Bear Down Wildcats

Merkin wrote:

TatetheGreat wrote:They've been money so far

Just got word that Jordan Brown will be taking his final official visit to Arizona this weekend! He is also tentatively planning to announce his school on 5/15/18

http://playersprogramu.com/arizona-wild ... /#msg11172" target="_blank

Isn't that the remnants of Ace's old PGU?

Yes

UAEebs86 wrote:Is it just me or does that Bro cartoon look like Joe Arpaio?

It absolutely does

ChooChooCat wrote:It's a shame you guys will never know the name of our backup option lol. Now on to convince Brown the desert is where he needs to be.

Like, never ever?

Jefe wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:It's a shame you guys will never know the name of our backup option lol. Now on to convince Brown the desert is where he needs to be.

Like, never ever?

Hahaha if you really want to know I'll tell you, but you're not missing out at all.

moved

ChooChooCat wrote:Hahaha if you really want to know I'll tell you, but you're not missing out at all.

Ahhh ok. How about posting it up after Brandon has his first 20pt game?

Jefe wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Hahaha if you really want to know I'll tell you, but you're not missing out at all.

Ahhh ok. How about posting it up after Brandon has his first 20pt game?

Done.

So after red blue?

Speaking of which, it's a good thing bw signed, it would have been a little thin out there.
Have we ever had a 4 on 4 red blue game?

Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

So who else are we seriously looking at? Or are we done for the year?

84Cat wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

So who else are we seriously looking at? Or are we done for the year?

I think Miller tries to add one more guy for post depth. I imagine a grad transfer or maybe a JUCO. I don't know for sure, but that's my educated guess.

Thanks Choo! Either way, it has been a nice surprise to see Sean fill the roster like he has. Now let's hope he updates his schemes on both sides of the court. I'm not holding my breath though

Would have been (very) nice but I'm just glad to have Williams at the point guard spot and a solid top 25 class to go along with the talent (if not skill...) returning from last season.

Would have been nice to grab Brown but quite honestly maybe it's a blessing in disguise, hopefully forces us to play smaller at times (depending on the quality of the GT/Juco big we likely end up taking). I think we all would have hated watching a Jeter/Brown frontcourt defensively just as much as Ristic/Ayton this past year.

goslingswagg wrote:Would have been nice to grab Brown but quite honestly maybe it's a blessing in disguise, hopefully forces us to play smaller at times (depending on the quality of the GT/Juco big we likely end up taking). I think we all would have hated watching a Jeter/Brown frontcourt defensively just as much as Ristic/Ayton this past year.

How about a Jeter/Luther frontcourt?

U.P. Zona Fan wrote:So after red blue?

Speaking of which, it's a good thing bw signed, it would have been a little thin out there.
Have we ever had a 4 on 4 red blue game?

Didn't they have managers play one time?

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

Damn! Guys make weird decisions. There's gotta be some deeper connection to Nevada I'm not fully seeing. AZ is the best basketball choice, Cal is the best academic choice, Nevada is the best...um...well, yeah Nevada is also a college with a basketball team.

goslingswagg wrote:Would have been nice to grab Brown but quite honestly maybe it's a blessing in disguise, hopefully forces us to play smaller at times (depending on the quality of the GT/Juco big we likely end up taking). I think we all would have hated watching a Jeter/Brown frontcourt defensively just as much as Ristic/Ayton this past year.

Really? I think Jeter might be an improvement over both Ristic and Ayton.

Beachcat97 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

Damn! Guys make weird decisions. There's gotta be some deeper connection to Nevada I'm not fully seeing. AZ is the best basketball choice, Cal is the best academic choice, Nevada is the best...um...well, yeah Nevada is also a college with a basketball team.

It's driving distance from home. That's all it took.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

goslingswagg wrote:Would have been nice to grab Brown but quite honestly maybe it's a blessing in disguise, hopefully forces us to play smaller at times (depending on the quality of the GT/Juco big we likely end up taking). I think we all would have hated watching a Jeter/Brown frontcourt defensively just as much as Ristic/Ayton this past year.

Really? I think Jeter might be an improvement over both Ristic and Ayton.

He's merely implying that it'd suck to see another lineup with two college centers starting side by side again.

ChooChooCat wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

Damn! Guys make weird decisions. There's gotta be some deeper connection to Nevada I'm not fully seeing. AZ is the best basketball choice, Cal is the best academic choice, Nevada is the best...um...well, yeah Nevada is also a college with a basketball team.

It's driving distance from home. That's all it took.

Berkeley is closer

MrMeow wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

Damn! Guys make weird decisions. There's gotta be some deeper connection to Nevada I'm not fully seeing. AZ is the best basketball choice, Cal is the best academic choice, Nevada is the best...um...well, yeah Nevada is also a college with a basketball team.

It's driving distance from home. That's all it took.

Berkeley is closer

It's closer to home and they field an actually capable basketball program. Sorry I forgot the second part.

ChooChooCat wrote:

MrMeow wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown is announcing his commitment to Nevada tomorrow.

Damn! Guys make weird decisions. There's gotta be some deeper connection to Nevada I'm not fully seeing. AZ is the best basketball choice, Cal is the best academic choice, Nevada is the best...um...well, yeah Nevada is also a college with a basketball team.

It's driving distance from home. That's all it took.

Berkeley is closer

It's closer to home and they field an actually capable basketball program. Sorry I forgot the second part.

And they have a damn good coach.

I know we should never lose any recruiting battles to Nevada, but it's not a horrible decision for this young man.

Alieberman wrote:I know we should never lose any recruiting battles to Nevada, but it's not a horrible decision for this young man.

From a strictly basketball standpoint, I don't see how this makes sense. Brown will now be playing for a relatively low-profile league on a team that may or may not be in the tournament next season. They're losing the twins, aren't they?

Nevertheless, good luck, JB. I hope it works out for you.

ChooChooCat wrote:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

goslingswagg wrote:Would have been nice to grab Brown but quite honestly maybe it's a blessing in disguise, hopefully forces us to play smaller at times (depending on the quality of the GT/Juco big we likely end up taking). I think we all would have hated watching a Jeter/Brown frontcourt defensively just as much as Ristic/Ayton this past year.

Really? I think Jeter might be an improvement over both Ristic and Ayton.

He's merely implying that it'd suck to see another lineup with two college centers starting side by side again.

Exactly right. I have no idea how good Luther is going to be defensively but at least he’s a natural 4. Luther had pretty solid defensive stats last year although it was a small sample size.

But but but...Maui

Going to Nevada is a great Decision

Signed
Ivan Rabb

Beachcat97 wrote:

Alieberman wrote:I know we should never lose any recruiting battles to Nevada, but it's not a horrible decision for this young man.

From a strictly basketball standpoint, I don't see how this makes sense. Brown will now be playing for a relatively low-profile league on a team that may or may not be in the tournament next season. They're losing the twins, aren't they?

Nevertheless, good luck, JB. I hope it works out for you.

Yes, they're almost certainly losing Caleb Martin and his twin Cody will likely follow suit (they went to NCST together, then on to Nevada together, they'll likely go pro together).

Caleb was conf POY, Cody conf DPOY. Together they accounted for 40% of the team's points, blocks, assists, and rebounds.

Between Caleb and graduating seniors Halice Cooke and Kendall Stephens - they're losing all of their three point shooting (besides their point guard who went out in mid-Feb with a ruptured Achilles aka the worst injury in basketball... TBD on how he returns to form - I'll assume in the below that like every player before him, he doesn't).

So from the impact players of this past season the Wolfpack lose their wing, their back-up wing, their point guard, their DPOY winning wing, their POY winning forward/wing... and maybe return their center who is still declared for the draft without an agent. Oh also their back-up center is gone to graduation too.

If Caroline returns, they've got about a third of their production returning.

Their incoming players are a collection of grad transfers and transfers coming off of redshirt seasons at Nevada. They include grad transfer guard Ehab Amin from Texas A&M Corpus Christi (the worst of the 535 Texas schools), Wagner College transfer guard Corey Henson (that's a D-I school, I checked), Portland transfer guard Jazz Johnson (good shooter but is legally a midget), Arkansas transfer guard Jalen Harris (previously the 325th ranked recruit of the 2017 class), Old Dominion grad transfer big man Trey Porter (his '17-18 was good, but not "make third team all Conference USA" good... so not actually good), and Nevada-Omaha transfer big man Tre'Shawn Thurman (I'm tired of describing mediocre players).

They've got two three star freshmen committed and then Jordan Brown, the two time USA Basketball gold medalist and five star recruit. Let me know if something in there stands-out as not like the others.

This team is going to look nothing like the one that made the second weekend last year unless the Martin twins miraculously return - in which case they'll need to dump a scholarship player to make room.

Get em YDF! Get em!!

ChooChooCat wrote:Get em YDF! Get em!!

Fuck a Wolfpack.

Brown to Nevada is official.

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown to Nevada is official.

I never understood why he had a school on his list that he never visited, but I guess there had to be some drama in the process.

I wonder if Miller keeps one of the unclaimed scholarships open rather than occupying it with whatever retreads and scraps are left out in the tranfer market. The other scholarship probably goes to a big who will be a practice body and contribute five fouls per game.

az91 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown to Nevada is official.

I never understood why he had a school on his list that he never visited, but I guess there had to be some drama in the process.

I wonder if Miller keeps one of the unclaimed scholarships open rather than occupying it with whatever retreads and scraps are left out in the tranfer market. The other scholarship probably goes to a big who will be a practice body and contribute five fouls per game.

I'd rather he keep the scholarships open and apply them to better players in the coming years. I suppose a grad transfer big would be fine in that it wouldn't tie us up for the future.

Point being: given that this is a low year for Arizona recruiting and given that next year we only have two scholarship opening (barring transfers or draft entrants), let's save the two we have in order to fill the cupboard with higher quality talent rather than with the leftovers of the 2018 class.

YoDeFoe wrote:

az91 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:Brown to Nevada is official.

I never understood why he had a school on his list that he never visited, but I guess there had to be some drama in the process.

I wonder if Miller keeps one of the unclaimed scholarships open rather than occupying it with whatever retreads and scraps are left out in the tranfer market. The other scholarship probably goes to a big who will be a practice body and contribute five fouls per game.

I'd rather he keep the scholarships open and apply them to better players in the coming years. I suppose a grad transfer big would be fine in that it wouldn't tie us up for the future.

Point being: given that this is a low year for Arizona recruiting and given that next year we only have two scholarship opening (barring transfers or draft entrants), let's save the two we have in order to fill the cupboard with higher quality talent rather than with the leftovers of the 2018 class.

I'm of that opinion too. Miller's given leftover scholies to walk-ons before, so it wouldn't be a new thing either.

Seriously, scholies are for only 1 year anyway, so give it to a deserving walk on who could use the financial aid.

Very common practice going back years, Lute used to do it too.

So are we done with this class? If so, let's see a good depth chart and a guess at a staring 5.

I'd expect Arizona to keep its options open namely for a grad transfer.

The fact we were even in the running for him this last after everything the past year is enough for me. No more FED sweeps and I fully expect a top 7-8 class in 19

ChooChooCat wrote:I'd expect Arizona to keep its options open namely for a grad transfer.

If we could get someone for post depth as a grad transfer, that would be nice.

Just out of curiosity, anyone know off hand where Nova’s last 3 or 4 recruiting classes were ranked? I don’t seem to recall them having any top 5 classes (even top 10) and they’ve got two titles. More and more I’m wondering if the UK/Duke approach to recruiting (ie: get as many 5-stars as possible, regardless of how they fit a coach’s program) only gets you so far. Wright is obviously a terrific in-game coach, but it also seems like he’s figured something out with his roster management.

Beachcat97 wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone know off hand where Nova’s last 3 or 4 recruiting classes were ranked? I don’t seem to recall them having any top 5 classes (even top 10) and they’ve got two titles. More and more I’m wondering if the UK/Duke approach to recruiting (ie: get as many 5-stars as possible, regardless of how they fit a coach’s program) only gets you so far. Wright is obviously a terrific in-game coach, but it also seems like he’s figured something out with his roster management.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Baske ... amRankings" target="_blank

You can toggle year to year on the left.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone know off hand where Nova’s last 3 or 4 recruiting classes were ranked? I don’t seem to recall them having any top 5 classes (even top 10) and they’ve got two titles. More and more I’m wondering if the UK/Duke approach to recruiting (ie: get as many 5-stars as possible, regardless of how they fit a coach’s program) only gets you so far. Wright is obviously a terrific in-game coach, but it also seems like he’s figured something out with his roster management.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Baske ... amRankings" target="_blank

You can toggle year to year on the left.

So by the look of things, Nova has *never* had a top 10 class. Amazing.

All American PG + NBA small forward + secondary ball handler + shooters.

Play team defense and you've got a Final Four team.

I'm sure there are other ways but that's my favorite. Seems to be the favorite in the NBA.

Brandon Williams + Emman Akot + Coleman + Randolph/Luther/Smith/Barcello?/DD?/OT?

Beachcat97 wrote:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone know off hand where Nova’s last 3 or 4 recruiting classes were ranked? I don’t seem to recall them having any top 5 classes (even top 10) and they’ve got two titles. More and more I’m wondering if the UK/Duke approach to recruiting (ie: get as many 5-stars as possible, regardless of how they fit a coach’s program) only gets you so far. Wright is obviously a terrific in-game coach, but it also seems like he’s figured something out with his roster management.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Baske ... amRankings" target="_blank

You can toggle year to year on the left.

So by the look of things, Nova has *never* had a top 10 class. Amazing.

But they also usually had small classes (2-3 guys) which inherently keeps their class ranking lower. Their average player rating is still pretty good (the Avg column).

DrWildcat wrote:
But they also usually had small classes (2-3 guys) which inherently keeps their class ranking lower. Their average player rating is still pretty good (the Avg column).

Big contributors:

Spellman, 5*
DiVincenzo, 4*
Brunson, 5*
Booth, 4*
Bridges, 4*
Jenkins, 4*
Hart, 4*
Ochefu, 4*
Arcidiacono, 4*

Only one of those dudes (DiVincenzo) were outside the top 100.

The 2009 class was 4th ranked in the country with three five star players (Final Four year). 2007 had two five stars. 2006's Scottie Reynolds was a McD's AA.

He just has smaller classes with dude's staying longer... no lack of talent, just longer periods to develop. I don't know what he's doing to convince dudes to stay home with him. Maybe just not over-recruiting... giving dudes room to fail on the court and to grow on the court. Can't go to the NBA if you're not an NBA product in your first two years, out there showing your weaknesses. Hide a guy like Grant Jerrett or Kobi Simmons, recruit over them so they feel they have to split... maybe that's the recipe for turnover.

DrWildcat wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Just out of curiosity, anyone know off hand where Nova’s last 3 or 4 recruiting classes were ranked? I don’t seem to recall them having any top 5 classes (even top 10) and they’ve got two titles. More and more I’m wondering if the UK/Duke approach to recruiting (ie: get as many 5-stars as possible, regardless of how they fit a coach’s program) only gets you so far. Wright is obviously a terrific in-game coach, but it also seems like he’s figured something out with his roster management.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Baske ... amRankings" target="_blank

You can toggle year to year on the left.

So by the look of things, Nova has *never* had a top 10 class. Amazing.

But they also usually had small classes (2-3 guys) which inherently keeps their class ranking lower. Their average player rating is still pretty good (the Avg column).

This. They basically only get 4 and 5 stars, but they rank lower because they've had smaller classes. Nova's recruiting is legit, and Wright can afford smaller classes because he hasn't had a lot of early exits.

It’s just interesting that while Wright racks up titles, K and Calipari are all in on their NY Yankees model: get as much talent as you can and hope for the best.

That recruiting class ranking database is terrific. It’s remarkable how few FF trips there’ve been among teams ranked consistently in the top 10.

Beachcat97 wrote:It’s just interesting that while Wright racks up titles, K and Calipari are all in on their NY Yankees model: get as much talent as you can and hope for the best.

That recruiting class ranking database is terrific. It’s remarkable how few FF trips there’ve been among teams ranked consistently in the top 10.

And while the sports media loves to fawn over Coach K, he ultimately sold out. He won titles without Kentucky-style recruiting. What changed? Did Coach K's ego not like all the Calipari's press? Did Coach K decide to try to take the easy path to winning and simply stock up with 5-stars instead of player development?

I still find it very interesting that no one in the sports media questions how all of these 5-star players, many who are not known as being strong academics (there are exceptions), continue to qualify for Duke, perhaps one of the top ten academic institutions in the country. Coach K could have gotten Brandon Jennings into school.

midnightx wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:It’s just interesting that while Wright racks up titles, K and Calipari are all in on their NY Yankees model: get as much talent as you can and hope for the best.

That recruiting class ranking database is terrific. It’s remarkable how few FF trips there’ve been among teams ranked consistently in the top 10.

And while the sports media loves to fawn over Coach K, he ultimately sold out. He won titles without Kentucky-style recruiting. What changed? Did Coach K's ego not like all the Calipari's press? Did Coach K decide to try to take the easy path to winning and simply stock up with 5-stars instead of player development?

I still find it very interesting that no one in the sports media questions how all of these 5-star players, many who are not known as being strong academics (there are exceptions), continue to qualify for Duke, perhaps one of the top ten academic institutions in the country. Coach K could have gotten Brandon Jennings into school.

Can’t private schools let in whoever the hell they want?