Recruiting- Football riches, but basketball drying up?
http://www.detnews.com/article/20110719/SPORTS05/107190314/1004/sports/…
http://www.freep.com/article/20110719/SPORTS06/107190329/Hoke-staff-ass…
Warning, 1 is obviously the Freep, and the other is by Terry Foster. But it's really not any analysis by Foster, more him talking to guys like Jalen and Derrick Coleman, and lists of how good the talent in state used to be. Beilein might be ahead of the curve, because just recruiting in-state doesn't make you great anymore (a shock to those that can remember when it was one of the top B-Ball talent states...look at the list).
On a brighter note, recruiting analysts and recruiting talk about the work and straightforward, family style (values is still a bad word, right?) recruiting by Hoke and his staff. OSU helps, but it doesn't sound like recruiting is going to take a nose-dive anytime soon. Interesting mid-July reads.
Foster looks at NBA draft selections to show how much Michigan BB players have fallen off.
But, anyone looking at the graph can see that the decline coincides with an incline of foreign-born players in the NBA draft. 20-30% of the spots go to non-US players now, as opposed to when Michigan was having multiple players drafted.
While there may have been some decline in BB players here, it is not nearly as bad as Foster makes it seem for his article. Sometimes doing analysis the right way makes your story less interesting, so you just don't do that work.
I can't listen to or read anything with which he's associated. Foster is basically a Valenti slappy who can't do anything more than parrot his myopic, MSU-centric views.
Foster can't write and he can't talk. He is paid well to do both.
What a country.
...reads. Check out this article on Hoke and Co. and their success in Ohio, especially Hoke's home area of SW Ohio (calling Misopogon).
"He's really hammering southwest Ohio. I think he's really hammering Ohio in and of itself and doing a really good job of recruiting it. I don't know if his approach would change if Jim Tressel was there or not, but there's a renewed interest in Ohio football from Michigan's perspective because of Brady Hoke's history with Ohio football players.”
Specht and others pointed out Hoke’s approach differs significantly from that of his predecessor, Rich Rodriguez. “You’re seeing a lot of kids looking harder at Michigan because Michigan spends more time here,” he said.
Rodriguez, hired at Michigan before the 2008 season, signed or received verbal commits from a plethora of recruits from Ohio, but not many that Tressel’s program showed much interest in. “I think Michigan did a really poor job down here before Brady,” said Centerville head coach Ron Ullery, a member of the Ohio high school coaching ranks for more than three decades.
Rodriguez earned commitments from six players from southwestern Ohio in parts of four recruiting seasons including the end of 2008, all of 2009 and '10 and the beginning of '11 before his firing. The six came from a total of three schools and included a set of brothers. Only two were rated better than three-star prospects by Scout.com.
Hoke, in less than seven months on the job, has signed or gotten verbal commitments from five southwestern Ohio players at five different schools, including three four-star prospects. “Since Brady grew up about five miles from Centerville High School, when he was at Ball State he hit this area really, really well,” Ullery said.
“Now that they’re back, they’ve been down here a lot,” Specht said. “You see a lot of southwestern Ohio kids that have already committed to Michigan, really quality players, and I think there's going to be a renewed interest that Michigan lost over the past couple years since they brought in Rodriguez. They didn't recruit us as hard as they had in the past.”
but OSU does not know how to handle their offers, they are doing a poor job IMO. Example: Dymonte Thomas, could make the argument that he'll be the states best in 2013. OSU hasnt offered yet and we have taken full advantage, as he has made it clear that UM leads.
Agreed. Carr didn't get much out of Ohio that stuck once Cheaty McSweatervest showed up. Manningham, Crable, Burguss and Mesko are the only OH players recruited by Carr after 2001 that stand out. The rest left the program, were minor contributors, or busts.
You need talent from all over, but if there is talent close by it's A. easier to get and retain and B. if you lose a Texas recruit to Texas, you may never have to see him again, but you get a kid from Ohio, and he's not playing for OSU, MSU, Notre Dame, etc. Not only do you get better, but your rivals get worse. Imagine Desmond, Woodson, etc. in Scarlet and Gray. Brrr.
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<br>You have to beat the bushes in Ohio, even if it's just for the next guy. I knew Hoke was a good recruiter (as were some of his assistants), but he's surpassed even my expectations with the speed he's rekindled connections.
It's nothing new, recruiting changes all the time, the top basketball talent used to come from new york and they dryed up too. Right now the best basketball talent in this country comes from chicago. Recruiting shifts are not anything new.
atleast the last 20 years.
I'm not saying you're wrong...just curious what your reasoning is for that compared to California, or Ohio, or anywhere else.
Of current notable NBA players from chicago
Shannon brown, will bynum. andre iguodala, iman shumpert, derrek rose, dewayne wade, evan turner, kevin garnett*
Not to mention previous players like isiah thomas, tim hardaway, antoine walker, doc rivers, juwan howard. How many other citys can match that?
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=754898
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<br>There's also a bleacher report ranking from March, but, you know....
I could understand not putting kevin garnet into the chicago list because he only played one season, but MJ shouldn't even be considered for the new york list. Same with shawn marion, it seems like they just looked at birth places, not if the players actually played in the state.
The drop in basketball talent is mainly due to the large decline in population in the Flint and Detroit areas IMO. Being heavy automotive employment areas, their school enrollment drop has mirrored the auto industry decline. Lansing also does not produce the talented players it once did. The drop in football talent has been large too, but not as pronounced. Michigan used to get a lot of good football players out of Flint back in the 70's and early 80's, but very few today. But, the article does correctly point out other reasons for the drop in top basketball talent in the state.
Meyer was spot-on in calling Mattison the best recruiter in college football. I'd say so far he's worth every penny of his $750,000 salary. Hopefully this year's defense will reflect his coaching ability.
I don't know if I buy this argument. Detroit and Flint lost population, but the surrounding areas grew. Most of the people who left those two cities did not go out of state. The people who have left the state are primarily recent college grads and other white-collar types - not the kind of families that churn out top-notch athletes. Suburbs that never used to produce any athletes (like say, Madison Heights and Macomb Township) are now sending a few to the D-I ranks.
I guess it's possible that the dispersal of talent across a broader area (instead of it just being Detroit, Pontiac and Flint, it's now like 20 different communities) means that the top players aren't getting the same level of competition in high school (the Oakland Activities Association is not the PSL of the '80s), but that's a slightly different argument.
From the second link,
[quote]Stealing a few elite players from Ohio is an essential component to being an elite program as there simply aren't enough top-level players in the state of Michigan. Plus, the Wolverines have to compete with another Big Ten school in the state for them.[/quote]
Yes, we have to steal players from OSU to compensate for the fact that we compete with MSU for Michigan kids. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Mark Snyder.
Edit: what are the quote tags for this board?
I know no one will see this but a very valid point. Imagine if University of Chicago would of kept their Football program, there is no MSU in the B1G, there a MAC/Big East school kind of like Cincinnati in Ohio. UM stands alone in Michigan and we take the Lion's share of home grown kids plus Ohio.
Historically mid-west kids would want UM/ND/OSU with Woody steering kids to ND if he couldn't get them, MSU would be battling for forth in UM's yard. Just another reason to hate those bastards.
Edit: what are the quote tags for this board?
You have to "Switch to plain text editor" below the text box and put the quote inside the block quote tags thusly:
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I think he was saying Michigan talent alone can't support a top flight program (true), and then on top of that take some of that merger talent and send it to another in state school, and it becomes essential to get more talent from somewhere else (also true), Ohio being the easiest and most logical place to do it.
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Basketball culture & hip-hop seem to suffer the same fate around here...diluted
States like Georgia ( where I lived for 10 years) are producing very strong classes over this peroid of time
Foster has not been all that great the last few years, but he is spot on with this one.
There just aren't enough players to win an NCAA Championship in Michigan anymore. I really like what Michigan is doing now. They are getting enough instate recruits to not only help the team but force MSU out of their comfort zone. When you add in recruits from Indiana and Illinois, it's starting to look a lot better for the Maize and Blue.
The days of three top-25 teams consisting mainly of Michigan players are over for now. Maybe the work Jalen Rose is doing will help bring them back. If they do, I hope a lot of those players decide to go to Jalen's alma mater. In the meantime, the hybrid recruiting approach of Beilen seems to be working.