Poole, Livers surge in final ESPN 100 rankings
I trust ESPN far more in basketball
http://www.espn.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/playerrankings…
Edit: Poole is #48, Livers is #72
April 19th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
Negged for making me click through to see where they are ranked
April 19th, 2017 at 11:05 AM ^
Negan - maybe edit your OP and just list where they are ranked. Not worth a neg though, Mgotri.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:48 AM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 12:11 PM ^
Also "surge" suggests they moved up a lot from their previous rankings. What were the previous rankings?
April 19th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
Maybe it's just me but for some reason I feel like the OP is just asking for a negan'....
April 19th, 2017 at 11:36 AM ^
Thanks. Unnegged
April 19th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
That's great to see. I didn't realize Livers was so thin though!
247 lists him at 6'8 220. ESPN has him 6'7 185??? I've read he is closer to 6'6/6'7, but which weight is more accurate?
April 19th, 2017 at 11:55 AM ^
Well, if you think Livers is skinny you are going to think Bamba is REALLY skinny. He is listed at 7'0" and 220#!!! In reality 220# isn't that unusual for a HS basketball player. Most tall athletic 17-18 year olds are still growing and have a hard time putting on weight. BBall players don't tend to focus on weight lifting in HS the way football players do.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:19 PM ^
There is no way he is 185 lbs. I have watched Livers play many times and size is not going to be a factor. He is gonna have to add muscle weight, but most kids that are in high school and about to play D1 basketball do.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:16 AM ^
Errr....Poole is actually #48.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:16 AM ^
Good pickups by Beilein. Now hopefully Wagner and Wilson return and this team can make another solid run.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^
Mitchell Robinson is ranked #10 and is listed as having signed with Western Kentucky. This seems...strange. It would also be a heck of a thing if WKU ended up with a player higher than any of Kentucky's recruits (though Kentucky obviously still has a shot with a couple of higher ranked guys).
April 19th, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^
Hilltopper Bag Men at it again.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
I don't know how this GIF links with hilltopper bag men, but this is what Google returned when I looked it up, so that's what you get.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:33 PM ^
and held on at a pretty high level these past five years or so. Must be some hoop culture there in KY.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:41 PM ^
was the reason he committed to Texas A&M originally, and when the coach was hired by WKU he hired Robinson's godfather
April 19th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^
Ah, well that makes some more sense then. Thanks for the info!
April 19th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^
Ranked side by side. It'll be interesting to see which school got the better end of that deal.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
Based on size alone, they look like very different players.
Livers is a stretch four (i.e. a Beilein kid).
Tillman is a traditional four (i.e. more in line with Izzo-ball).
It isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:33 AM ^
I was referring more to them being from the same area, going to local schools more than them as players.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
The same day ESPN moves Livers and Poole up, 247 drops them like a rock. Poole #93, Livers #165, Brooks #171.
One of these rankings is going to look very good in a few years while the other will look very foolish. Time will tell which is which.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:48 AM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 11:52 AM ^
There is no "go to," there are several services that rank recruits and all of them have had their hits and misses. Regardless, I don't like to see such a big difference in opinion. I hope these kids pan out, but recruiting rankings are generally accurate.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:41 PM ^
ESPN's opinion lines up with Beilein's, so I'll go with that one.
and it's likely ESPN is just slightly on the optimistic side and 247 is just slightly on the pessimistic side. Certainly better that one service is optimisitic than not.
Poole is top 100 in both and not close to 5 star by either service. So he's not a can't miss prospect, but in both rankings the odds of him being a solid starter at the B1G ten level is high. ESPN expects him to be a borderline draftable player, 247 says he has a little work to do to get there. That's really not a lot of variance. Not enough to worry about anyway.
Livers is similar but slightly behind Poole and with slightly more variance.
They're both typical Beilien recuits. If you're expecting can't-miss 5 stars, it's just not gonna happen with Beilein. But all three are his usual top 200ish guys that could end up being NBA players in 3 years or they could end up transfering to a lower tier program in Florida. Just the way it is.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:56 AM ^
This is a positive development. It means that they must be good players because ESPN says so, but the 247 rankings will allow them to properly develop the chip on their shoulders to continue working.
That's how this works, right?
April 19th, 2017 at 11:27 AM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 11:37 AM ^
alabama has 2 top 21 5* players.....hmmmmm
April 19th, 2017 at 11:48 AM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 11:57 AM ^
they haven't won in the NCAAs for 10 years, and they have no tradition. avery was a decent coach when these kids were like 6 years old, so i do find in curious that they all of a sudden grab two top ranked guys. good for avery, but it's odd.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^
Not as suspicious as Larry Brown at SMU
April 19th, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^
He's been caught with violations at every college job. SOP.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^
Good point
How much evidence do people need to see before they forget about "tradition" when considering recruiting. The coach is 97 percent of what matters. That's it. Kids do not care about tradition independently of the current coach and that coaches ability to win, and far more importantly, that coaches perceived or real ability to get that kid to the NBA (or NFL in the case of football).
April 20th, 2017 at 10:06 AM ^
Harbaugh is a great coach, but Michigan has only signed three 5* players in the three classes hes been here. Had he just walked in and gotten 7 or so people would have been like "wtf".
April 19th, 2017 at 11:54 AM ^
I hear they have a really good engineering school.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:11 PM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
Holy Crap, OSU has a recruit that is 6'9" 316lbs!!!! Does Urban know that he is a basketball Center not an OL I bet he has quite the 3-pt shot...to go along with the rest of the great Buckeye shooting.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:04 PM ^
Two words I never thought I'd see together.
Like lamb and tuna fish.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:08 PM ^
Ok, which family member and/or former coach is employed by WKU now
His godfather
April 19th, 2017 at 12:12 PM ^
When was a last time a men's basketball class didn't surge to end the year?
The 247 Composite is up to date now. SCOUT updated their final rankings today too.
Composite has Poole #90, Livers #133. Bamba is the Composite #2. MSU's Jaren Jackson is now the composite #7.
I'll tell you what's a problem, if no Big Ten team adds a top 50 player, the grand total of top 50 plays coming into the conference this season will be 1, MSU's Jackson, the next hgihest ranked player is Minny bringing in a kid who is #58. And that's after last season when MSU brought in 4 top 50 players and the rest of the conference brought in 2. That's not good for our conference. And if MSU doesn;t win a big ten title next season Izzo should be ashamed, they'll have players ranked #7, #12, #20, #32, and #42 in the country where as the entire rest of the Big Ten will have players from those two classes ranked #41 and #50.
Move along.
What are our odds at landing Bamba? I know were in his Top 4 but nobody really talks about Michigan when they talk about where he's going to land. He has no crystal balls for UM where as Texas at least has one.
I cant even find Bamba on social media to get a feel for where he's leaning.
Zero, the odds are 0% that we land Bamba.
April 20th, 2017 at 10:10 AM ^
Thats a list of players who go to class, hence why UNC isn't on it.