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2019 Men's Basketball Recruiting Thread


Tiger Growlin

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On 2/12/2019 at 6:08 PM, AU64 said:

JMO…..but he doesn't even need to be a scorer.....need rebounding and some put backs…..and play some defense.  Our opponents seem to find these guys and when

AW signed with AU, nobody thought he would still be here.   All the talk was 5* and "one and done"..   If the various problems had not arisen, he probably would have been gone well before now. 

Well as far as that I would say just use the same logic you use when explaining depth at QB, wr, and o line in football. I think it works here in basketball as well

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2 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Well as far as that I would say just use the same logic you use when explaining depth at QB, wr, and o line in football. I think it works here in basketball as well

Very true but I think in basketball, because of the small number of players on the court at any time, a serious weakness is much more exploitable...and perhaps more easily repaired with the right person coming in to shore things up. 

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24 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Very true but I think in basketball, because of the small number of players on the court at any time, a serious weakness is much more exploitable...and perhaps more easily repaired with the right person coming in to shore things up. 

ABSOLUTELY. But the down side is when you lose players the damage is much more impactful as well. We lost our best scorer and leader, our tough intangible guy, and back up PG and best defender and for whatever reason most thought that wasn't a big deal

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1 hour ago, cole256 said:

whatever reason most thought that wasn't a big deal

Not sure many people thought it was "no big deal"....but what was done was done... and no point griping about it;       

In football we lost KJ ….who IMO made a huge difference in our offense....but did not see people moaning all season about "if we had not lost KJ., etc. etc. ".     Instead,  we just blamed the HC for the lousy offense and for not having an equivalent replacement(s) ready. 

 

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17 hours ago, AU64 said:

I recall Montgomery... but I don't give that recruitment any credit if you read a little about it.     He was committed 6 days...or maybe seven before bailing out the same day Chuck Person incident was made public.   We don't know what the story was but strikes me as questionable ....guess he was brought in by Chuck and / or maybe the family was contacted by the FBI ….who knows....but that's it.   He was listed at a bit over 200 pounds and is not a "banger" and has had modest playing time at UK.      

Would have been nice to have him but JMO, once UK and Duke got more interested he was likely gone anyway...picked UK over duke and UNC. .   

SO....we have AW and no backup for him last two seasons, this year or in next year's class.    BP does not have much of a history with big inside men and could be that hurts in trying to get a top guy.....so probably we need to get a couple less stellar recruits and develop them over a couple years...maybe some foreign players or whatever works...JMO

No. EJ Montgomery was committed for over a full year. Not 6 days.

Maybe he would've chosen a blue blood down the road. Maybe he would've kept his commitment. There were some other weird things happening within the AU athletic department, independent of Bruce, that may have turned him away from AU. But his sister was a guard at AU. It's not like he had no prior connection to AU. He decommitted when Person's scandal came to light not when the blue bloods started calling.

No backup for Wiley the past 2 seasons? Your favorite player (your words) is the backup center. So you either like Mac the most on our team or you don't think he's an adequate backup 5 even though he was the glue that held our SEC Championship team together. Mac is a fantastic backup 5 and we will get back to seeing him be that guy once he's 100% healthy. Also Babatunde Akingbola (6'8, can run, impressive wingspan) is going to be our next Horace Spencer.

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1 hour ago, AU64 said:

Not sure many people thought it was "no big deal"....but what was done was done... and no point griping about it;       

The expectations, yours included, were absolutely the product of people not thinking those losses would be a big deal. Nobody is griping about, we are just pointing to those key factors as being reasons our team is  not as strong as last year.

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1 hour ago, AU64 said:

Not sure many people thought it was "no big deal"....but what was done was done... and no point griping about it;       

In football we lost KJ ….who IMO made a huge difference in our offense....but did not see people moaning all season about "if we had not lost KJ., etc. etc. ".     Instead,  we just blamed the HC for the lousy offense and for not having an equivalent replacement(s) ready. 

 

You NEVER will agree with stuff like that. Because that would mean you would have to come to the conclusion hey Oracle you was right, instead you'll play forget and wait for somebody else to say it then you'll remember. While people were saying he wouldn't be missed you was right there in the thread and you read it like everybody else and you didn't say a thing but now you don't remember it of course.

 

And you have absolutely brought up lack of depth, or injuries, or whatever else was needed as long as it wasn't placing blame on Gus.....so really the conclusion to come to is depends on how you like the coach or not

Believe it or not people see what you're doing even in the last few posts of this thread.....people may be a little smarter than you think. How did you just quote that one sentence in my quote and then make that up? If you say smaller numbers so easily repaired with one person then how can you argue that a loss hurts even more? 

Edited by cole256
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8 minutes ago, Tiger said:

The expectations, yours included, were absolutely the product of people not thinking those losses would be a big deal. Nobody is griping about, we are just pointing to those key factors as being reasons our team is  not as strong as last year.

That's how i saw it too. I read so many posts, consistently that most of our fans thought we would be better b/c we got WIley and Purifoy back (who were expected to be starters), and w/ transfer Doughty and Okeke getting better in his soph year that we were poised to be even better than last year.

There were complaints last year how Murray didn't play well down the stretch bc his height hurt him finally against the better teams. The only player most didn't like losing was Heron b/c they knew what he brought, and then having a solid backup PG, and the only concern there was we had not recruited a quality one until we finally signed the PG JUCO McCormick.

I think Murray's solid rebounding stats, Heron's 5-6 boards a game and muscle didn't get replaced due to Wiley being hurt most of the year so far. McLemore and Spencer simply do not take up space or muscle in the interior, therefore our offensive rebounding has really suffered.

HArper is tired, and the minutes that McCormick gives, while helpful, his D is not as good as Mitchell's. 

And we are simply not consistently good enough this year, as we have lost games for different reasons it seems. 

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2 minutes ago, steeleagle said:

That's how i saw it too. I read so many posts, consistently that most of our fans thought we would be better b/c we got WIley and Purifoy back (who were expected to be starters), and w/ transfer Doughty and Okeke getting better in his soph year that we were poised to be even better than last year.

On paper it felt like it could/should work. But in reality the less obvious things that each departed guy did just never got replaced. All 3 had unique roles that are very hard to replace on such short notice. Bruce was not given the opportunity to plan for that. Our PG situation was supposed to be set until 2021, for example. And the guys we thought we'd get big time production from haven't lived up to what we hoped for. Wiley because of injury. Stats be damned he's such an important piece for us. And Danjel has taken longer than we'd have hoped to find his game again.

3 minutes ago, steeleagle said:

There were complaints last year how Murray didn't play well down the stretch bc his height hurt him finally against the better teams. The only player most didn't like losing was Heron b/c they knew what he brought, and then having a solid backup PG, and the only concern there was we had not recruited a quality one until we finally signed the PG JUCO McCormick.

Yup. Mitchell's transfer really screwed us. Bruce thought he had his next PG in Davion and didn't need to recruit another PG until this coming class. So we had to settle on J'Von. Key word settle IMO.

4 minutes ago, steeleagle said:

I think Murray's solid rebounding stats, Heron's 5-6 boards a game and muscle didn't get replaced due to Wiley being hurt most of the year so far. McLemore and Spencer simply do not take up space or muscle in the interior, therefore our offensive rebounding has really suffered.

Agree completely. And Murray was never trying to make weakside blocks taking himself out of rebounding position. He worked well with Mac and Horace who are aggressive shot blockers.

5 minutes ago, steeleagle said:

HArper is tired, and the minutes that McCormick gives, while helpful, his D is not as good as Mitchell's. 

And we are simply not consistently good enough this year, as we have lost games for different reasons it seems. 

Respectfully disagree on this first point. JMO but McCormick has had 3-4 good games but the rest of the time he's hurting us significantly more than helping us. Bruce doesn't even trust him enough to leave him on the floor without Harper. And when he does everything falls apart. I actually wouldn't be surprised if J'Von is not on the team next year. Completely agree on your 2nd point though. It has been challenging for all parts of this team to play winning basketball at the same time this season.

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4 hours ago, Tiger said:

The expectations, yours included, were absolutely the product of people not thinking those losses would be a big deal. Nobody is griping about, we are just pointing to those key factors as being reasons our team is  not as strong as last year.

Try to make a point somebody that doesn't agree always try that tactic......I don't remember or I don't think anybody thoughtsuch and such.....

 

Like really......why didn't you offer this opinion when you saw 3 people arguing with me at once about it then....

Edited by cole256
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And then to top it off the guy that was the loudest saying the stuff dislikes my post.....can't make this up. 

I get it now just say stuff then later pretend it was never said

Edited by cole256
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On 2/15/2019 at 8:12 AM, cole256 said:

ABSOLUTELY. But the down side is when you lose players the damage is much more impactful as well. We lost our best scorer and leader, our tough intangible guy, and back up PG and best defender and for whatever reason most thought that wasn't a big deal

Cole is right. I am one of the ones who thought we could handle the losses better than we did. I thought Chuma's improvement from year to year would make up for the loss of Desean Murray especially with Wiley coming back so we would have three players who could play 4  Chuma, Mac, Spencer. and 2 who could play 5 Mac and Wiley. I thought the combination of Purifoy returning. Dunbar and Doughty who we heard so many good things about when he red shirted would balance out Heron.  I was worried about Davion Mitchell the most but we had McCormac coming in.  

What I didn't expect was Purifoy takng this long to start being the player I thought he could be,  I expected more from Wiley (Injuries changed that) , Mac is still not the MAC from last year he shows signs at times, Doughty is not what I was expecting and McCormac is an enigma as I have seen him play well at times against good teams and at other times he plays like he doesn't have a clue.    I  remember last year when Heron was out and we started Dunbar and he had a monster game, I expected more of that and Purifoy at the three. I also expected to see Samir as a backup PG as it was mentioned last year that he done that on the scout team. 

One of the few times I have disagreed with Cole regarding basketball and I was proven wrong. Unlike some on this board I will own up to when I was wrong.

 

Edited by AuburnNTexas
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I am glad we are in Greg Brown's list but pulling a player from Austin, Tx. is an uphill battle. 

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18 hours ago, Gene Loblaw said:

First I’ve heard of AU for that kid. But always good to be included in those elite dude’s lists. 

Well if you didn't know then it's not real

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Honestly, I'm just happy that we are being included in some of these elite prospects' final lists.

We are Auburn. This is totally foreign territory for us. Incredible actually. Who knows if we eventually pull one of these kids but just being included and considered is fantastic for the program and will only continue to raise the floor of the caliber of kids Bruce will bring in here.

Edited by Tiger
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On 2/3/2019 at 1:09 PM, twilli13 said:

Not sure if anyone mentioned yet, but before the FBI crap last year, Pearl had EJ Montgomery committed...6' 10" power forward ranked #9 overall in 247. That was a big recruiting loss for us. Had we had him and Wiley available at the same time, we could more effectively change to big ball when needed. Plus another huge defensive presence. 

Also lost Ashton Hagans too. He was silently committed til then. Would have been nice to have him help Harper.

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Sounds like 5* 2020 PG Sharife Cooper is trying to reclassify to the 2019 class. Last I heard AU was still in a good spot. Not sure if that's still the case as UK has ramped things up with him. He is visit UK Saturday for the AU game. He has been to AU a number of times also FWIW.

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14 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Sounds like 5* 2020 PG Sharife Cooper is trying to reclassify to the 2019 class. Last I heard AU was still in a good spot. Not sure if that's still the case as UK has ramped things up with him. He is visit UK Saturday for the AU game. He has been to AU a number of times also FWIW.

He was celebrated at his HS for senior day so I think it’s a given that he’s reclassifying. I think a lot of it comes down to whether Hagans at UK or Harper declares. I personally still think he comes to AU regardless. Everything I read suggests that he’s been best buds with Okoro for a long time and they want to continue to play together 

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35 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Also lost Ashton Hagans too. He was silently committed til then. Would have been nice to have him help Harper.

I didn't know that. Man we have really flirted with greatness...what if we had him and kept Mitchell? That would possibly be the best defensive backcourt in basketball

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30 minutes ago, Gene Loblaw said:

He was celebrated at his HS for senior day so I think it’s a given that he’s reclassifying. I think a lot of it comes down to whether Hagans at UK or Harper declares. I personally still think he comes to AU regardless. Everything I read suggests that he’s been best buds with Okoro for a long time and they want to continue to play together 

That would be awesome. 

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53 minutes ago, Gene Loblaw said:

I think it’s a given that he’s reclassifying.

Not a given yet per people close to the program I heard from today. That's why I said trying. I think he went through the ceremony in case he gets it done. Would suck for him to make it & not have a day to celebrate his high school career.

 

Edited by ellitor
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20 minutes ago, Gene Loblaw said:

Was having one of my private weekly round tables with the Rivals b-ball crootin staff, and they told me to not get my hopes up at all with Walker Kessler

Hopefully thats not too big of a surprise for anyone

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