Quack

[Max_Power]

Brown chooses to play in Eugene over Rosemont.

So lets put a realistic spin on this instead of laying into our coaches. You are trying to get a kid to be a back up in a craptastic stadium with zero practice facilities versus playing for a team you can start for with awesome facilities.

I just want to add one thing I think people are not getting at this juncture in the development of NU Hoops. The players that NU is recruiting, for the most part, probably consider NU's academic reputation to be at best a plus one but likely a wash in their decision making process. These kids are looking at how the coaches develop talent to see if the can support the dream play professionally. Selling the NU degree to a top 100 hoops player is not gonna be a game changer because there are lots of comparable degrees at solid schools and I think this board continually overvalues NU as it relates to recruits. In fact, if anything, I think the academics may scare some kids away when they see similar opportunities at other schools with less academic work.

What are the things that count: No. 1 - Chris Collins and his staff. No. 2 - Minutes. No. 3 - Facilities to develop as a player. No. 4 - time on TV and media opportunities (I would think the few weeks when NU was truly Chicago's team with full page covers on the Chicago Tribune would be a good selling point). But for any 2017 player, like Smith or Brown, NU was always a stretch. These guys are looking for minutes and facilities and for guy like Brown and even Smith, we offered neither for the coming season.

Best of luck Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, we hardly knew you!

 

[NJCat]

Brown chooses to play in Eugene over Rosemont.

So lets put a realistic spin on this instead of laying into our coaches. You are trying to get a kid to be a back up in a craptastic stadium with zero practice facilities versus playing for a team you can start for with awesome facilities.

I just want to add one thing I think people are not getting at this juncture in the development of NU Hoops. The players that NU is recruiting, for the most part, probably consider NU's academic reputation to be at best a plus one but likely a wash in their decision making process. These kids are looking at how the coaches develop talent to see if the can support the dream play professionally. Selling the NU degree to a top 100 hoops player is not gonna be a game changer because there are lots of comparable degrees at solid schools and I think this board continually overvalues NU as it relates to recruits. In fact, if anything, I think the academics may scare some kids away when they see similar opportunities at other schools with less academic work.

What are the things that count: No. 1 - Chris Collins and his staff. No. 2 - Minutes. No. 3 - Facilities to develop as a player. No. 4 - time on TV and media opportunities (I would think the few weeks when NU was truly Chicago's team with full page covers on the Chicago Tribune would be a good selling point). But for any 2017 player, like Smith or Brown, NU was always a stretch. These guys are looking for minutes and facilities and for guy like Brown and even Smith, we offered neither for the coming season.

Best of luck Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, we hardly knew you!

Probably true for 2017. Playing at the Horizon will suck. And anyone looking for starter minutes will be disappointed, NU's starters are likely set with BMac/Scottie/Vic/Dererk and likely Falzon. At best, NU is probably likely to land a 5th year back-up, which wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

 

[Sec.112]

... In fact, if anything, I think the academics may scare some kids away when they see similar opportunities at other schools with less academic work ...

The other item I think you're omitting is there's still - and always will be - academic restrictions that limit the talent pool available to NU. Even if the academic reigns have been loosened as some conspiracy theorists believe, probably 20-25% of the top 100 is available to NU ... at best. Like Nojel Eastern, I'm sure there are more than a few cases where recruiting begins, but then academic reality sets in.

If I understand your direction and you're saying expectations about recruiting need to settle down a bit, I don't totally disagree. This is still very much an evolutionary process in its early stages. This staff still has a lot to prove when your talking about recruiting battles against programs even as "low" on the totem pole as Mike Brey, Greg Gard, Matt Painter and and John Beilein (off the top of my head) - much less the usual big dogs. But they are off to an awfully good start with some concrete accomplishments that have never been available to an NU coach in the living room discussion.

As for Brown specifically, let's also not undervalue the difficulty of recruiting against a Final Four team - one returning three of its top seven players in minutes. They also add Tavaras' friend, Paul White next year.

Three players declaring for the NBA draft must have been mentioned somewhere after Phil Knight's name few times also.

 

[JournCat]

If I understand your direction and you're saying expectations about recruiting need to settle down a bit, I don't totally disagree. This is still very much an evolutionary process in its early stages. This staff still has a lot to prove when your talking about recruiting battles against programs even as "low" on the totem pole as Mike Brey, Greg Gard, Matt Painter and and John Beilein (off the top of my head) - much less the usual big dogs. But they are off to an awfully good start with some concrete accomplishments that have never been available to an NU coach in the living room discussion.

This is a reasonable and accurate take. Collins does a solid job of identifying good, realistic targets and pursuing them. I'm not disappointed we lost out on Brown, given that he was looking at bench minutes for one season in the Horizon. Getting a player like Cormac Ryan -- and beating some of the guys you mentioned -- is much more of a benchmark.

 

[Medill90]

Whose minutes was he going to take? Scottie's...Isiah's....Vic's? NU didn't lose a guard this graduating class. I'd rather see Isiah Brown get the minutes.

If you're concerned about next year because he didn't choose the Cats then I refer you to Kelly_32's post within hours of it coming out that NU was in the hunt.

Best of luck to the young man, but NU will fine on offense without him.

 

[NUCat320]

No. 4 - time on TV and media opportunities (I would think the few weeks when NU was truly Chicago's team with full page covers on the Chicago Tribune would be a good selling point).

Definitely newspaper coverage is top of mind for someone in their teens.

(I'm just being a jerk, Max. I think your point is good - at the level we want to attain, we certainly strive to make "long term value of a degree" a smaller part of the overall NU package of benefits. There was a time we had to sell it - in the future, the hope is that the academic simply allows NU to focus on the *right* top 100 recruits.)