Jahlil Okafor

Auggie said:
Farmer, the kid has lots of offers and suitors. Follow the Chicago basketball scene and you will see he has been talked about since he was in 8th grade. DePaul offered him while he was still in 8th grade then had to rescind the offer later. The data bases aren't accurate when checking for offers, especially with the under classmen.
You don't wait for kids like this to show interest. You make contact and cultivate the relationship.
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I don't follow bball recruiting. However, what I'm saying is a lot of things can change from now until he commits or signs. I'm not saying Fran is going to get this kid, but just because he didn't start recruiting him as an eighth grader doesn't mean he won't consider Iowa at all.

Heck if Iowa offered him last year he probably would've laughed but he may have heard what Iowa is doing and may listen now. Timing to these kids is more important than being first all the time.

P.S. DePaul could have offered him in kindergarten and he wouldn't have gone there for example.
 
this is what Happens whe you get a Top 50 kid to sign no matter where he is from
the best like to play with the best
it also shows that the program is moving forward
baby steps people baby steps
gte a couple foundation classes then the 1st big class, which we have coming in next season
Clemmon on the national scene is not that highly rated, but is rated the #1 pg and 7th overall in Michigan ahead of Ray Lee, that is rated higher than Clemmons
Meyer is another player that is not highly rated but is overshadowed by 4 or 5 other players in the state of Georgia
 
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Cydkar said:
Offering a player does not indicate anything. Interest from said player does.
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I disagree. Especially in Iowa's case, it does mean something. We have a coach with enough balls to go after the top talent in the country. That shows everyone where he wants to get this program. Lick wouldn't have even thought about offering 5 star talent.
 
I'm not sure why it takes balls to offer a kid. One can possibly assume that the offer was only made because there was some reciprocal interest.

I will agree that Lick lacked any sense of building the Iowa program. Comparing Fran to Lick is almost irrelevant, however. He's not competing against Lick and Iowa fans need to just wipe him out of their memories.
 
I agree with Cydkar. You can offer every kid in the nation, but if they have no interest in Iowa, it doesn't matter. Like I said before it woulnd't have mattered in DePaul offered him as a kindergartner, he wouldn't have gone there.

My take on this, is that Iowa (though not relevant on the court this year) was not relevant on the recruiting trail until this year. Fran may have wanted to wait on this kid until he could say, we have good recruits coming in and we want you to be the same etc.

If he did this last year he wouldn't have much to have offered the kid. Winning next year is the thing that might actually get this kids attention, but offereing him a year or 2 ago would have had little benefit, now there is a little name recognition for Fran and Iowa.
 
Cydkar - Why is it such a bad thing to compare our current coach to the one we had 2 years ago? You guys do that in football all the time with Chizik.

And yes, it does take balls to go into a gym where Coach K, Calipari, and Roy Williams are sitting, and wait to talk to the same kid about coming to a program that won less than half of the games the others won the previous year.
 
also to look at it another way
Lick tried to recruit kids, like he was still in a mid major school
Fran is going after kids to compete in the BT and against upper level high Majors
to compete at that level you have to get top 25 kids as well as top 100 kids and the top 150 3* recruits you can
if you watch Fran does not extend a lot of offers
to date there are only 4 kids with offers for the 2013 class
 
Benddontbreak said:
Cydkar - Why is it such a bad thing to compare our current coach to the one we had 2 years ago? You guys do that in football all the time with Chizik.

And yes, it does take balls to go into a gym where Coach K, Calipari, and Roy Williams are sitting, and wait to talk to the same kid about coming to a program that won less than half of the games the others won the previous year.
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I never think about Chiz. I can't speak for others.
 
hawkfarmer said:
I agree with Cydkar. You can offer every kid in the nation, but if they have no interest in Iowa, it doesn't matter. Like I said before it woulnd't have mattered in DePaul offered him as a kindergartner, he wouldn't have gone there.

My take on this, is that Iowa (though not relevant on the court this year) was not relevant on the recruiting trail until this year. Fran may have wanted to wait on this kid until he could say, we have good recruits coming in and we want you to be the same etc.

If he did this last year he wouldn't have much to have offered the kid. Winning next year is the thing that might actually get this kids attention, but offereing him a year or 2 ago would have had little benefit, now there is a little name recognition for Fran and Iowa.
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Fran offered Tyus Jones (top 5 recruit in 2014) when he was a ninth grader and he is in the same class as Okafor, so I am not sure your last statement really holds no water.
 
herbyhawk said:
i guess we are to extend offers to kids while they are in Kindergarten to make sure Iowa is in on them early
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You know its funny how bad things really are on the top flite kids.
In 2008 I was in Texas at Softball showcase tournament with my daughter's team and the U of T coaches were there looking at the younger classes of kids(2013-14') because they were committed out that far.
 
Okafor was already like 6'8'' in 8th grade so he is no surprise.

Fran is getting into Whitney Young and Simeon and Curie,offering kids,being seen, talking to the coaches...all good moves. Sure, Iowa has about as much chance at Okafor and White as Illinois does with Jabbari Parker at Simeon,but it is still good to cultivate relationships with those programs. Whitney Young has an incredible record of putting like every bb player in college on bb scholly the last 7-8 years. They have guys on the bench that will be division 1 players.

Sam Thompson,frosh at OSU,is a spectacular Whitney Young product.
I am glad to see Fran and staff in there...gotta start somewhere.
 
hawkfarmer said:
I agree with Cydkar. You can offer every kid in the nation.
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guinness-brilliant.jpg

Now we are back!
 
JHHawk said:
Okafor was already like 6'8'' in 8th grade so he is no surprise.

Fran is getting into Whitney Young and Simeon and Curie,offering kids,being seen, talking to the coaches...all good moves. Sure, Iowa has about as much chance at Okafor and White as Illinois does with Jabbari Parker at Simeon,but it is still good to cultivate relationships with those programs. Whitney Young has an incredible record of putting like every bb player in college on bb scholly the last 7-8 years. They have guys on the bench that will be division 1 players.

Sam Thompson,frosh at OSU,is a spectacular Whitney Young product.
I am glad to see Fran and staff in there...gotta start somewhere.
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Good post.
 
JHHawk said:
Okafor was already like 6'8'' in 8th grade so he is no surprise.

Fran is getting into Whitney Young and Simeon and Curie,offering kids,being seen, talking to the coaches...all good moves. Sure, Iowa has about as much chance at Okafor and White as Illinois does with Jabbari Parker at Simeon,but it is still good to cultivate relationships with those programs. Whitney Young has an incredible record of putting like every bb player in college on bb scholly the last 7-8 years. They have guys on the bench that will be division 1 players.

Sam Thompson,frosh at OSU,is a spectacular Whitney Young product.
I am glad to see Fran and staff in there...gotta start somewhere.
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Until we get recruits like they do I wouldn't knock Illinois' recruiting. As of a couple weeks ago Parker had them in his top 3. The point is it will take a while to be able to compete for those types of kids. That's ok, you don't have to have them in order to win. Next years class is incrementally better than the previous and you just have to hope that it continues in that direction. And right now there is no reason to believe it will do anything but flourish.
 
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