tOfficial MSU Basketball Recruiting Thread: Class of 2017

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I love each and every one of these young men.

Gary Trent, Jr.: Alpha Dog
At 6'5" 195 pounds, Gary Trent, Jr., 247Sports' top-ranked shooting guard in 2017, has the prototypical size that one would look for in a future NBA guard. The Apple Valley rising junior is approachable, tough, confident, and hungry. After not receiving an invite to last October's USA Basketball mini-camp, Trent refocused his efforts to helping Apple Valley win its second state title in three years and developing his game to the point that nobody could deny that he was among the top players in the class of 2017.
http://247sports.com/Article/Gary-Trent-Jr-Alpha-Dog-37659977

Turtleneck wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I love each and every one of these young men.

Well, here you go....Gary Trent, Jr has been all over the news in the past week.

Gary Trent, Jr.: Alpha Dog
At 6'5" 195 pounds, Gary Trent, Jr., 247Sports' top-ranked shooting guard in 2017, has the prototypical size that one would look for in a future NBA guard. The Apple Valley rising junior is approachable, tough, confident, and hungry. After not receiving an invite to last October's USA Basketball mini-camp, Trent refocused his efforts to helping Apple Valley win its second state title in three years and developing his game to the point that nobody could deny that he was among the top players in the class of 2017.
http://247sports.com/Article/Gary-Trent-Jr-Alpha-Dog-37659977

Gary Trent, Jr. thriving in the summer scene

Gary Trent, Jr. stepping out from father's shadows

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I love each and every one of these young men.

Turtleneck wrote:ESPN just released their top 60 for 2017.

PJ Washington is listed at #7, Trent, Jr. at #8, Bowen at #16, Eastern at #39, Scruggs at #41, and Green at #43.

Xavier Tilman from Forest Hills Central is listed at #42.

Turtleneck wrote:Throw a 2018 story into the mix.

Staudt: EL’s Johns the next big area hoops prospect

What happens when the union of a 6' 3" wife and a 6' 6" husband decide to have a child? A 5-Star is born. Talk about raised in a basketball-crazed family, both of Wiley's parents played basketball for Auburn. Vickie had an illustrious career, scoring 2,035 points and grabbing 1,006 rebounds, including two national championship game appearances in '88 and '89. Aubrey led the SEC in rebounding his senior year.

It appears that Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl has the inside track. However, Austin's recruitment is gaining momentum with the likes of Michigan State, North Carolina, Duke, and Kentucky starting to take notice. The kid with the size 17 shoe has received 10 offers, among them are Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi State,Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida, and Texas Tech.

Turtleneck wrote:

What happens when the union of a 6' 3" wife and a 6' 6" husband decide to have a child? A 5-Star is born. Talk about raised in a basketball-crazed family, both of Wiley's parents played basketball for Auburn. Vickie had an illustrious career, scoring 2,035 points and grabbing 1,006 rebounds, including two national championship game appearances in '88 and '89. Aubrey led the SEC in rebounding his senior year.

It appears that Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl has the inside track. However, Austin's recruitment is gaining momentum with the likes of Michigan State, North Carolina, Duke, and Kentucky starting to take notice. The kid with the size 17 shoe has received 10 offers, among them are Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi State,Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida, and Texas Tech.

Michigan State Recruiting: 2017 5-Star Center Austin Wiley on the Radar

While the top schools are offering the Arthur Hill junior, Southward is waiting. He has received interest from a handful of Mid-American Conference schools such as Northern Illinois, Central Michigan and Kent State, plus a few Big Ten teams like Michigan State and Michigan.

Major interest in Derek Culver

Four-star power forward Derek Culver is the top ranked player in the state of Ohio in the 2017 class. The long and athletic Culver had a strong showing this summer with the Ohio Basketball Club, and he continues to reel in more and more interest on the recruiting trail.
Already possessing major talent, Culver’s high school coach, Andy Vlajkovich, Culver is just now beginning to figure out how good he can be.
“I think he is very naturally talented,” said Vlajkovich. “When he was a young kid I don’t know if he really understood how talented he was. He’s grown up so much in the last two years. We used to tell him he could be a division I player, and then it was you could be a top 100 kid, and now we are telling him he could be a McDonald’s All-American if he continues to work hard.”

For the second year in a row, the top junior from Michigan won't be playing his high school basketball in the state.

Brian Bowen of Saginaw Arthur Hill is planning to transfer to La Lumiere, a prep school in La Porte, Ind.

A year ago, Josh Jackson, the national No. 1 player in the class of 2016, left Detroit Consortium after leading it to the Class C state championship and transferred to a high school in California to play for Prolific Prep Academy, a club team in Napa.

As a sophomore Bowen, nicknamed Tugs, averaged 21 points and 14 rebounds in helping Arthur Hill to the Class A state championship game, which was won by Detroit Western.

Arthur Hill coach Greg McMath was not caught off guard by the transfer.

"They kind of talked, about a month ago, that they were thinking about it,'' he said. "I tried to tell them no. I just think the kid was having great success here. They just felt he needed to be able to travel and play against different competition. I told them our rules in the state don't allow us to do certain things.''

• Southport guard Paul Scruggs is No. 30 by Rivals. Scruggs, who is playing football this fall (10 catches for 100 yards and a touchdown in three games), has offers from Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan State, Wake Forest and Xavier.

Here's a very good article written by John Gasaway (that I highly recommend). The TL;DR version is that analytics are nice and often very useful, however, in the end talent is ultimately necessary and can win out if there’s enough of it (seriously, just go read the article). In an easy example from last year, 1 seed Villanova ran through the Big East and posted a 32-2 record along with being #5 in KenPom going into the NCAA tournament. The issue was when they got to the second round they ran into a talent-laden NC State who had talented upperclassman that transferred in and had underclassmen that were a part of back-to-back top 16 classes per 247Sports. Villanova on the other hand had four straight years with classes ranked between 28 and 32 (talk about consistency). Talent ended up winning through superior athleticism despite shooting worse from the FT line, from 3, and turning it over twice as often as Villanova (H/T to KJ on this article idea).

LooseGoose wrote:Couch being snarky - but truthful?

Graham Couch ‏@Graham_Couch 8h8 hours ago
Anthony Davis is so good. Worth more than the $200K he asked colleges for coming out of high school in Chicago.

At around 6-foot-7 with good athleticism and a versatile skill set, Brooks can do a bit of everything on the court, and he is working hard to get better.

“I have been working on my jumper and being more versatile,” noted Brooks. “I just want to be an all-around basketball player.”

When it comes to recruiting, Brooks says some of the top schools around are showing him major interest.
“A lot of schools from the Big Ten are showing a lot of interest,” noted Brooks. “Mainly Michigan State, they say they want me to come to campus and it is good to hear from them.”

Turtleneck wrote:Way too early for a 2019 thread

Turtleneck wrote:I was going to start a combined 18/19 thread. Might do that in the next couple days.

Turtleneck wrote:Yeah, but then DWags will post 2019 news in the 2015 thread.

But I will start two. We should really just have a recruiting forum. Is that something Nigel can do?

Turtleneck wrote:I can agree with that. I was just angling for a mod position and hat.

Q: Who are our biggest targets for the c/o 2017? -- Ryan O'Connor
https://twitter.com/ryanoc_gogreen

A: Here's three that are thought to be among the team's top targets (not meant to be taken as a definitive "top three"):

Brian Bowen: The four-star forward is from Saginaw, an area that has treated Izzo well (although he now plays at a prep school in Indiana) and is the cousin of Jason Richardson. He's sought after, but Michigan State offered him a scholarship back when he was a freshman, something it rarely does.

Gary Trent Jr.: Michigan State appears to have an uphill battle for the five-star guard from Minnesota, against the likes of Duke, Ohio State and Kansas. But if it can land him, it would have another high-level guard to add to a stable it already has committed for 2016.

Nojel Eastern: The four-star point guard from the Chicago area has visited Michigan State multiple times in the past few months, including for the Spartans' team camp and for midnight madness, after earning a scholarship offer in May. He is coming off a broken ankle last season.