MBB: Michigan is looking at Kostas Antetokounmpo ('16)
This is from UMHoops via Sam Webb (original article is paywalled). Antetokounmpo is the younger brother of Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks. He's 6'11" and apparently pretty raw.
http://www.umhoops.com/2016/04/18/recruiting-notebook-open-scholarship-…
More articles on Antetokounmpo:
http://www.scout.com/college/basketball/recruiting/story/1632824-high-m…
http://www.todaysu.com/recruiting/cbb-recruiting/undeclared-wants-kosta…
A highlight showing his size and athleticism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4waZe1UD2Mg
Michigan has an interesting scholarship situation with regard to '17-'18. Xavier Simpson will be the only true PG on the roster as of right now. And all of Michigan's small forward types will be seniors (I'm counting Ibi Watson as a two and DJ Wilson as a five).
April 18th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^
Any Antetokounmpo is an Antetokoumpo with me, man.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:37 AM ^
we already have wilson (and had dawkins) on the roster.
He seems like a fine prospect but under JB's system will probably just be another strecth 4 flameout - we've had our share .
April 18th, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
What do you want to see added to the team? People have been wanting size and athleticism. This kid brings both. And he's a lot bigger/longer than Dawkins (his wingspan is nearly 7'2"). Wilson is the only guy on the roster who even sort of fits his profile.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^
I don't really care how big they are. You can do perfectly fine without a "power forward" sized 4, especially with this offense. We should be continuing to playing 4 out, 1 in. The problem is our players don't play tough and they don't play defense. For whatever reason, I don't think Beilein instills toughness and defensive concepts well in his players, so I think we need guys who have that mentality coming in.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:48 PM ^
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had to be more to that story. Morgan routinely went into pose/stare/flex mode after dunks and And-1s, and Stauskus did 3-goggles after every shot. Michigan plays clean but they have never really seemed like little boy scouts under Beilein. I don't think this has anything to do with "toughness." etc.
JMo dunked in practice and yelled. Coach Beilein told him to run laps for yelling. BA walked over to the starting line for running laps and said, "I should run if he's going to run, becuase I told him to yell when he dunked."
And then Coach Beilein started letting guys yell after dunks.
I want rebounding and shot blocking. Someone who dunks every time they get the ball within a couple feet of the rim instead of shooting layups.
Give me a Dennis Rodman/Theo Ratliff type player and shove him at the 5. I don't care if he can throw the ball in the ocean, I don't care if he can catch passes, I don't care if he dribble.
Just give a guy that dunks every touch in the paint, blocks shots, rebounds like a monster, and plays defense... at the 5.
Roy Tarpley.
Ekpe Udoh
Both were hyper athletic shot blockers and very good rebounders.
Tarpley has the #1(10), #2(9), #4(7), and #5(6) games in Michigan history in terms of blocks.
Tarpley and Udoh account for 10 of the top 25 games in Michigan BB history in terms of blocks.
The only player post 1980 to average more rebounds for their career than Tarpley was Chris Webber.
The only player post 1980 to average more rebounds for a season than Tarpley was Loy Vaught.
Udoh averaged more blocks per game at Baylor than any Michigan player since they started keeping blocks per game stats for college basketball/
elite prospects.
Or how about another Glen Rice? His last three years he grabbed 294 (!), 236 & 232 rebounds. #NJAS
I want to see Beilein hire Kareem Abdul Jabar to coach this kid and the other bigs. Meditation, humility, work ethic and sky hook. We can afford it. Harbaugh will instill the killer instinct gratis.
Yes, they are both athletic players, but Kostas is a very, very good defender.
Dawkins still thinks defense is just a theory.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
The problem with taking a guy like Kostas is that he's gone for the NBA the moment he starts showing promise of living up to his genetic capabilities. He won't even have to be that good to leave. He'll just have to show that it's more likely than not that he's able to play in the NBA. Other guys have to prove it for an extended period of time in order to make NBA scouts believers, but this kid won't.
My fear is that he'll spend a few years on the roster finding his legs, have a decent year where he shows some flashes of his brother, gets NBA GM's salivating and then he's gone.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:49 AM ^
have that problem than have guys that arent very good.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:50 AM ^
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April 18th, 2016 at 11:55 AM ^
There's a difference between having NBA talent in the sense that "they may someday play in the NBA" and "they are good in college and will play in the NBA.
Yogi Ferrell may not make it out of the D-League, but I'd rather have him on my college team than a majority of guys who are drafted on potential, ride the pine, and end up hanging on after their rookie NBA deal.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:58 AM ^
That's not what he's saying at all, lol
He's saying he'd rather have a guy who's going to be good in college for multiple years, but because he's not a freak of nature size/athletically, he's got to prove it in college for 2-3 years.
He'd rather have that player over a kid who's going to suck for 2 years even though he IS a freak of nature size/athletically and then in year 3 he shows flashes of NBA potential and leaves before you get to benefit from the finish product.
I completely understand. One helps your team. The other is basically a farm system for the NBA because the kid never helps your team minus a few flashes in year 3 and then he's gone...
It makes perfect sense and I'd tend to agree. I just don't know if it applies in this particular situation.
For some reason, people seem to think he's saying he'd rather have long-term college standouts over NBA level talent...that's not what he's saying at all. And I'd completely disagree with that train of thought...if that was the argument, give me the NBA talent every single time. Even programs like Duke have adopted this mentality minus Amile Jefferson.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:54 AM ^
Plenty of teams get to final fours without NBA talent. Maybe not as often as the other way around, but absolutely nobody?
2015 MSU - Denzel Valentine and Branden Dawson?
2014 Florida - Casey Prather and Patric Young?
2014 Wisconsin - Sam Dekker and Frank Kamisky the year BEFORE they blew up nationally?
2013 Witcha St and that Syracuse team we played had MC-W and that was pretty much it. Rakeem Christmas? Brandon Triche? CJ Fair? Those are all stretches, IMO
2011 VCU
...give me all the NBA talent on the 2010 WVU team.
Can you remember all of the NBA talent on that George Mason team that went to the Final Four.
What you said makes "absolutely" sense.
I agree with you Yost, but you can't really use Wisconsin in that list. It may have been a year before they "blew up" but it was the first of two final fours and Dekker and Kaminsky are NBA players.
Kaminksy was not a table-ready NBA player. He was probably classified as a much lower prospect than Kosta coming out of high school.
They went to back-to-back Final Fours...I can't say they were NBA players that first time around.
Regardless, it's been proven over and over that you can get to the Final Four without a bunch of NBA talent. That's not specifically what was said, but that's what was implied and was my point.
Now for every one team of non-NBA talent "WE DEFINE TEAM." You're probably going to get two teams filled with one-and-done's in the Final Four. But that's not what was up for debate.
And similar outcomes happen often enough that this wasn't a huge shocker. No matter how gifted one-and-dones may be, they're still freshmen susceptible to freshmen-type mistakes. Especially when thrust onto a bigger stage against a team of upperclassmen.
April 18th, 2016 at 11:53 AM ^
If this guy is really going to play wing, it sounds interesting. It's hard for me to imagine Beilein playing him at the 3.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:18 PM ^
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April 18th, 2016 at 11:58 AM ^
There should be a lot less family pressure on this kid to make a quick jump to the NBA. His brother is going to be a superstar in the NBA for a long time. The family won't need Kostas to take care of them.
And frankly, if he goes after a year because he showed enough potential to be a lottery pick like his brother, that's probably more than we can hope to get out of that scholarship slot next year with any other player. The scholarship would then be freed up for next year. Literally no harm done.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:42 PM ^
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If that's the case (bolting early), Kentucky may as well drop basketball.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:05 PM ^
Are you sure it isn't from UMoors?
-bubble boy
April 18th, 2016 at 12:11 PM ^
I want him just so we can listen to Brian butcher his name in the MGoPodcast.
April 18th, 2016 at 12:16 PM ^
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He won't Kostas a scholarship we need for someone else.
Sometimes these comments just drive me nuts! I scrolled through them on this post and here's what I saw:
- We need to focus on recruiting defense and toughness only.
- We need to recruit more athletes
- We shouldn't recruit anyone skinny
- We should stay away from developmental prospects, especially from Europe
- Our incoming big men are already skinny projects (which is only 50% true at best)
- Why do we want to recruit another stretch-four since he will flame out anyway
- This guy isn't good enough to solve our problems....despite being a top 100 recruit
What do you people want!?!?! Besides a bunch of 5-stars just showing up at Michigan, I'm confused as to what we want.
Is this guy the answer? I'm not sure. He's interesting because of his size, athleticism, and brother.....but he's also skinny and could end up being DJ Wilson 2.0 (that's a bad thing so far).
Frankly, I'd take a long look at him since he has some positional flexibility, could blow up into a star, and most importantly - Michigan will be without an NBA legacy on the roster next year for the first time since Jordan Dumars and THJ joined the team. Dumars, Hardaway, Robinson, Horford, and Dawkins are all gone now. Doesn't Shawn Kemp have a son that's worth signing?
Doesn't Shawn Kemp have 143 sons? One of them MUST be worth signing!
"Doesn't Shawn Kemp have a son that's worth signing?"
Yes, we just cannot identify which one.
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You can't spell up tempo without Antetokounmpo.
I've been hoping we would go after this guy. He'll need a lot of development for sure but his ceiling is sky high and at worst he should still be the best perimeter defender on the roster.
Being from Milwaukee I'm biased towards the Antetokounmpo's but if he's anything close to his brother we could be getting a stud. Giannis has even said that Kostas has beat him one on one on more then a few occassions. His high school team has also won a bunch of state championships in a row and he was teammates with Diamond Stone. He may be skinny but he's extremely athletic and could be a star with the right coaching