Michigan target in-state 2021 4* SG Pierre Brook announcing decision on Wednesday between Michigan, MSU, and Xavier
https://twitter.com/jakeweingarten/status/1252364646763261957
https://247sports.com/Player/Pierre-Brooks-46058515/
Brooks is a #96 player in the composite and #83 player on 247. He's recently gotten a run of crystal balls to MSU including CBs from Evan Daniels, Brian Snow, and Josh Henschke which is not good news for us. This would be a big loss for us given our need at the wing position for the near future and since the 2021 class is likely going to be 7 guys and losing out on any player, especially an in-state guy to MSU, is not good
I hope they get all of the crystal balls. I understand that now means the athlete is going straight to the G league
basketball recruiting has a very unpleasant smell to it these days. Im not sure it will ever wear off for me. This comes from a guy that had stacks of Street and Smith’s and would pour over recruiting. What just happened to us is like being favored in a football game against your rival after years of playing like shit and then getting beat even worse than usual. Fortunately with recruiting i dont have to worry about cheating and watching my dvr recording when I know better.
I kinda miss the stability of Beilein recruiting. He always seemed to offer only a handful of guys and that offer from Beilein really carried a lot of weight where he had a pretty high hit rate on the guys he offered. With Juwan, it feels a lot more like football recruiting
Um, JB lost out to Izzo plenty for in-staters. Also, Juwan just pulled in the best class in Big Ten despite losing one recruit to pros and one to the player’s brother. Dickinson and TW committee and did not fuss. Barrett, Bamaba, Bowen, Watts, Langford, Weems—these were guys that JB went for and lost. Abbie-Rahim, too, chose UVA before JB was gone. Howard is still in first year and has 2021 top 10 players consider g his offers. Fans have way too many feelings.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:31 PM ^
I think you're misinterpreting what I said. I just miss the stability of Beilein recruiting where I was never stressed about who he would pull in and never really worried about landing big time players like I am now. Not saying it was better, it was just less stressful
Also, Jabri Abdur Rahim was a Michigan lock until Beilein left, so no, he did not choose UVA before JB was gone
April 20th, 2020 at 10:42 PM ^
Lol if it was less stressful for you, that sounds like it was personal. In 2016, we placed second for 5* Derryck Thornton (who reclassified to 2015), second for 5* TJ Leaf, had 5* Tyus Battle commit then decommit, and recruited and debatably led for Cassius Winston for months before going for Simpson instead. Oh and we decided to recruit a second center in Austin Davis. Pretty freaking eventful and stressful.
As I recall Winston was felt to be about 50-50 MSU or UM. JB needed a point guard, Simpson was there and wanted to come to Michigan but if he didn't get an offer he was going to take the one he had for Wisconsin.
JB felt a bird in the hand was better than nothing and offered Simpson. Almost immediately Winston committed to MSU.
One of the JB recruiting takes was that he wanted guys that wanted to play at Michigan.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:13 PM ^
I agree with you on a fair amount but not this necessarily. I dont think Juwan offers enough scholarships out as of yet. I didnt like Beileins no offer until you visit policy. Limited offers means you miss on a few plan a and b recruits and you are dipping into c and d quickly. I've already seen Howard get his foot in the door on bigger name players than Beilein did but it doesnt matter if you dont land them. I'm really curious to see how this class shakes out because itll be big and will be his first full recruiting cycle class.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:34 PM ^
I agree that Juwan needs to put out more offers. He'll obviously put out more offers eventually, but with a class like this, you can't put like ~10 offers for a 7 man class, especially when most of those offers are 5 stars
Not to mention Roper doesnt have Michigan in his top 10 either. Hopefully Howard is prioritizing Bufkin and Akins as instate guys. With Saddi and Eisley both being from Michigan, I thought we would definitely benefit in the state.
I don't think we've offered Bufkin or Roper. If we lost Bufkin, Brooks, and Akins all to MSU, that would be really bad
We haven't and we didnt offer Roper either. 2021 is a big year in state, so I'm hoping we dont strike out. This is where my concerns are at while we danced around with Christopher all that time.
Especially with such a large class, striking out on a bunch of top 100 in-state players would be less than optimal
Brooks is a guy I would love to have in that class. Bummer. With the Josh Christopher-type drama queens aside, generally this type of unanimity in the CBs is pretty informative.
Well, good luck to him at Sparty. The part of me that will always root for Detroit kids hopes that he is one who breaks away from the trend of career (and life) underachievement there.
The universe craves darkness.
Just another dong punch
Izzo has probably known this kid since he was thirteen. It seems so hard to jump into college basketball recruiting.
It still confuses me how a Michigan kid can have offers from Juwan and Izzo and be like "yeah, I want to play for the old surly guy instead of the 20 year NBA player."
Not to mention MSU is pretty full at their wing position right now
I get depth concerns, but Izzo's resume is a touch better than "old surly guy"
April 20th, 2020 at 10:06 PM ^
Let’s be kind to our fellow posters. He was using that as shorthand for “wee little old surly coverup guy.”
April 21st, 2020 at 12:41 AM ^
Obviously the poster you were responding to was comparing the resume of a guy who has coached for 20 years to a guy who has coached for 1 year and definitely not comparing personality and one’s ability to connect with younger recruits
Nothing makes sense with recruiting now, but maybe Juwan is going after more highly regarded players.
Brooks is a nice athlete and a good complimentary player. But I do not believe he has the offensive skill-set Juwan is looking for. Aikins is the highest in-state priority. It is very early-lots of nice fish in the pond;
I agree that Akins should be our top in state target, but this class is so large that striking out on any guy we've offered is not good. I know it's early, but 7 guys is a big class and I don't feel overly confident about any guys we've offered
April 20th, 2020 at 11:08 PM ^
I could see 1-2 of those 2021 spots being filled by transfers. I think it would be silly not to. Take at least 1 grad transfer.
I agree with you completely. I saw him a few times this year and thought the same thing about his skill set.
I'll dump this in here. Expect Brooks to announce for those guys in EL Wednesday.
The bigger concern is making it through tomorrow for a kid that I'm a HUGE fan of. Pressure being applied.
Who's announcing tomorrow?
Trevor Keels? Heard he might be UVA bound last week
Matt now that the 2020 class is in the books we’re going to need a front page post breaking down where we stand in 2021. Look forward to your insight.
Sports content?
SPORTS CONTENT!!!!!
April 20th, 2020 at 10:50 PM ^
Thanks for the input! Do you have any concerns right now about 2021, seems like Michigan is missing out on some of their bigger targets. Any ideas as to who else they are going after?
April 20th, 2020 at 10:51 PM ^
Is this someone that might possibly reclass to this year??
I know you're a huge fan of Jaden Akins so I hope you're not referring to him. Losing him would be very disappointing, especially since we were late to offer him, even after he camped here last year.
And that would be my biggest worry about Howard's recruiting. How well will he be identifying and prioritizing players before they blow up? Beilein obviously was excellent at that. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Howard will be better at actually convincing guys to play for him. It's a matter of picking out the right players who will perform at the college level.
Are there any MA croots?!
Fear not; there are 49 other states. Juwan will get his guys.
Didnt people roast Beilein for not recruiting the state of Michigan very hard and not going after inner city kids?
April 20th, 2020 at 11:36 PM ^
Had high hopes for Howard but he is striking out just like Beilein.
April 21st, 2020 at 12:44 AM ^
How many times did Beilein get the top ranked recruiting class in the B10? Asking for a friend who isn’t an OSU fan
April 20th, 2020 at 11:49 PM ^
No matter his decision (school, G-League, overseas) we’ll come in a close 2nd place I’m sure
Ugh... I want to roll my eyes at the over-used meme, but it just hits too close...
April 21st, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
It needs to be clarified that we are 1st because of quantity, not quality. We are actually ranked 3rd based on average recruit ranking and Minnesota is just fractions behind us. Let's not pretend were pulling an all time great class. This is on par with a Beilein class on star average.
April 21st, 2020 at 12:07 PM ^
In the last four classes John recruited (I'll say the 2019 class is incomplete because of transition) John's five best recruits between 2015-2018 were Iggy (40th), Zavier (67th), Johns (70th), Poole (93rd) and I'll add Mo because he would have been there too had he played in America. This year Juwan was able to get a class with three guys all of that caliber (32nd, 69th, and 86th).
Using averages, the 2015 (94.3) with a class of Mo Wagner and Brent Hibbits and 2018 (94.5) class was on par with this one. 2017 (91.7), 2016 (90.5), and 2014 (88) were all significantly lower than this average. John made it work because he was an excellent coach, had an eye for talent, and knew what type of guys would work in his system, but I don't think it's fair to say this is an average Beilein class.
No, this isn't some crazy exceptional class but each class needs about 3-4 guys and Juwan got some really nice multiple year guys. It's not like Michigan's class has 5 guys like Wisconsin's and that's what is completely driving their class to be number one in the Big Ten, if you remove Jace the the class still sits atop the Big Ten this year with 61.43 composite points with very reasonable 3 man class with a 97.4 rating almost on par with MSU's 97.9.
MSU.
MSU.