Could the Harris / basketball rumors have any truth to them?

Submitted by trueblue262 on

I know it was discussed a bit last week in this thread 

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/drake-harris-play-bball

But I ran across an article in the Daily with interviews with Charlton and Harris, whom were both highly sought after basketball prospects as well.

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/football/drake-harris-taco-charlt…

I mean, can you imagine this happening? Both of them could be contributers on this team that obviously is dealing with some major roster issues.

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Double-D

December 11th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^

There as no way Drake Harris puts up any minutes in the MBB rotation. He is an athletic but unrefined basketball player. Football is by far his best sport with the greatest upside potential. He needs to live in the dining hall and the weight room. He has NFL type WR skills.

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Flying Dutchman

December 11th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^

Double-D's assessment is very very accurate.  I'm probably one of a handful of us that has had the chance to see him play both sports.

In basketball, he was just so much of a better athlete than everybody else, that the game looked easy for him.   An experienced watcher of hoops would tell you he made shots, but wasn't a great shooter, handled the ball, but wasn't a great ballhandler.   He just dominated the competition by being a tremendous athlete.

Football, however, you could really see skills.   Highpointing the ball, for instance.   Amazing hands snaring the ball about 10 feet off the ground.   Wow.   We will see this yet in the Maize n' Blue.  It's still early.

He would be well behind Rahkman, for instance, in basketball.   No way he takes a minute away from Duncan Robinson or someone with a specialty.

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rc15

December 11th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^

If they both joined the team, would they each take a half a scholarship from basketball that Bielfeldt left vacant and open up another scholarship for the football team? I thought I heard once that if a student plays two sports they take half a scholarship from each



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julesh

December 11th, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^

That's not accurate. It may be true with other sports, but if you play football, that's the only scholarship that counts. Any other sport you play doesn't count against their scholarships. And if you play basketball but not football, the scholarship only counts against basketball.

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Mr Miggle

December 11th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^

Kansas does stll care about football and the coach would have to be okay with giving up scholarships.

They know the NCAA would quickly change the rule if they tried a stunt like that.

Having an oversized roster has its drawbacks.

Kansas does quite well as it is in basketball. Moves like that carry more risk than reward.

 

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Maize_Nation

December 11th, 2015 at 12:24 PM ^

Also, very few players would want to do that. It's not like they could claim a FB scholarship and then not participate with the football team in practice. Who would want to put in all those extra hours rather than just go play basketball somewhere else?

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TrueBlue2003

December 11th, 2015 at 2:34 PM ^

this. Why would anyone want to be the 11th, 20th, 26th guy on a basketball team that inevitably will only have an 8 or 9 man rotation, while making the HUGE time commitment of playing football and basketball just to never see the court/field in either sport?  If a player was any good at all, they'd go somewhere else to be a top 8 guy and only have to play one sport.

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Wolfman

December 11th, 2015 at 4:53 PM ^

but Art Schlitcher of OSU did this. He became their AA qb and also, for one season, became their 8th, possibly 9th man in bb. He had a hell of an outside shot and played the game quite well. There was neve any doubt as to what he did best, but as so often is the case he succumbed to a vice. In his particualr situation, it was gambling, but hell of a talent.

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03 Blue 07

December 11th, 2015 at 11:26 AM ^

The actual reason is because in basketball, like in football, there are restrictions on the number of athletic scholarships a team can issue. So, in your scenario: 1) the basketball team couldn't even issue 30 scholarships; 2) if they did just use their basketball schollies on football players, the basketball team would be less successful than if they, you know, used their scholarships on guys who were elite basketball players; 3) the scholarships would still count toward football (I think) because they are scholarship athletes playing football.

(Note: this is in reply to the commenter above, Kevin Holt, who asked why KU wouldn't just issue 30 bball schollies and have 20 of those guys play football)

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ericcarbs

December 11th, 2015 at 9:44 AM ^

What I thought I read is if they play football and any other sport, it's a football scholarship. If they play basketball and any other sport that isn't football, it's a basketball scholarship. If it's any sport that isn't those two, then idk.

So it's a football scholarship for both



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mld9199

December 11th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^

than that. I can't imagine the NCAA would allow it to be that easy to get around scholarship limits. A school that doesn't care so much about one sport could then use scholarships to get extra players for football or whatever sport. Let's say Michigan doesn't worry about track all that much. They're out of football scholarships, so they offer a track scholarship to a great football player. He then "plays" both sports and isn't counted against football.....doubt they'd leave that loophole open to schools.

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TrueBlue2003

December 11th, 2015 at 2:45 PM ^

He's maybe a little short, but I'd love to see him bang for rebounds down low Julius Peppers style.  Blocking out with that wide body is almost certainly more effective than what we're doing.

EDIT: I was thinking Taco is 6'3 or 6'4 but he's listed at 6'6, so he's almost the same size as Peppers.  Obviously, not the same level of athlete but enough that he could probably step in and be the best rebounder on the team immediately.

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jmblue

December 11th, 2015 at 9:45 AM ^

I'd be very surprised if they were anything more than practice players.  It's just not very feasible to play a full football season and then become a key member of the basketball team, and they haven't played in a few years.

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jmblue

December 11th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^

Tai Streets played in 13 games in 1996-97 and scored four points.  In all likelihood that's the kind of contribution we'd get from these two.

The fact that we can only come up with a handful of guys across the entire country who have successfully done the football/basketball combo over the past 25 years says it all.  It's not something you can realistically expect to happen.

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