Monday, September 27, 2010

B-Ball Lands 2nd Recruit of the Week

Well VSL nation looks like your prayers have been answered....well sorta. The Black & Gold got its second commitment of the week (according to both Rivals and ESPN.com), this one being a big guy (but not a center like so many of you pined for last week despite my insistence we needed a shooting guard). This one comes from Shelby Moats, a 6'8, 225 lb player from the basketball mecca that is Waconia, MINN-E-SOTA!!!! Moats is not rated by Rivals yet and is listed as a 89, 3-star rated player on ESPN.com. He supposedly has a sweet outside game. Sounds like the type of guys we used to recruit, soft/big/white/outside game.

This guy is no game changer but hopefully will be a real solid glue guy who can come in an hit shots, play defense and make the team better over-all. Still waiting on a shooting guard to commit though................

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Sounds like the type of guys we used to recruit, soft/big/white/outside game."

Sounds pretty bitter for an eval of a new recruit, and pretty spurious in parts as well. You sound disappointed... You had a particular problem with Frieje and Neltner? They were only on the most successful teams we've had in a while.

It's pretty clear Stallings likes recruiting some big men who can create more space by threatening from outside. It's also pretty clear that he will recruit players like that, regardless of rankings. I don't see anything wrong with recruiting guys who fit that mold, regardless of race; further, I don't see how this is a type of guy we "used" to recruit any more than the opposite of your description of Moats is who we "now recruit." Our true power forwards that Stallings has recruited, in order from recent to least so: (maybe Siakam), Tchiengang, Neltner, Brown, Madsen, Metcalfe, Nwankwo, Terrell, Frieje. Of those, Tchiengang, Neltner, Madsen, Metcalfe, and Frieje all had noted outside games in their recruiting profiles (or in Frieje's case, as an incoming freshman). So, first, we never stopped recruiting guys like that (see Tchiengang in 2008). Brown (2006) was a combo forward, same as Siakam. Second, Nwankwo and Terrell, classes of 2004 and 2002, respectively, certainly did not come in rated as soft outside shooters. And they were guys we "used to recruit."

And while Jeff Taylor plays the four sometimes, he is not a power forward, nor the blueprint for what Stallings has historically wanted from the four. We aren't going to only gun for Jeff Taylor types from here on out. I think your statement is a relatively petty generalization, and not terribly fact-based.