hunt-ducks
Well-known member
LittleBear said:hunt-ducks said:I think the fact that Egun is going to transfer to lowly Regis college is a good example of how so many Griz fans think every high school player that Travis signs are great talents. I remember many posters lauding Egun as a rising star with the Griz. Seems like every freshman class that Travis signs is filled with future stars, according to many of you. My question to you is this......... are you predicting greatness from every class just because you are UM fans, or DeCuire fans, or both? Don't you think that every fan-base from other Big Sky schools feels the same about their player signings?
Just remember that the mid-major teams almost always sign the kids that are left after the majors sign the kids they want. Occasionally Travis is able to sign a kid who has multiple offers from the lower-tier majors, but that is the exception, rather than a regular occurrence.
And, yes, a few of these players turn-out to be very good players, and even good enough to start for bigger programs. But not many. And if they show that they are good enough to play at more elite programs, won't they be likely to transfer? This is the reason why I am not big on the philosophy of favoring high school kids at the expense of signing better-talented transfers. These transfers were recruited by the major programs for a reason. And in the current environment, these Big Sky teams who we have been used to dominating in the past are now able to instantly compete with us by signing a couple of key transfers.
Please admit that we were not very competitive in the Sky last season. Yes, we were young, and most of you seem to believe that simply gaining a year of experience will suddenly make us a dominating force in the conference again. I think the book is still out on how good we will be next season, even with almost everybody coming back.
Building our program with high school kids worked in the past for Travis, but things have changed dramatically with the new transfer rules, and I believe that the smart coaches are changing their recruiting philosophy accordingly. I hope that Travis is not so system-rigid that he fails to keep-up with these changes. Just my opinion.
Absolutely. I do think its 100% fan opinion that every Griz recruit is destined to be a star....and every recruit we dont sign is a bum. That being said Eddy was a spring recruit...meaning he probably wasn’t the staff’s first choice and was meant to fill the roster once we missed out on other options. I personally believe building the program with predominantly 4 year guys is the way to go...while sprinkling in transfers to fill the gaps.
We can talk about the recruits PSU is bringing in but when is the last time they’ve even remotely challenged for a Big Sky Title? If you look at our track record of transfers idk if you can necessarily say that’s the correct methodology...Darius, Cam S, Steadman, Naseem, Yagi...all were expected to be dudes. I do think we’ve missed both on 4 year guys and high school guys. But imo recruiting guys who didn’t want to be griz in the first place should only be done so to fill in the gaps from a talent perspective.
Not sure we all thought the transfers you mentioned would be dudes. I know I didn't. None of them had much success at their previous stop. Of course, just like recruiting in general, it is all about recruiting the RIGHT transfers. Most of the guys you mentioned were not from big-time programs like Rorie and Bruenig were. Two other thoughts on this topic....... 1) if the UM roster is filled will underclass high school recruits, it makes it much harder to convince a solid drop-down from a elite conference school like the PAC-10, SEC, Big 10, etc. to sign with us. These kids who drop-down are looking to "be the man" and to get into "the dance". I maintain that having a young roster with lots of returning high school starters will make it more difficult to recruit a key drop-down transfer. 2) I think the smart coaches keep their roster fluid after each season by "encouraging" kids who will never be a factor to transfer, thus opening roster spots for key transfers. I agree that having several 4-year kids on the roster is a plus. But I also believe that we had too many basically similar-talented young players clogging our roster last season.