MBB Recruiting: #1 player RJ Barrett likely to officially visit
Per Jerry Meyer at 247 Sports (legit), Michigan is expected to receive an official visit from Canadian RJ Barrett. He's the #1 player in 2019 and is expected to reclassify to 2018. He's a 6'6" wing who plays at Monteverde Academy in Florida. Obviously a 1-and-done.
Meyer says that Duke, Kentucky, Michigan, and Oregon are the frontrunners for official visits. Duke and Kentucky for obvious reasons and Oregon, one would assume, due to its tight connection with Grassroots Canada basketball.
Relatedly, Michigan has been recruiting PG Andrew Nembhard, a teammate of Barrett's at Montverde and a fellow Canadian, for quite some time. Even though Nembhard is a 2019, I assume Nembhard could reclassify as well.
If Beilein can land this kid I'll be the first one to say what a great job he did. Unfortunately given his track record in these types of recruitments that's probably a long shot. Nevertheless I really like seeing JB go after these types of players. Michigan used to reguarly land guys like this in the 80's and 90's and there is no reason they can't today. Small step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.
No but he was paying people who went to Michigan, if he wasn't paying them maybe they would have gone somewhere else to get paid.
He paid people who went to a lot of different schools. Michigan got a lot of talented players, Ed Martin paid talented players so they would reciprocate when they made it big time.
But his point was that they went to Michigan and got paid. If a kid has a choice of Duke (and get paid) or Michigan (and not get paid) it is almost impossible to win that.
So yes Martin would have paid Webber at MSU (and i'm sure paid multiple MSU players) but it allowed for an even playing field.
The point is that players didn't get paid to go to Michigan. They could've gotten paid and gone anywhere. Thus Martin's efforts were really not a factor in Michigan's ability to land big time recruits back then.
Once in the past I brought up the potential kinds of "reciprocation" that would be expected of these young players after receiving money from a bookie/numbers guy, and got hammered. If Ed spread the money around to other schools, perhaps more games to fix? (I'm not directly accusing any of the players.) Point is that I'd rather miss on some of these 1-and-dones rather than pay and have to wonder why a certain shot was missed.
However, most boosters aren't bookies and are just looking to boost the school's program.
Ed Martin was hanging around our locker room. He was continuing to pay players after they enrolled here. He gave money to players who went elsewhere, yes, but let's not pretend that they weren't disproportionally Michigan players.
His motivation may not have been to bring players here, but don't confuse motivation with the outcome. He did bring players here. Logically, he wanted to, since he would be nearby and reinforce their relationships.
If he ends up anywhere other than Duke, Kentucky, Kansas or UNC I'll shit myself.
There are varying degrees of shadiness in that list. Some schools are relatively smart and have multiple plausibility layers between the coach and the distributor of favors.
Or Texas. *cough*
Last time I checked we put the squeeky into squeeky clean recruiting so......
So, you're saying there is a chance we can be #2?
I would think being closer to his hometown than all the usual suspects chasing him would work in our favor.
I watched him almost singlehandedly beat the USA's U19 team (coached by coach Cal) a couple of weeks ago. This kid is amazing. I'm not holding my breath or anything, but maybe this one time it'll work out for us.
He did get to see first hand how shitty an in-game coach Caliperi really is, so there's that.
ever been to Lexington?
like this is usually the kiss of death. He'll say we were the #2 team on signing day.
It's pretty crazy how many players have come out of metro Toronto over the past decade. Stauskas is obviously the crown jewel, but
- Jamal Murray (#7 pick in 2016, shaping up to be solid starter),
- Andrew Wiggins (#1 pick in 2014, stud),
- Tyler Ennis (#18 pick in 2014),
- Dwight Powell (#45 pick in 2014, carving out a decent career),
- Anthony Bennett (#1 pick in 2013, not a stud),
- Kelly Olynyk (#13 pick in 2013, solid rotational player),
- Tristan Thompson (#4 pick in 2011, very solid starter),
- Cory Joseph (#29 pick in 2011, solid, long-term rotational player).
I'm too lazy to do the leg work for a proper comparison, but it's hard to imagine many other cities in the world producing this many high-level players over the same time span. Maybe Chicago or LA?
Yeah, I think you're right. Also, football wouldn't provide near as much competition/distraction for explosive and skilled kids in the 6'0"-6'7" range. And Toronto probably has more of an agglomeration advantage compared to US cities, with Canadian families with promising kids seeing it as the place to be to play high-level basketball.
Anthony Davis, Jahlil Okafor, Tyler Ulis, Jabari Parker, Derrick Rose, Frank Kaminsky, Chasson Randle, Fred VanVleet, Meyers Leonard, Iman Shumpert, and Evan Turner. But I'm going to be pretty excited when Olympics basketball is gonna be super competitive.
I stopped reading. He isn't coming here. Sure, Beilein would accept his LOI. But I seriously doubt he will go out of his way to recruit him hard (IOW, kiss his ass, guarantee him a certain amount of playing time, make "academic allowances" for him, you get the gist of it)
I don't even think we'll come in second on this one. He'll go to Kentucky, say Duke was right there in second, with Oregon strongly considered, and Michigan "a really nice place".
Quick tangent, I started reading an article in SI about '18 #3 overall MBB recruit Bol Bol, son of Manute Bol. If you gave me one recruit I could send Michigan's way, I think it would be Bol Bol over Daniel Faalele by a hair.
does reclassify? 2018 seems like a strong class on top.
And he's not 19, he's 17. Potential #1 recruit, #1 draft pick. Nothing is a guarantee, but he could be a generational talent.
who was stopped short last year? To heck with him.
Nah, that was Frank Costanza
It's an honor just to be nominated.
No need to write an acceptance speech on this one.