KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

sf2010 wrote:

Billyboy78 wrote:His team is also playing at 2:45 on Saturday. I wonder if he'll be at the URI game tomorrow night?

I hope they bring the whole team!

15 people closer to a sellout!

Anybody see this game? How did Butts play?

eli#10 wrote:Anybody see this game? How did Butts play?

I haven't seen a box score or an article yet. This is all I could find.

Sean Moran ‏@SeanMoHoops · 15h15 hours ago
Former DC Assault teammates Jon Davis and Leroy Butts are playing back to back. Both with strong showings. #NPS

Most comprehensive coverage and links I could find……

Seems that if you have a Cox account you can access the games….

http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com

adam914 wrote:

I guess he saw an ok game.

I hope there were some other recruits there tonight. If I was a recruit, I would have given a verbal right after the game. What kid wouldn't want to play in that atmosphere. As I said, SO wrong about the students. They were awesome!

Has anyone been following Leroy's senior season?

Billyboy78 wrote:Has anyone been following Leroy's senior season?

Not much, but here is the team's schedule.

http://www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u ... +INSTITUTE

On the rosters....playing for the Silver team.....6'4" 145lb sophomore guard, #3 Allen Iverson.....

Billyboy78 wrote:Has anyone been following Leroy's senior season?

Here are results for two games on December 13th and 14th at the DMV EliteBaltimore Classic:
Elev8 defeated St Francis 79-76. Coaches from Maryland, Louisville, Towson, Providence, Radford and Monmouth were among those in attendance
Butts 19min 1-3 FG, 4 rebounds, 2 points. In starting line up.
http://legitstats.com/uploads/3/3/3/9/3 ... re1405.pdf

Elev8 defeated Mount Zion 84-82.
Butts 19min 2-8 FG, 1-1 FT, 4 rebounds, 3 points 1 block. In starting line up.
http://legitstats.com/uploads/3/3/3/9/3 ... re1408.pdf

Not exactly lighting it up.

I was going to say that, but I figured I'd get lit up for it.
19 minutes, 2 and 3 points and he's a starter?
Not good. Save me the "You don't know......and you're judging."

i was concerned about Thompson...but he seems to be doing well. Leroy on the other hand...

I am going to withhold judgment since I didn't see the games but you'd like to see some games where he shows he can score and rebound as the season goes on.

Those are the worst numbers I've seen of his. However I haven't seen many. Not too worried though. Thompson certainly isn't making people worry.

The schools that recruited him were impressive. Bos8 is one of our most knowledgable posters and raved about this kid when it was announced he was coming here. I will reserve judgement for now as well.

For all we know, he could be playing with a nagging injury, like a bad ankle or something. He is actually higher rated than Thompson, although I know ratings aren't always reliable.

I saw a list of the top 100 prep players in Florida.
Butts wasn't on it.
What is Elev8basketball academy? What do they do, give grades for
playing ball?
Strange new world of recruiting.

If you look at his offers/interest, he wasn't being recruited by Kentucky and Duke but he was being recruited by some pretty good programs. I tend to think offers are the best barometer for recruits, more than rankings and definitely more than stats. I probably value high school stats the least because competition, circumstances and usage vary so much from school to school and region to region, and we know so little about it.

What is Elev8basketball academy?

It's only the best elevator technician school in the country. That's all.

Elev8 is run by Gannon Baker, who has quite the credentials. The one thing with these prep/exposure schools is, you never know the teams motives. They may have a guy who is unsigned and want to focus on him getting shots/ running plays so they look good. With the staff they have in place, I am sure he is developing. They may also be trying to have him run a point forward role, who knows? He had a great summer, and is a talented player. We've had guys who had great numbers come in and be absolute duds. We've also had the reverse, were guys were afterthoughts on their HS teams, and had good careers here.

rodfromcranston wrote:I saw a list of the top 100 prep players in Florida.
Butts wasn't on it.
What is Elev8basketball academy? What do they do, give grades for
playing ball?
Strange new world of recruiting.

I think ESPN has him in top 10 in NJ

Bos8 wrote:Elev8 is run by Gannon Baker, who has quite the credentials. The one thing with these prep/exposure schools is, you never know the teams motives. They may have a guy who is unsigned and want to focus on him getting shots/ running plays so they look good. With the staff they have in place, I am sure he is developing. They may also be trying to have him run a point forward role, who knows? He had a great summer, and is a talented player. We've had guys who had great numbers come in and be absolute duds. We've also had the reverse, were guys were afterthoughts on their HS teams, and had good careers here.

Good post Bos

I agree also, good post by Bos. Had offers from Rutgers, WVA, Miami, DePaul, so good list.

Iggy, top 10 NJ? Isn't he from Maryland originally?

Iggy1979 wrote:

Bos8 wrote:Elev8 is run by Gannon Baker, who has quite the credentials. The one thing with these prep/exposure schools is, you never know the teams motives. They may have a guy who is unsigned and want to focus on him getting shots/ running plays so they look good. With the staff they have in place, I am sure he is developing. They may also be trying to have him run a point forward role, who knows? He had a great summer, and is a talented player. We've had guys who had great numbers come in and be absolute duds. We've also had the reverse, were guys were afterthoughts on their HS teams, and had good careers here.

Good post Bos

I agree. Scouting on a high school stat line is pretty much impossible, and usually it's only relevant if you have experience with the league at hand. Free throw percentages might be relevant, since it's the same distance at both levels, but even then, I imagine college FT percentage is lower than high school for most players because there is more stress and fatigue involved, the higher level basketball you're playing. Everything else - shooting percentage, steals, blocks, rebounds - are incredibly dependent on your competition and teammates.

I remember hi being ranked fifth in Maryland last year

Right, Maryland

Iggy1979 wrote:

rodfromcranston wrote:I saw a list of the top 100 prep players in Florida.
Butts wasn't on it.
What is Elev8basketball academy? What do they do, give grades for
playing ball?
Strange new world of recruiting.

I think ESPN has him in top 10 in NJ

Evel8 has several teams including a Post Grad team located in Delray Beach Florida. Butts is on the Red Team which is their best team. Talented team with 4 players in the Top 200 of 247 sports 2015 list.
Best player on the Red Team is Kobie Eubanks. Eubanks originally picked Baylor in April 2014, then decommitted in September 2014. Issue with admissions at Baylor where his grades did not qualify.
Current schools for Eubanks are: UCLA Georgia Oregon UConn Missouri Providence Louisville Kansas South Florida. He is the Red Team's big scorer having had 35 points in a recent game
http://www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u ... +INSTITUTE

Looking at Ratings from 247 sports Top 300 to put Butts in perspective with some familiar names to Ram fans:
43 Eric Davis Arthur Hill Saginaw - Texas - was recruited by URI
54 Danjel Purifoy - Auburn - was recruited by URI
61 Steve Enoch - UCONN - was recruited by URI
73 Brandon Sampson - Madison Prep Batan Rouge plays with Christion Thompson - LSU
75 Tevin Mack - Virginia Tech
80 Chris Silva - South Carolina - was recruited by URI
84 Kobie Eubanks Elev8 - plays with Leroy Butts - being recruited by PC
93 Alex Owens - signed with PC
95 Yankuba Sima Elev8 - plays with Leroy Butts
135 Terrance Mann - Florida State - was recruited by URI
152 Levan Alston - Temple was recruited by URI
154 Leroy Butts - Elev8 - verballed to URI
155 Aaron Falzone - Northwestern -was recruited by URI
160 Jarred Reuter - Virginia - was recruited by URI
172 Marquez Letcher-Ellis Elev8 - Rice - plays with Leroy Butts
175 Curtis Cobb - not signed yet - was recruited by URI
177 Aflakpui - Temple - was recruited by URI
236 Jaylen Poyser - UNLV - was recruited by URI

Gaffe ratings. Poyser and Aflackpui are clearly higher rated everywhere else, than Butts.

Yeah, it's just one rating, there is also Rivals, ESPN but they only rate the top 100, etc, etc. There is also a Top 100 for Florida only which Butts isn't listed but could be that he transferred late to Elev8 and that is why he is not listed. Point of this Rating by 247 sports is that Butts is rated and in amongst players that we were also involved in. You can find differences in all ratings systems with players for sure.

Big Tournament at Elev8 today and through this weekend - but it is difficult to find any stats for their games.

I'm not worried about Butts even though his stats for the Tournament in DC were not high - his team is loaded with D1 candidates.

I'm not sure why we would consider ratings and offer lists based on evaluations done years ago as solid indicators of what kind of recruit he is now but recent box scores should be viewed as nearly irrelevant.
I'm not saying Butts won't wind up having a good career here, I'm just saying he's not the level of recruit he was once thought of and our expectations should be adjusted.

No question Poyser clearly has more skills than Butts and Aflakpui. He really blew up at the end of his recruitment and may have even ended he's far fromover valued for his skill level. Time will tell.

While I've never seen Butts play I have seen Aflakpui... he's a very raw big man. Right now his biggest attributes are size and desire which make him a plus rebounder/defender. He has a high ceiling but he's far from polished but would've been a great recruit for us. Chris Silva would've been even better.

All we need is a rebounder, defense guy to play with Hassan. The offense can
develop later, like most bigs.

I agree 100% with BFC. It's clear that Butts seems not to be up to the
four major Hurley recruits, at this time.

BFC wrote:I'm not sure why we would consider ratings and offer lists based on evaluations done years ago as solid indicators of what kind of recruit he is now but recent box scores should be viewed as nearly irrelevant.
I'm not saying Butts won't wind up having a good career here, I'm just saying he's not the level of recruit he was once thought of and our expectations should be adjusted.

Billyboy,
All I try to do with the recruiting threads is to post information. Some of it is just a game or two, some for a Tournament's results, some for who might be involved with a player.
I agree two games is not much, if anything, to go by........but it's just information. Just like the ratings reports from ESPN, 247, Rivals, Scout, and other more regional or state ratings.
Personally, I have attended many, many AAU and High School games in the past and the present. I saw EC Mathews play in AAU and also Terrell play in HS and AAU. Even watching kids in person can be misleading depending on the level of the opposition. It's like comparing performances versus Maine and VCU. The best judgements can be made at the National Championship EYBL where the best 24 AAU teams compete against one another in a very competitive environment. That is why that Tournament is the most attended by Coaches from all over the Country. All the best players in one place playing for a Championship.
But for the most part I see these Recruiting Threads to be like file folders for information for the specific individual players.
Discussions and arguements over what type of player we should be chasing, Guards, Forwards, Centers, etc is best for the General Recruiting Thread that is established. It's also better because then all those comments are within the same folder and don't need to be repeatedly bantered about within the individual player threads. jmhp.
By the way, I have not seen Butts play yet.

I think you're responding to the wrong guy, Ramster. That was BFC's post.

Rod, if it turns out to be true that Butts isn't that good, that's something we can not afford.

Of course not everybody is going to be an EC or Hassan [see Butler] but it's imperative we get a good big man [or men] in here and soon.

Let's not get too worried at this point. Long way to go still before he is wearing the keaney blue. Plus, we don't need him to come in here and be the guy. If he can come in and be the solid 5th, 6th or 7th guy then that's still important.

I'm getting worried. Butler seems like a bust. As well as Iffy. And Earl doesn't play so can't say much there. Then we bring in Thompson and Butts. I hope we don't have a bench where 5 or 6 guys don't play. That would be depth in scholorships given, not talent. And who is replacing TJ and Gil? Nothing against either of them but I was hoping we would have guys even better then both of them replacing them next year. I don't see it happening.

Team Not Worried

TP; You should add "Yet" to that phrase.

I'm not panicking about this. Look me up in April though.....

You guys are right, we're never winning another game ever again.

Not just any games we're talking about Adam. Tournament games. Sweet Sixteen, Elite 8 and FF.

I'm with Blueram.
We have Iffy and Butler, who are questionable players,
seeing little or no time at all as sophomores.
If Butts becomes another similar player, that's three
scholarships that will last at least the next two years.
It's good to have practice players, but it's better to have game-worthy ones.

Sure, but the case for expecting Butts to be the 6'7" version of Matthew Butler is extremely flimsy.

Butts has to offer more than O Outerbridge? Right? Right....

I believe in DH at this point. Despite the fact I doubt this kid is more than OO. And OO was not much.

He was unstoppable on like 5 plays over 4 years. 3 of them were against BC at home.

theblueram wrote:I'm getting worried. Butler seems like a bust. As well as Iffy. And Earl doesn't play so can't say much there. Then we bring in Thompson and Butts. I hope we don't have a bench where 5 or 6 guys don't play. That would be depth in scholorships given, not talent. And who is replacing TJ and Gil? Nothing against either of them but I was hoping we would have guys even better then both of them replacing them next year. I don't see it happening.

The way Gil is playing, he won't be hard to replace. They've already replaced TJ with Terrell. And they've added a much needed shooter. The three or four best players will be back next year. Relax

Iggy1979 wrote:

theblueram wrote:I'm getting worried. Butler seems like a bust. As well as Iffy. And Earl doesn't play so can't say much there. Then we bring in Thompson and Butts. I hope we don't have a bench where 5 or 6 guys don't play. That would be depth in scholorships given, not talent. And who is replacing TJ and Gil? Nothing against either of them but I was hoping we would have guys even better then both of them replacing them next year. I don't see it happening.

The way Gil is playing, he won't be hard to replace. They've already replaced TJ with Terrell. And they've added a much needed shooter. The three or four best players will be back next year. Relax

Yeah this was the point I was trying to make in my post about him not needing to be the guy. We already have 4 really good to potentially great players on the team that are freshman and sophomores. We just need Butts to be a guy that can complement them and not necessarily be "the guy"

We need good, solid players that could play major minutes if necessary.

Better than what we have besides our top 4.

Complimentary players. Shooters. Big Men.

Our 2 best players right now, again besides the 4, are Gil and TJ, and they are gone soon.

After them, there is too big a dropoff in talent. District Baller is right when he says our top 4 can play with anybody on VCU. But they go 8-10 deep without that big dropoff. They wear teams down with that depth. That's why we lost Tuesday night.

We simply need more.

rambone 78 wrote:We need good, solid players that could play major minutes if necessary.

Better than what we have besides our top 4.

Complimentary players. Shooters. Big Men.

Our 2 best players right now, again besides the 4, are Gil and TJ, and they are gone soon.

After them, there is too big a dropoff in talent. District Baller is right when he says our top 4 can play with anybody on VCU. But they go 8-10 deep without that big dropoff. They wear teams down with that depth. That's why we lost Tuesday night.

We simply need more.

OK, but...

You are worrying/complaining that players that you have never seen play cannot replace the 5th and 6th best players on this team. The chances that you will ever see eight or nine starter caliber players on a URI team at the same time are pretty small.

Look at it this way: you say we need more. I don't disagree, but how would this team have more? Dan inherited one player that is still on the team. He brought in a handful of others right after he got the job just to fill the roster out, then recruited the nucleus of this team the next two offseasons. So either you think he should have been able to come up with better during the scramble to bring bodies into a floundering program, or he should have done better than bringing in two studs each of the last two cycles. So where should the missing pieces have come from? As far as future teams having more, I think you have to reserve judgment. The pieces are on their way in, and in my view there is no reason to believe at this point that they won't be part of the "more" that we need.

Worrying around here has become reflexive. There doesn't need to be any spark to the panic, it just kind of materializes out of the ether. People see one box score and, without any context of the circumstances of the game or the way the player was being used, proceed to project out his entire college career as being underwhelming. That is literally crazy.