An insider recruiting report on one of the premium Indiana sites tracks everyone that head coach Tom Crean is following or recruiting, and they say they have made endless attempts to contact John Wilkins or his father..but that they keep coming up empty and that nobody wants to talk...
They say they are even getting the exact same reaction in efforts to reach another Indiana recruit Will Yeguete, so apparently Tom Crean is telling each of his recruiting targets to stay silent and not talk to the press...and he must be using some leverage like threats about whatever offer the kids might get, because the recruits are exceptionally tight-lipped.
But get this...Tom Crean went out yesterday, immediately at noon when the "NCAA Recruiting Dead Period" ended, and took off for Iowa. He is said to be going to look at Wilkins on the campus there at Southeast Iowa CC, and also look at some other prospects.
The ones who are identified in the premium report:
Tom Crean was "spotted" in Cedar Rapids Iowa where he was observing 6-8 Jarrod Uthoff (who has also already been offered by both Iowa State and Creighton) from Jefferson HS, and also being watched is 6-5 Josh Oglesby from Washington High.
Also Arizona State, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa coaches were also all in attendance at the player workouts.
From there Crean is said to be headed to Burlington, IA to see Wilkins to keep him happy and waiting...
Wilkins is reported to be visiting Illinois State this weekend...but now there's a new revelation...
"A complicating factor in that recruitment is John reportedly has a girlfriend back in France that may want to move to where he attends college. Getting her set up for that may be the complication."
Hmmmm...so now John has a bargaining chip....probably trying to get a scholarship or a job for his girlfriend??
BTW-- Indiana coaches stopped at Moraine Valley CC and checked out Dwight McCombs...
http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/brianstinnette510.html
McCombs is also getting looks from Arizona State where Hersey's son Corey is going play this fall and also where Brandon Dunson is going...
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/Blog/DougHaller/77713
http://indiana.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=731&mid=141944994&sid=942&tid=141944994&style=1
Here's more on Wilkins from the transcript of an on-air chat........
This chat reveals that several reporters and others have tried repeatedly to get hold of Wilkins or his dad or anyone and NOBODY's talking...
one guy says...
"We've been trying to reach out to Wilkins and his coaches, but there's been absolutely no reply. We'll keep trying"
and one other guy says Indiana is going to sign BOTH Wilikins and Yeguette...
seriously why would they need both?? and yet still NOT have a big man??
But two of the biggest names for 2010 are yet undecided and Coach Crean is still holding out hope of getting one of them, Marquis Teague & Josh Selby - so that's probably the holdup on offering guys like Wilkins and Yeguete -- he really wants the 5-Star guys!
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2010/04/08/iusports.743773.sto
A non-premium column on Matt Roth leaves you feeling the "speculation" they are referring to is whether Roth is even gonna be part of next year's team...
Recall - that even before his season ending injury this past year, he was only getting 4-7 minutes per game against really weak opponents.
http://www.insidethehall.com/2010/04/07/thats-a-wrap-matt-roth/
Bradley recruit Justin Gant was named to the six member Junior All State Team (the best juniors in all of Indiana)
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100331/SPORTS0203/3310348/1004/SPORTS/Chandler-Teague-among-6-core-players
There's talk of Creighton's freshman PG Andrew Bock leaving and transferring...
in fact, today the coverage says that Bock himself has confirmed this story...
http://creighton.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1072363
Bock was one of the highest rated incoming freshmen in the Valley in years...ranked #101 and 4-Star by Rivals. bButu he's leaving because he apparently had some kind of falling out with Dana Altman and never got any playing time.
"Bock, a 4-star recruit (according to Rivals), came to Omaha from Rialto, California with high expectations but never fit into head coach Dana Altman's system. Andrew appeared unhappy at Creighton and eventually stopped talking to the media about his situation."
Well...just as predicted, and almost as predictable as death & taxes...
just as soon as anyone with two legs is rumored to be transferring...
the Indiana message board lights up with talk and hope of going after the kid and landing him as a Hoosier...
"Andrew Bock from Creighton to transfer. He was a top-150 recruit"
http://indiana.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=731&tid=141946576&mid=141946576&sid=942&style=2
In an interview today, ISU's Tim Jankovich says it is the LEAGUE who doesn't want any of their members to schedule "guarantee games"...
and he also talks of how hard it is to schedule and how nobody wants to play them,
so they just take the softies and this fall they're hoping someone is "desperate"!!
There's also some words on Osiris Eldridge...it's a nice interview.....
Here's some of his statement...
"The one thing our league agrees with us is that we should never play a
guarantee game. In other words, we’ll let a school buy us and we’ll play
there. Why would you do that? What you want to do is get that team to play
at home in your building.
..We have not found anyone willing to do that. We have a little strategy
though for next season: we’re going to leave a game open to sometime this
fall and hope someone is desperate. So it may or may not work.
Another way is to try to get into a certain tournament. But you have to be
careful those don’t backfire. This past year wasn’t a good time because we
were so young. We weren’t ready to go play Kentucky or Duke on a neutral
site. We are working now to get into one of those tournaments.
Scheduling is nothing more than calling someday and saying, ‘do you want to
play?’ We have called I don’t know how many people and they laugh at us
and say, ‘we’re not going to do that.’ And of course you’re not. What they do
is buy a bunch of guarantee games and play others like them. That’s what
they do. That’s what I would do. I’m not mad at anybody. It’s the nature of
the beast."
In the interview, Jank also says his coaching philosophy with Osiris was to just cut him loose and let him take any shot he wanted...
"And I did make a decision when I started coaching him, the team we
inherited had trouble scoring .. and I felt like he needed a lot of freedom to
help us. That was the choice I made. ...We kind of continued to give him
freedom. I just had a trust in him ....even though he’d make questionable
plays."
Even Eldridge agrees that was the plan...
"..A lot of coaches wouldn’t put up with some of the shots I took sometimes.
There were plenty of times where I heard him say, ‘no, no,’ and then the
shot went in. I guess that’s the type of player that I am. He understood
that. He had real good patience to put up with that."
http://bit.ly/cNwpDm
This article from a few days ago before Butler reached the Final Game...hints that Saint Louis and Butler should join the MVC and make it into a far tougher conference of 12 members.
http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/four-38175-final-butler.html
Missouri State has more bad news on top of losing some scholarships due to the soon to be released NCAA Academic Progress Report...
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100409/BREAKING01/100409008/1007/NEWS01/Missouri+State+football+player+arrested+for+assault
Where's electric mayhem...also known as the Bradley Braves Examiner?
Nothing much new in almost a month...
http://www.examiner.com/x-7020-Bradley-Braves-Examiner~y2010m3d18-Northern-Iowa-vs-UNLV--NCAA-Tournament-Preview
But that's better than the guy who was the ISU Redbirds Examiner...whose entire blog is belly up and not even linked to on the Examiner system.
But a search can show the blog is still there, just nothing new since August of last year...
http://www.examiner.com/x-15208-Illinois-State-Redbirds-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Laurent-Robinson-looks-to-make-an-impact
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment