New writer in town
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@JayHawkFanToo Xavier obviously doesn’t count and there is a 9 year gap in recruiting. @Kcmatt7 has a good point. That is not an insignificant gap and it does beg the question if this was a deliberate shift in focus away from international players. I would be very interested to hear the answer to that.
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I wouldn’t even count Toronto area kids among the foreign born because they’ve pretty much all come up through the AAU system like Americans have as well.
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@HawkInMizery Here’s an idea for an article for you. What are the odds of Billy Preston ever playing a game for KU. Given the horrible academic track records of Prime Prep and API, an article about the odds of Preston playing for KU given his academic background would be interesting, albeit possibly disappointing for KU.
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What @Kcmatt7 said was…“But why did we have a decade without one?” which is the question I answered.
As far as why we did not get more players? I believe it is more happenstance than design, some years there are more top foreign players than others and other years top foreign players pick other schools. If you look at the Kentucky roster as an example, you will see a similar pattern, some years they have 3 some years they have none. It is similar to saying why don’t we have more Kansan players? Some years the state produce a Perry Ellis or Tyrel Reed and some years it does not. The team currently has 2 Kansas born player (Self was born in Tulsa) Tucker Vang that has played a total of 11 minutes and Clay Young that has played 12 minutes and have scored a combined 0 points; basically players used for practice and not recruited to contribute at game time…although their practice contribution is indeed valuable. Since Reed, the only Kansas players that were recruited were Ellis and Frankamp who was a low priority recruit since he basically recruited himself to KU. Had Kansas produce more players like Ellis or Reed KU would certainly have more of them,
KU typically recruits from the top 100 players and a few diamond in the rough outside that range, Lucas comes to mind, so the opportunities are more limited than those of lesser programs that basically recruit from the top 1,000. Not a lot of foreigners in that upper range although the number has been growing recently. Now, there are programs like Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s that have made it a point to recruit Australian players and have been very successful with them; KU is not and I don’t anticipate it will be in this mode any time soon. Just my take.
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@JayHawkFanToo There have been kids from Kansas/KC recently that KU never recruited that went to major programs. Willie Cauley-Stein was from Overland Park and Tum Tum Nairn at Michigan St. played at Sunrise in Wichita. There was also Semi Ojeleye who committed to Duke before busting out who was from Ottawa 10 minutes south of KU. I almost forgot about Buddy Hield who played in Wichita as well.
Thise are four guys in recent years from Kansas/KC who KU never went after despite all 4 being pursued by other major programs.
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Willie Cauley Stein made it clear that he did not wantt o go to KU very early on and thus was never recruited. I know several kids who went o school with hm and the consensus is that he was real jerk. Ojeleye was also know to have issues with teammates and that proved to be correct at Duke. More importantly, both players were part of the MoKan AAU team that has a very strained relationship with KU which also prevented players like Alec Burks and Willie Reed from considering KU.
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@JayHawkFanToo Not the point and I’m well aware of MoKan’s history because I’ve probably posted about them more than anyone else here.
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@JayHawkFanToo I mean that we haven’t recruited one.
Henry isn’t a foreign player. We all know that.
And so we went from 2004 to 2014 without recruiting a foreign player.
If you want to debunk me, you should build that same list with foreign players we recruited and didn’t land from 2006-2013.
You also Missed Buke, We have had 3 African bigs land at KU in a 4 year period. That doesn’t seem strange to you? We have only had one (Niang, who was recruited by Roy), that I can remember in my time, and then we land 3 in 4 years. That’s not just something that is random. Either we are recruiting foreign players harder or we have something that really lands with foreign recruits. Either way, this isn’t something that strikes me as ordinary. You don’t have to agree or see it that way, but I definitely am feeling that Self has made a conscious decision to start going after foreign players.
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Globally Adidas is kicking Nike’s keister. Couple this with Embiid’s success and it’s a model for successful recruiting abroad. @jaybate-1.0 's shoeco war stuff.
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The only KU foreign player that did not play HS in the States in recent years is SVi and he kind of fell on KU’s lap. All the others were ranked players that played here. My point is that I do not believe and does not appear to be any evidence that I have seen that Coach Self and his staff sit and say we are going to recruit or not recruit foreign players unlike other schools such as Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s that concentrate on players from down under and have scouts that recruit that part of the world. From what I understand from people that are a lot closer to the program than I am, the various coaches at KU decide on the upcoming needs and prioritize who they would like most but at one time or another visit the majority of the top 100 ranked players since they do not know which player they will get or miss…regardless of nationality and sometimes, while scouting a player they find another that was not on their radar. Players like Emmanuel Mudiay,and Thon Maker, both foreign just to name a couple of recent prospects off the top of my head were high targets, not because they were foreign but because they were highly ranked and neither ended up at KU or anywhere else. You can search for other highly ranked foreign players and you will see that many were KU targets and had KU in their list but did not end up at KU.
Again, you are trying to find a reason why more foreign players have not played at KU and all I am saying is that there is really no specific reason that I can think of, and much like the other elite programs, sometimes we have 3 and sometimes we have none, If you believe there is a specific reason I would love to hear it but you have not provided one. You believe there is a pattern I believe there is none, let’s just leave it at that.
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@Kcmatt7 Define foreign players? Guys like Svi and Enes Kanter who played Euroball and never played American HS or AAU ball or guys like Embiid and Azubuike who grew up in Africa, showed some ability at camp and were brought over to the US to play HS and AAU ball?
The recruitments of Joel Embiid and Udoka Azubuike were no different than how Self and staff recruited Josh Jackson, Frank Mason, or Devonte Graham.
Svi is the only true international recruit Self has brought in that did not play HS ball in the US, did not play AAU ball in the US. He played pro ball in Ukraine for a local club team and made his name in international tournaments.
Everyone else Self has recruited to KU played HS and/or AAU ball in the US and went through the traditional recruitment process.
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I am not sure what the point is then…
By the way, Willie Cauley-Stein is not from Overland Park, he is considered to be from Olathe and attended Olathe Northwest HS where he played .basketball and football; KU was never in his list, KSU was. Also, KU indeed recruited Buddy Hield heavily and along with OU they were his two final schools and he chose OU.
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@JayHawkFanToo Olathe or OP, whatever, they’re 5 minutes apart.
And no, KU did not heavily recruit Buddy Hield. Bill Self himself has said in the past Hield is the one guy he regrets not recruiting harder so I’ll take Self’s word about the recruitment of Hield over any other source.
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This is from The Wichita Eagle…
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You could say that Kansas coach Bill Self missed on Oklahoma senior Buddy Hield, the reigning Big 12 player of the year. You could say that the KU staff should have been more diligent with an in-state recruit. You could say that they should have seen this coming.
Self’s response: How many college coaches did?
Four years ago, Hield was a standout senior at Sunrise Christian Academy, a private prep powerhouse on the northeast side of Wichita. A native of the Bahamas, Hield, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard, had gone to Sunrise to pursue a college basketball scholarship, and after two seasons, he was a top-100 recruit with offers from schools all over the country.
One of those schools was KU. The Jayhawks’ staff was interested in Hield, Self said. They believed he could be a program player, a nice addition who could help the Jayhawks in time. They did not, of course, think he would one day be an All-American candidate, averaging 24.7 points per game for the No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners.
“I never thought he would average 25 (points per game),” Self said, “or we would have tried a lot harder to recruit him.”
Self smiled. This wry concession came Saturday night, two days before No. 2 Kansas’ showdown with Oklahoma inside Allen Fieldhouse.
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And this from the KC Star…
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Kruger was new to Oklahoma when he recruited Hield, and quickly made the Sunrise product his primary target. He faced competition from Wichita State, which offered Hield a scholarship, and Kansas, with Bill Self attending many of his AAU games. Colorado and other schools were also in the picture.
Hield considered Kansas, but said he chose Oklahoma because of his relationship with Kruger and the Sooners’ style of play.
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It is not that KU did not recruit Buddy Hield, KU did and offered a scholarship to him. Not too many coaches or scout expected him to be that good and Coach Self thought he would be a program player and not the superstar he turned out to be, but keep in mind that it took him 4 years to get there. Remember another players that everybody missed? Ron Baker who had to walk in at WSU because he did not get offers from any other major program and Coach Self said pretty much the same thing about him. Hindsight is always 20-20 as Coach Self is clearly inferring in his comment; KU tried as much as it should have with Hield and Baker (who was invited to try at KU but never did) given their respective standings at the time, wouldn’t you agree?
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@JayHawkFanToo You claimed KU heavily recruited Hield. Bill Self’s own words contradict that statement and the two sources you just provided also contradict any notion KU seriously recruited Hield. KU recruited him to the level of someone they expected to be an 11th, 12th, or 13th scholarship guy. OU made Hield a much higher priority than KU did because can’t recruit to the level KU does. Hield was a guy 3 hours away from them they expected to be a significant contributor by the end of his career, not to the extent he became, but still a top guy for them.
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You are taking Coach Self’s words out of context.
KU does not offer a scholarship or has Coach Self attend a prospect’s multiple HS and AAU games unless it is serious about it. Coach Self does not have the time to watch every prospects and he watches only those with a high priority as he did with Hield, the rest are scouted by the other KU coaches.
When Coach Self said…I never thought he would average 25 (points per game) or we would have tried a lot harder to recruit him…he is stating exactly the obvious that if he had thought Hield would be a super star he would have recruited him harder. Obviously he did not think at the time that he would be a super star but a good system player and if you look at his numbers, in his first season when he started only 13 games and averaged less than 8 point per game, it is not not bad but exactly what you expect from a system player, as Coach Self projected, but not a super star like say…Wiggins or Jackson…or how Hield turned out later on.
KU cannot pursue every player, it just does not have the resources, no program does, so it has to prioritize who, how long and how hard it pursues. Top 20-30 players get a lot more attention than lower ranked players. Players like DeAndre Ayton are pursued early and hard and in that case, he did not even pick KU or Kaleb Tarczewski who assured Coach Self he was coming top KU only to sign with Arizona. In addition to Ayton, in the upcoming class alone KU went hard after Duval, Sexton Trae Young and Billy Preston, all Top 20 and so far it has only signed Preston. Buddy Hield was ranked #86 by Rivals and in that class KU picked up #24 Perry Eliis and #51 Andrew White; ESPN had Ellis at #35 and White at #48 and Hield was unranked…that is correct, unranked. He was pretty much at the level of Lucas or Lightfoot and neither got the star recruiting treatment either and yet they signed with KU. For the record the coaches in charge of recruiting Hield were Self and Manning. Considering his ranking at that time, KU did give Hield quite bit of attentions all things considered, wouldn’t you agree?
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@JayHawkFanToo KU was recruiting Perry Ellis at the same time so coaches were already going to Wichita to watch Ellis play. That’s why they were spending so much time in Wichita. Hield and Ellis were also AAU teammates so KU coaches saw plenty of Hield while recruiting Ellis. Bill Self made Hield a low priority target even with plenty of access to him.
You claimed KU heavily recruited Hield, but haven’t provided any evidence to support that claim, just a bunch of stuff that Self didn’t know what Hield would become. Yes, KU did offer Hield, but they didn’t spend much time recruiting him considering how much time the coaching staff spent in Wichita watching Ellis play HS and AAU ball. KU easily could’ve checked out Hield as much as they checked out Ellis, but chose not to do which means they did not heavily recruit Hield like youre claiming KU did.
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Again, you are expecting KU to put a full court press on a player that was eventually ranked #85 by Rivals and unranked by ESPN? Coach Self attended several games at his HS which is not the same that Ellis played; just because they went to Wichita to see Ellis play does not mean they could see Hield at the same time…unless they played against each other which I don’t believe they did. Obviously he saw him play and thought that he was a system player and not a future star, no one predicted that…Coach Self admitted that much… and his initial year showed that he was indeed a 4 year player and he exploded only on his junior and senior years.
Once more, Perry was a 3 time POY in Kansas and a McDonald All American ranked in the top 30 and Hield became eventually a borderline top 100 player…do you really think KU should have spent the same effort on two players that far apart? Considering Hield’s ranking, KU did spend a lot of time on who at the time was a marginal player. If Lightfoot becomes the second coming of Hield in his junior or senior year, Coach Self will look like a genius but it still would not justify KU spending any more time recruiting him than it did. You have not provide one single reason, other than hindsight, why KU should have spent any more effort than it did.
It does not appear like either one will change the other’s opinion. so maybe it is time to just drop it? You can have the last word. Good discussion any way.
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I feel like I am stuck in a 15 hour ping-pong rally between two Chinese champions. Both are trying to make killer points, each defends, the aggressor role switches to the other one. Both using so much energy that the audience is even exhausted.
Can I interject a little something? You both agree that Self recruited Hield–actively, perhaps, but not as aggressively as he would have if he had seen something in his game foreshadowing his 4th year superstar leap. This certainly has to contradict the original point of contention, that HCBS did not recruit foreign players for about a decade.
Unsuccessfully, but recruited enough to go to his games and offer him. Counts as being recruited if Coleby does.
Anyway, thanks for all that exchanged info. The details you both added were interesting. But you aren’t really arguing over substance as much as you are subtle language distinctions!
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@JayHawkFanToo said:
Also, KU indeed recruited Buddy Hield heavily and along with OU they were his two final schools and he chose OU.
Your quote. I don’t see you adding any qualifiers about Hield being recruited heavily for a borderline top 100 player. All I’ve said about Hield is that he played HS ball in Wichita, KU’s coaches saw him quite a bit because he played AAU ball with Perry, he was not heavily recruited by KU, and his offer was a token offer.
You’ve somehow managed to spin that into me saying that KU spent a lot of time recruiting Hield, then spun that into spent a lot of time recruiting Hield relative to him being a fringe top 100 recruit.
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Nicely stated.
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No, this is what you said…
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There have been kids from Kansas/KC recently that KU never recruited that went to major programs. Willie Cauley-Stein was from Overland Park and Tum Tum Nairn at Michigan St. played at Sunrise in Wichita. There was also Semi Ojeleye who committed to Duke before busting out who was from Ottawa 10 minutes south of KU. I almost forgot about Buddy Hield who played in Wichita as well.
Thise are four guys in recent years from Kansas/KC who KU never went after despite all 4 being pursued by other major programs.
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Do you want to try again? I explained about Cauley-Stein and Ojeleye and frankly, I just don’t remember Nairn, heck. I even added Alec Burks, Willie Reed and Ron Baker, again explaining why they were not recruited. This is not at all the case with Hield, whom based on his ranking at the time, KU recruited a lot harder that it did other comparable players it pursued.
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No one knew what Hield would become or Kentucky, Duke, KU, and every other team under the sun would’ve been pursuing him hard. The ranking systems had him projected as a starter for a lesser D-1 team in year 2-3 and indicated he may have been a rotation player at a blue blood by his jr. year. Not worthy of spending too much time recruiting with bigger, more likely to produce, fish to fry.
At this point on this thread its just an argument of semantics.
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I agree with you 100%.
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@RockChalkinTexas Sounds like you have an athletic family. About the Orange Bowl. I went to the 1963 game they played at Lincoln against OU for the Big Eight title. They won 29 to 20. That was supposedly their first Big Eight championship in a number of years. The field was covered with oranges at the end and unfortunately sometimes during the game. That was the day after Kennedy was shot.
Our high school coach played for NU and had gotten the team tickets to the Iowa State game earlier in the season. That was when one end of the stadium was not closed. It had wooden bleachers and high school and younger students could get cheap tickets to the “knothole” section. The whole stadium only held about 38,000 at the time. A friend and I drove down and got the same type of tickets for the OU game.
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@approxinfinity Self has said he’s ok with hair or headgear, if it is a consistent thing, like a trademark. But if we’re doing weekly things like haircut designs or colors, then it becomes a distraction like the whole Dennis Rodman sideshow…I recall Sherron shaved a star in his head, and KU lost a game, which made it too easy for Self to snipe the guys about misplaced focus. The next game, the star was gone. I think Self mentioned the “as long as its consistent” quote around 2011, when we had Josh Selby. I used to wonder why KU never got its share of headband-athletes (think Bruce Pearl’s TN rosters, or other east coast schools). I think Aaron Miles wore headbands early on. Self, no doubt, has thought about recruiting angles…if he was hard on headbands before, he’s softened his tone surely now…
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Frank Mason III can wear however/do whatever he wants with his hair. Cornrows, coolio-sprouts, doesnt matter, as long as he’s the same piece of dynamite that he always has been…
