a walk-on, and it appears that such actions each year were deliberate. Accordingly, we might need to learn from time-to-time to live with such an approach in the future as well, whether we like it or agree with it or not.

2 yrs ago Kentucky had a team of five stars and din't make the tourney. Cant read a lot into a single yrs results. Number one sales pitch for top tier kids? "I'll getcha into the NBA." Til Miles gets a guy there it gonna be hard to get top tier guys. Norm one other thing guys be looking for is immediate PT. With Nebraska returning everybody but one guy, recruits be thinkin how am I gonna see da court? Good points. However, the UNLV coach seems to have lost the locker room, instead of just had-some-bad-breaks, as evidenced by the post-season transfers of highly ranked players--players that he recruited to UNLV. Also, his cleaning house of other players that he recruited to make room for new ones is interesting in both the extent and overt nature of what is happening. And the creation of an expectation of a new recruit starting from day one is something foreign to those of us who grew up watching the likes of Tom Osborne. It appears that Jordan Cornish is buying whatever UNLV is selling. My guess is that his parents are having graves doubts about UNLV, are having some serious "beware" discussions with Jordan, but are not going to over-rule his wishes and are already looking ahead at future transfer options (at least, that's what I'd be doing). It will be interesting to see how the UNLV coach fares over the next several years. I've never thought you could treat a team of people this way and be successful over the long haul . . . but I'm often wrong. By the way, Red Sea Scrolls has an interesting item on Jordan Cornish in today's Tunnel Talk.

Sorry about bumping my own post, but get this: this past season, UNLV played University of Nebraska at Omaha on November 15 in Vegas. UNLV prevailed, as one might expect, but by a score of 73-70. Also, Colorado St. swept UNLV last season--on Feb 5 UNLV lost to the Rams by a score of 75-57. And on February 22 UNLV lost 90-91 in overtime to Boise St. Now those are great examples of high-performance by highly ranked players . . . not. Well, we had some young players at Nebraska last year that believed that past under-performance was not predictive of future performance. Tim Miles probably hasn't had an "under-performance" season in his entire career. Committing to Tim Miles is a commitment to an extraordinarily successful "over-performance" coach. There may not be a coach in action today who has out-performed Tim Miles in this regard. The Tim Miles' performance history is one of the best predictors imaginable of future "over-performance."

Sorry about bumping my own post, but get this: this past season, UNLV played University of Nebraska at Omaha on November 15 in Vegas. UNLV prevailed, as one might expect, but by a score of 73-70. Also, Colorado St. swept UNLV last season--on Feb 5 UNLV lost to the Rams by a score of 75-57. And on February 22 UNLV lost 90-91 in overtime to Boise St. Now those are great examples of high-performance by highly ranked players . . . not.

Actually, you've gotta wonder about why any highly ranked player (or his parents) would want to commit to a team / coach that under-performs with highly ranked players. UNLV is a classic example. Consider this: 1. Last year's UNLV's team included one Rivals five-star junior, three Rivals four-star juniors, two Rivals four-star freshmen, and a host of three-stars to fill-in-the-cracks; and 2. Last years UNLV team finished tied for third in the Mountain West with Nevada, had a 10-8 conference record with one win in the conference tourney, had a total of 20 wins, did not make the NCAA tournament, did not get an NIT invitation, and did not accept a lesser tournament gig. Apparently young players think, in UNLV's case, that past under-performance is not predictive of future under-performance. Hard to figure!

He's as good as committed to UNLV then. Nah . . . to Wake Forest.

Huge achievement! Congrats!!

As long as we are all speculating, without any inside information whatever (a/k/a pooling-our-ignorance), here is my speculation (which everyone already knows is worthless) on why he shouldn't (didn't say "wouldn't") pick UNLV over Nebraska: 1. Why would a shooting guard in the 2014 class go to a school (UNLV) that already has commitments for the 2014 class from two shooting guards--one is a three-star who committed less than a month ago and one is a five-star--instead of a school having no commitment from a shooting guard in the 2014 class? 2. Why would a shooting guard in the 2014 class pass up an opportunity to play for a highly-productive team who over-shot all expectations last year and who returns all it's main players from the highly-successful 2013-14 team, except for these two significant departures: a senior shooting guard and a freshman shooting guard projected to see significant playing time next year? 3. Why would a player opt for an unstable team (i.e., high roster turnover) over one with a high degree of stability and a high degree of player satisfaction?

Nebraska's weather will seem great by comparison to Jordan's experience in Colorado--you can't see the mountains from Denver's Airport on a snowy day, by the way--and the dry heat of Vegas will seem unbearable to someone from New Orleans accustomed to heavy humidity. And who would want to go to a University (Wake Forest) that closed temporarily during the Civil War because most of its faculty and students left to fight for the Confederacy. Things are looking up for the Huskers . . . we can always hope.

Pure internet genius at work here.

Filling out the last two spots with Jordan Cornish and Andrew White III . . . wouldn't that be cool ! Probably unrealistic, but it would be cool.