A history on how Michigan Basketball used to recruit

Overall wins: 189, 3rd

NCAA Tourney bids: 6, 2nd (technically 1st)

NCAA Tourney wins: 11, 2nd

20+ win seasons: 6, Tied for 1st

That's out of 16 head coaches overall. In the time that Beilein has been coach here only Matta, Painter and Izzo among active coaches have as many conference wins or tournament berths as JB. You keep talking about recruiting and the future. Until THAT future comes where we're sub-500 for more than one year, I prefer to just care about results

How many of those guys would you want on this team? Then pick 6 that would outplay Burke, LaVert, Stauskus, GR3, McG, THJ, and DMo.  

The reason I ask is Joubert, "The Judge," was considered by a large number of publications to be the no. 1 player in the nation. Another one I picked up on, only because Freider was putting a lot of work in on Hughes and  Vaught(paid off, of course) and because Hughes was from Puffer I watched the recruiting closely and Hughes was generally regarded as better than Loy coming out of h.s. and Loy's improvement was bost drastic and impressive. Just a damn  rebound machine as un upperclassman.   Yes, read the same about Garnett. How much you think his coach was paid? Imagine that, Tractor and him together. Overkill? `

On the earlier ones. Hubbard was considered good, you are correct and that was a sad story. Came back for one more year and cost himself - was going to say millions - which probably would have been a safe assumption, but am not sure what they were guaranteed then.

McCormick, while solid, played above expectations and Tarpley was two different players. He was recruited as a 6'5 or 6'6" forward and grew into a 6'10" AA player. He was a surprise.

As to all time greats for UM, BB didn't seem to have the draw it does today and records are difficult to come by. I do know many of the best in the state made collegiate choices based on convenience because, although always popular it just didn't have the cache football has always seemed to enjoy.  I do know if UM and MSU would have been able to corral instate talent from the 40s through the early 60s, they probably would have hoisted a lot of thropies,, both conference and of the NC variety.

As a teenager in the 60s, I remember setting in the Hackley Library in Muskegon, MI thumbing through the old sports sections. Some things I found of interest and you might too, all  on MI h.s. bb players.

The Greatest, no surprise: Magic

Super stars:  Many of which you listed, but Rice played with two other All Americans in high school, Jeff Grayer, IA State, and Andre Rison, MSU (football). A fourth, Anthony Pendelton played D1 also and their two year h.s record was an incredible, 57, maybe 58 W and 1 loss.  The 56' and 57' Muskegon Heights team won back to back state Championships led by the Burton Brothers, M.C, who later played at UM and became a Dentist. His son played for MN. Ed, his younger brother, considered the better ball player but not near the student played with Wilt for awhile as a member of the Globe Trotters. The 56' team was named National High School Champions.  Both excelled in football as well, bookends anchoring bothbends of the line. 

Some other products of the state were  Dave Debusshere of Detroit Pershing, later to be named among the 50 greatest all time NBA players, honors that also went to Magic and Geoge "The Iceman" Gervin out of MLK, I think, who played for Eastern Michigan.  Spencer Haywood was unstoppable playing at Pershing also I think.  Chet Walker of Benton Harbor Highf and Debusshere squared off fot the state title in '64 with Dave's team winning. Dave was also a teammate of Cazzie's during the Knicks championship years. We got Cazzie out of Chicago, btw. 

Other greats were Rudy T, Ralph Simpson and Campy Russell, no relation, out of Pontiac.. Much of this information comes from Memory so  please forgive if I am off with the particular dates, etc. but I just wanted to introduce you to the players I was introduced to, largely by radio and archived editions of the Muskegon Chronicle. The other greats you know about after their firs game with the speed of news delivery today.   However, I thought it very important to, despite some heavy lids, get the information correct on the final great you may have never heard of because his story is so compelling and whom the legendary prep sports journalist Hal Schram of the Free Press named as not only the greatest Michigan high school basketball player of all-time, but the greatest Michigan high school athlete of all-time. Some argue because his team never won a state title, but there are some numbers that cannot be argued and they don't hurt Hal's claim.

Richie Jordan, a 1965 graduate of Fennville High School, then a Class C school when there were only 4 classes was identifiable the second he walked onto the court. He was normally the smallest player on either squad. He stood 5'7." That size might very well lend even more credence to Mr. Schram's claim because we all know he didn't out muscle or simply use superior height to dominate many of the games in which he played. From a standing position, Richie jumped a little over 37 inches. From a running start he was measured at reaching 51 1'2 inches so obviously, and still legal at that time, he easily dunked with either hand.  None of these players had the assistance of the 3 pt line, but even so he averaged 44.4 pts a game, hitting for 60 in his final game. 24 I believe his highest in a quarter and his 888 pts his senior year brought his state record in '65 to 2210. Of course he was Player of the year, All State and one of his teammates on the 1965 All Prep team was a sizeable lad out of New York City who went by the name of Lou Alcindor, later changing it to Kareem Adbul Jabaar. No way could he come close to Magic's overall game, and he wasn't going to pull down rebounds at the same rate as a Simpson or Haywood but, they say his ball handling ability, coupled with his speed on the court, would have allowed him to score on any of them. It's difficult to think of this list of names and not recall what they did at either the collegiate level, pros or both. But if able to look at just their accomplishments while in high school then yeah, I get it.

Hal mentioned many POYs set state records in scoring, but he didn't know of anyone other than Richie who did the same in football. Two time All State Running Back, he finished his career with a then state record of 5,152 yards. Obviously, the young man had serious energy. In the spring of his senior year, he compiled a .550 Batting Average to suggest, yeah, Hal maybe you were onto something. While doing this, he also pulled double duty on the track team during home games, winning letters in that sport as well, leading his team to a third place state finals finish.

At the time of his graduation, he had 58 scholarship offers from around the nation and opted for MSU where he played basketball for two seasons, later playing baseball for the Spartans as well and spending time in the minors but never making it to the top level.

This state has definitely attracted some great talent from around the nation. But if we consider only those that are home grown basketball players, Michigan can be very proud of its rich basketball tradition.