Officially committed to the University Of Michigan to play basketball!! #GoBlue
— Jon Teske (@JonTeske) August 7, 2014
Huge pickup for us. Top Center prospect on our board, should have been a long drawn out battle with OSU.
It still can be considering this is a 2016 kid. No one should get too excited about commitments from kids that are 2.5 years away from signing a letter of intent.
but has Beilein ever had someone decommit from him while at Michigan? I don't think he has
when he initially came on board all 3 4*/5* guys decommitted. manny harris ended up re-committing; the other two did not.
somewhat related, the epke udoh transfer slowed down the winning trajectory. we may have had an ealier deep tourny run had he stayed.
Who were the other guys who never recommitted? I didn't follow basketball back then
So even with that, no one who has committed to Beilein has decommitted in 5+ years
August 7th, 2014 at 10:36 PM ^
August 7th, 2014 at 10:58 PM ^
One I believe was Alex Legion. Not sure of the other..
August 7th, 2014 at 11:56 PM ^
There wasn't another one. The other Amaker commit/signee Beilein inherited was Kelvin Grady. I may be wrong, but I don't remember him ever decommitting. He may have made an announcement reaffirming his commitment to Michigan at some point after Beilein was hired.
a few days after Belilein was hired. That was his second decommitment to Michigan. His first was a year earlier. It's hard to remember all the changes he made. He even tried to transfer here during his first season at Kentucky.
It's best to just try to forget the entire Alex Legion saga. Which I had done given that I forgot to mention him in my post about Manny Harris below.
One late thought I had on Beilein and decommitments: One by-product of his recruiting method is that it makes a decommitment much less likely (but not impossible). Not making early offers, insisting that a player come to Ann Arbor for a full unofficial visit before extending an offer, involving players on the team in the vetting process—all ends up with players making strong commitments to Michigan.
August 10th, 2014 at 3:35 PM ^
MgoChippewa posted an excellent summary of Alex Legion's basketball career a few months ago:
http://mgoblog.com/diaries/alex-legion-what-could-have-been-and-what
Teske can sign in November 2015, so it's 14 months from now.
Regarding Michigan decommits, I'm pretty sure the only one since Beilein was hired was Manny Harris, which doesn't really count given that he originally committed to Amaker. As I recall, he recommitted less than a week later.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
Please tell me Derek isn't the son of Lawrence Funderburk (who played for OSU)? If he is, well...damn, I am really getting old.
Highlight video:
Welcome Jon!
(start at 21 seconds for basketballs)
Yes please! Welcome Jon!
ben cronin? actually, he could have helped a lot in the early beilein years here. too bad. that's why it's good to be able to fall back on a good degree.
Sadly it was not to be. Or should I say, sadly it was not to bee.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:23 PM ^
(I really don't know)
Anyone committing is a big deal -- jeeze
But an 11W article says he was 6-11 without shoes. A legit 7 footer who's current best attribute is "game changer on defense" is a nice addition as far as I'm concerned. Also one less scholarship to scramble to fill with a Plan B or C prospect down the line. Michigan staff got their plan A big man in 2016 with this commit.
He's a bit skinny, but plenty of time to add weight to his frame. Also, according to UM Hoops, he missed most of the spring AAU circuit with a broken finger, so not many recent evals. Outlook is that he should rise pretty significantly once he's fully healthy and scouts have a chance to see him regularly.
I don't known about top 50, but he's already on the rise:
Per @BSnowScout @JonTeske to be elevated to 4 stars in Scout's rankings update and that was already scheduled BEFORE his #Michigan commit
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) August 8, 2014
Admittedly top 50 was a bit bullish, but I was caught up in the excitement of the commit. However, I'll eat a lemon if someone Belein offered this early isn't top 100 by the time he gets on campus.
With the recent clarification to the block/charge rule that makes it more difficult to draw offensive fouls it is important to have a tall rim protector. Michigan has relied a lot on undersized Novak/Morgan types to draw charges so I would say that adding a 7ft shotblocker is a pretty big deal with the way college basketball rules are headed.
Pretty solid add I expect him to end up a high 4 star commit.
He was measured at 6'11" without shoes, that translates nowadays to listing him at 7'. The recruiting sites still have him listed as low as 6'9". Hopefully he keeps growing for awhile.
This may the most glorious gif ive sen in a while
August 7th, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
Commitments come in 3's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can never have enough 7 footers on the team.
Shawn Bradley!
Am I doing this right?