KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

Finally an article in today's Projo about our signings. A couple of other interesting things mentioned, one quote about recruiting."Hurley says he's not necessarily done, expressing a need for a wing shooter and perhaps the best avauilable big man his staff can track down."...We know we need a shooter (Severe?), but I thought it was interesting that he's still looking for a big man........and this about Onyekaba,"Hurley said he's not hopeful that Onyekaba, a strong 6-8 forward would be cleared and gain immediate eligibility at URI. "It could end up being he sits out this year and gets four years of eligibility but we'll see. i know that in practice he's often our best frontcourt player right now," Hurley said.".....my first thought was, wow, does that include Gil?

That last sentence is telling. Gil plays frontcourt,
so, the implication is, he's often better than Gil!
NICE!
I only saw him in the scrimmage. He was mobile, agile and hostile,
as Jack Kraft used to say about what he looked for in a bigman,
One nice drop-step for a layup, looked like a polished move.
So, if he has to sit out, he'll join a group sitting in streetclothes, who
could easily beat the guys on the floor this year.

For next year, they'll have four players to fill two spots (PF and C): Aaman, Hare, Biruta, and Onyekaba. Martin could also see time at PF, but looking for another guy in that area isn't the worst idea. Aaman works hard but is a bit limited in the talent department, and Hare is a giant question mark at this point.

If he ends up sitting out but still has 4 years left that would be fantastic. If that is the case then maybe it ends up being a blessing in disguise. I want to win as many games as possible this year obviously, but I doubt he'd come in and bring us a whole bunch more wins.

Agree with Adam on that. 4 years starting next year would be ideal for big O.

Martin wants SF, to hone his NBA potential game.

I read it to mean's he often better than Hare and Aaman, but I could be wrong.
Coaches are never done recruiting, even when they're reached their scholarship limit.

Practice includes Biruta.

I like how we get these little nuggets from Hurley.

ATPTourFan wrote:I like how we get these little nuggets from Hurley.

Hurley's definitely pretty honest with the media, it's just his style, not sure he could be any other way. His assessment of Onyekaba is great. I may be alone in this, but I hope he's eligible this year, as long as it's a good chunk of the season, let's say before conference play starts. He's a guy with limited organized basketball experience. He's going to benefit from practice alone, sure, but I'd love to see him get game time, receive feedback, and adjust. I certainly understand the perspective and the benefits of keeping him out this year, though. Maybe I'm just being selfish and impatient and want to catch a glimpse of the future.

Also, if Hurley's talking about looking at two additional players, that leads me to believe that Bigby is only here for a year. although I know coaches recruit and recruit and figure out spots later. For sure, we already know three out and two in. And, Hurley's told Hassan's he's a 3.

Ace, I think it totally just depends on how many years he will have. If this year is a lost year of eligibility either way, then yeah for sure having him this year would be great. But if he can sit out this year and then still have 4 years to play here, then I think sitting out this year is fine. If we could just get a clear answer on that it sure would be nice. But I definitely agree with just not being able to wait to see this kid play.

If he is outperforming Biruta that is great. I know he has a ton of potential. A starting 5 of

PG-Minnis
SG-Munford
SF-Reischell
PF-Biruta
C- BIg O

With Martin, Mathews, Aaman and Hare off the bench is a good team.

iceman wrote:If he is outperforming Biruta that is great. I know he has a ton of potential. A starting 5 of

PG-Minnis
SG-Munford
SF-Reischell
PF-Biruta
C- BIg O

With Martin, Mathews, Aaman and Hare off the bench is a good team.

I have to think that Matthews starts from day 1.

Martin is more talented than Reischel, too. Maybe Reischel will start for
a few games.
Hurley said he'll run a meritocracy, and seniority won't matter,
as it did with CFL.
We're talking NBA upside, and a still growing body.
Martin turns 17 November 22!
Matthews starts, day one. They are really sky high on him.

Yep. Martin and Mathews are NBA potential types. Minnis and Reischel are good, but not quite as good.

Just need another big, and a backup for Munford at SG, and this team will be 2 quality players deep at every position.

When can we say that's ever happened at Rhody?

The only reason I'm not sure if Martin starts right away is he'll still only be 17 years old when his 1st college game happens. It's a lot to ask a 17 year old to go up against 21 and 22 year olds. But would it surprise me if he does? No. He looks like he could use a few pounds, but that could come by then too. It'll be fun to see how he develops during his senior season of high school.

rodfromcranston wrote:Martin is more talented than Reischel, too. Maybe Reischel will start for
a few games.
Hurley said he'll run a meritocracy, and seniority won't matter,
as it did with CFL.
We're talking NBA upside, and a still growing body.
Martin turns 17 November 22!
Matthews starts, day one. They are really sky high on him.

Rod, I'm with you on the upside. But to me, the idea that both of these kids will start on day one and it being a meritocracy are almost mutually exclusive. Even legit NBA players aren't always legit on day one. Martin in particular has enormous upside but has a lot of work to do to be a great player.

To the original point of this thread: of course he isn't done. He's barely started. We're going to be a force.

I always thought, the best teacher is expericence.
Nobody improves sitting on the bench.
Also, there is pre-season practice and an exhibition game or two.
Long time for staff to make their judgements.
We'll see how good these kids are then. If they dominate in practice,
and exhibition games, they'll start. If not, well, they'll have to ease their way into the lineup.
That's the merit I was referring to.

Rivals had us on Alassane Kah's (6'10 Center) list before he commited to Western Kentucky and ESPN had us involved with C.J. Washington (JUCO PF) before he verballed to UAB, I wasn't sure if our involvement was before Onyekaba but now we know they are actively recruiting 2013 bigs.

BFC: did those guys sign LOIs?

Kah has signed.

CJ Washington signed too.

Last Day of Early Signing Period

BFC wrote:Last Day of Early Signing Period

I think we see how the high school season plays out, what players emerge and go from there. There will be plenty of high school seniors who make huge jumps from their junior years. There will plenty of talent to go after with the remaining scholarship(s).(Do we know yet if Bigby has one or two years here? I still haven't seen anyone officially release that information.)

Pretty sure it's one year for PG students.
Hurley is recruiting bigs and a SG.
As you said, we'll see who emerges.
There are quite a few top 150s who have
not committed yet.

That's another reason I'd love to make the A10 tournament. Great for recruiting, especially in the NYC area. I'm sure there will be a couple of kids from NY come springtime that college coaches will be drooling over.

Billyboy78 wrote:

BFC wrote:Last Day of Early Signing Period

I think we see how the high school season plays out, what players emerge and go from there. There will be plenty of high school seniors who make huge jumps from their junior years. There will plenty of talent to go after with the remaining scholarship(s).(Do we know yet if Bigby has one or two years here? I still haven't seen anyone officially release that information.)

Agreed. I think we accomplished what we needed to in the early signing period: getting the foundation of our class signed. At this point, we are better off waiting until the spring so we can get a better handle on our needs and the players we are recruiting. Having two studs in the fold, we can spend the winter really concentrating a small number of targets for the remaining spots and getting started on early targets for 2014.

A shooter has been on this team's wish list since summer practices. It's also obvious Hurley doesn't shy away from transfers, so there's always that option as well, with the obvious sitting out consequences.

I'm also excited to see things developing for '14; this staff had to move quickly to get '12 completed and start on '13. Having the chance to follow guys and build relationships through their junior years for the '14 guys can only help. Although it started at a different school, that was important in getting Martin.

Dan's in Detroit. Who's he watching?

Hmm? I was told by a very reliable source that we weren't recruiting Martez Walker.
Now that I have my Hoop Scoop subscription, I'll nose around the Detroit area possibilities.

OK, he's at the Romulus game watching EC, who has 5 points at half.

Dan Hurley‏@dhurley15

Nothing quite like the tension before a big high school basketball game.

EC finished with 16 points, 12 of those came in the 4th quarter as Romulous mounted a comeback but lost their 2nd game of the young season.

Wonder what's going on with Isaiah Lewis? 6'3" SG out of Middle Village, NY.
He had some problems at Christ The King, and transfered to St. Patrick's in NJ.
We seem to be on his list, with all the recruiting sites, but he's never mentioned.
He seemed a hot item in chatter, after Hurley got here.

OK, I guess I got my answer.
He left St. Patrick's in NJ, and went to some school
in Florida,
He's projected now as a juco. Guess he's an academic casualty.
Explains why we were never all over him, despite his talent,
plus he seems to be a problem child.

I'm pretty sure the Florida educational system will take anyone.

Dan needs to get some of his father's players:

Adam Zagoria‏@AdamZagoria

Bob Hurley PGs since 08:Tyshawn Taylor (Nets), Jio Fontan (USC), Tray Woodall (Pitt), Eli Carter (RU),Myles Mack (RU), Kyle Anderson (UCLA)
And now Temple-bound @J__Brown1...not a bad list. Three undefeated seasons and counting for Hurley & St. Ant's during that stretch.

Then again, maybe Dan is done for this year...quote in today's paper:"As for recruiting, Hurley says there is a chance he will add another player for next fall but only if someone too good to pass up emerges, perhaps as a transfer. We have 11 guys eligible next year who can compete to be in our rotation, so there's not a lot of room right now, Hurley said. I like where we're at and I like where we're headed."......Personally, I wouldn't mind if we held the schollies back for the '14 class. I think the level of recruit we go after for '14 might be even slightly higher than we got for '13. Yes, we could use a shooter, but while the current roster might not have any great shooters, it seems to have some good options as scorers, certainly a lot more than this year's team. So, I wouldn't be shocked if we don't hear anything next week during the NLOI period, nor would I be disappointed.

Still need s shooter, to spread the floor.
It's the reason a bullish team like Michigan State didn't win.
Opponents just packed it inside and dared MSU to shoot.
Hearing we're kicking the tires on a post grad big.
This would accomplish two things.
1. Add frontcourt depth and experience.
2. Give us back a scholarship for the rich 2014 class.
A brilliant move, if they can do that.
Also, they're in Florida, supposedly looking at Er from Turkey,
but Isaiah Lewis also plays for that school.

Fantastic article on recruiting and the myth of offers by Adam Finkelstein.

It's an Insider article, but I'll post the link.

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/ncbrecr ... fresh=true

Here's an excerpt:

So what does that really mean? Essentially, it means that while scholarship offers are often perceived to be definitive, more often than not they are anything but.

To better illustrate that point, here are three conversations I’ve had firsthand in recent years:

Conversation No. 1: It was last summer in the final week of the July evaluation period. I was standing next to a high-major college head coach, who asked me for my opinion about a player. I answered the question, but followed up with a question of my own.

“Haven’t you already offered him,” I asked.

“Aw hell, I don’t know,” he responded. “We might have.”

Conversation No. 2: It was two summers ago and there was a prospect whose recruitment had taken off, leading him to essentially pick up new scholarship offers every day. I had a conversation with a high-major assistant coach that went like this:

“What’s the latest with [the player’s] recruitment,” he asked.

“Apparently he has a ton of offers, but supposedly you guys are in there pretty good,” I answered.

“I’m not even sure we can take him,” the coach responded.

“But you just offered, right?” I asked.

“I had to do that just to stay in the mix,” the assistant answered. “[The head coach] doesn’t even know I did.”

Conversation No. 3: Last August, just after the end of the live evaluation period, I got a call from an assistant coach at a school.

“I just read on Twitter that we offered [player 1] and [player 2],” he said.

“You didn’t know?” I asked.

“No, because we didn’t offer,” the coach responded. “We barely know who those guys are. [The AAU coach] called and said we should be on the kids, but that was it. Then we see on Twitter that we supposedly offered them.”

In short, 90% of it is bullshit put out there for three reasons:

1. To keep fans interested during the offseason;
2. To sell subscriptions to websites/newsletters/magazines;
3. To inflate the egos of supposed "in-the-know" recruiting "experts".

Yeah, I keep reading the tweets/posts, etc., and even occasionally drool when an EC Matthews or Hassan Martin is mentioned with URI. But it might be good to keep Finkelstein's words in mind when reading about these offers.

Lots of misdirection in recruiting.
The Er saga is a prime example.
Supposedly a recruit this year came down to us and
another school. Or so we were told by twitter universe.
I was later told by a highly reliable source, that we couldn't take him.
The reason was, we already signed a similar player.
Yet the word on twitter and this board was, the announcement came down
to us and someone else.
Totally false!

Rhody74 wrote:In short, 90% of it is bullshit put out there for three reasons:

1. To keep fans interested during the offseason;
2. To sell subscriptions to websites/newsletters/magazines;
3. To inflate the egos of supposed "in-the-know" recruiting "experts".

Yeah, I keep reading the tweets/posts, etc., and even occasionally drool when an EC Matthews or Hassan Martin is mentioned with URI. But it might be good to keep Finkelstein's words in mind when reading about these offers.

I would say the proliferation of this type of information has more to do with the the players and their assorted associates.


The validity of the professionals' reports on recruiting and players' abilities is a separate issue from this idea of offers.

"The validity of the professionals' reports on recruiting and players' abilities is a separate issue from this idea of offers."

Not all of the time….Look at Alex Kline's nonsense. Everybody-and-his-brother is "per" and Kline is a "professional source." (A well-paid one, at that!) He is nothing more than a culler-extraordinaire!!!!
I will add, however, when he attends games, tournaments, etc., that is valid. He's there. His passion is admirable, but that other stuff is garbage, because he passes it off as "He's the RECRUITING MAN." It's no wonder there's hardly any info about URI on his board/site. This staff has other filters.
Kline's nothing more than HS/AAU basketball's version of "ESPN has learned…." Yeah, from someone else, some other source.
By-the-way: If Kline is at Syracuse as a freshman, blah, blah, blah, why is there so little recruiting news out of Boeheim's office????????

bressler3south wrote:"The validity of the professionals' reports on recruiting and players' abilities is a separate issue from this idea of offers."

Not all of the time….Look at Alex Kline's nonsense. Everybody-and-his-brother is "per" and Kline is a "professional source." (A well-paid one, at that!) He is nothing more than a culler-extraordinaire!!!!
I will add, however, when he attends games, tournaments, etc., that is valid. He's there. His passion is admirable, but that other stuff is garbage, because he passes it off as "He's the RECRUITING MAN." It's no wonder there's hardly any info about URI on his board/site. This staff has other filters.
Kline's nothing more than HS/AAU basketball's version of "ESPN has learned…." Yeah, from someone else, some other source.
By-the-way: If Kline is at Syracuse as a freshman, blah, blah, blah, why is there so little recruiting news out of Boeheim's office????????

I'm not too sure I understand very much of this. I'm talking about two different aspects of recruiting- actually assessing players and reporting on offers/interest. The article addressed the latter. Alex Kline talks to a ton of players and their people directly- that's where his information comes from on offers/interest, and I'm not sure he's ever passed it off as anything but that. I've seen him give credit to others when he hasn't heard it directly. Plus, Kline has used those contacts to put together a nice little tournament to raise money for cancer research in honor of his mother- hard to hate that. He's created a nice little niche for himself in that area and plenty have tried to copy him.

No one is hating anything. The Mary Kline Classic is fantastic, and he has a great following by players. Alex Kline is a remarkable young man.
However, not everything is attributable: "…per a source." What source? Another publication? His own publisher? Sam the Ram???

I will add, however, when he attends games, tournaments, etc., that is valid. He's there. His passion is admirable, but that other stuff is garbage, because he passes it off as "He's the RECRUITING MAN." It's no wonder there's hardly any info about URI on his board/site. This staff has other filters.
Kline's nothing more than HS/AAU basketball's version of "ESPN has learned…." Yeah, from someone else, some other source.
By-the-way: If Kline is at Syracuse as a freshman, blah, blah, blah, why is there so little recruiting news out of Boeheim's office????????
Again, he was given credit for his business-model, attending games, etc., BUT he is what he is, and Boeheim and Company, for example, know what he is…SO, THEY DON'T GIVE HIM ACCESS. Big deal, he's like 10,000 others who have passed through the Newhouse School.

My experience with following Kline is that he gives credit when he can, especially when it's another professional who covers recruiting. Other times, they really can't say who it is, and that's pretty standard for everyone in that game, especially if something comes from a coach.

Kline is just a kid who actually put in the effort to capitalize on a situation that was created by this new internet-media climate. I'm not taking anything away from him, because recognizing niches early and filling them is a talent in its own right. But if he is relevant to the larger discussion of the state of recruiting, it is only as an anecdote.

The issue about "offers" that was raised in the ESPN article is pretty widely understood to be true. In most cases, "offers" are really more of an introduction than an actual "offer" in the dictionary sense. You hear a lot in recruiting circles about offers being "actionable" or "commitable," which is really kind of crazy in a strictly literal sense. But that is the way it goes, everyone involved plays the game and knows the rules.

TruePoint wrote:The issue about "offers" that was raised in the ESPN article is pretty widely understood to be true.

You would think so, but then you talk to enough casual fans, players, and families to realize it really isn't. Two people can be involved in the very same conversation and walk away with different ideas of what happened. You only have to look at lists of reported offers for some players to see the difference in understanding or the truthfulness of claims.