Dave went to my alma mater and he was training there leading up to the 1992 Olympics when I was a sophomore and I played video games with him all the time in the student union … was a hilarious guy. This game called Arkanoid frustrated him to no end and I would give him lives I had left to play when I had to go to my next class.
Little known fact … he won the Bronze medal in the Decathlon in Barcelona … with a stress fracture in his foot the whole time. Obviously would have easily won the gold if healthy.
Right, but folks are making gross assumptions then that Tony is eschewing other recruiting options while holding out for those 5-stars, when our guy H&T can give you a half-dozen other quality forwards we’re evaluating and communicating this spring. Irons are in the fire.
His highschool has become a feeder for Wisconsin/no chance or traction with him and Freitag. @tlgoudy might know more though. I know he watched McAndrew play some
But there was not wasted time. How was it wasted time if there was no one else they wanted to recruit? If they wanted someone else they would have recruited them.
I don’t think people are crying about *not getting a committment, they’re exasperated because they saw it coming a mile away. Many people, including myself *knew it would be a stretch to get a commitment from Jarin Stevenson, so no one is surprised that it didn’t happen.
Im pretty sure Tony saw it a mile away too which is why he didn’t go to watch Jarin play during the season at Seaforth. They knew their shot was limited. They lost nothing in trying. If there was someone they wanted bad they would have also recruited that person.
I don’t know why people keep trying to equate this recruitment to Power or Keels or Sheppard. None of those recruitments were very similar to each other. And Stevenson is wildly different from all three of those
It feels like every company I’ve worked for has put forth at the org-wide level that we want to “hire for fit and attitude; we can teach the skills.”
I think one of the bright spots of this focus (there are downsides) is that we don’t generally worry about our players providing murder weapons to alleged murderers.
We could do what other programs do…but then we wouldn’t be Virginia Basketball…and I would not like our team (whatever the star gain might be) as much.
Careful what you wish for…you might turn into Alabama. A good (but frankly unctuous) program.
I think the difference of opinion stems from some posters remembering the years immediately preceding Tony, when the house was genuinely at risk, and those who don’t remember it often enough. Current state, the house is not on fire. Full stop.
I’d like to see some changes in how the staff manages lots of things, but I’m grateful CTB and team make the calls and I do not.
Thanks for the information that makes it clear. I hadn’t been expecting him for a long time, but instead of the sarcasm of some of the responses I decided I was going to respond on behalf of others that may be upset about why we were going after him.
To be honest if we had gotten him I would have been worried about the balance of our team as we have 11 players already that expect to get time or could be getting time somewhere else so I want them all to stay content.
I’m as confused as you guys are, but my guess is they knew they had no chance. The high school that sends kids to Wisconsin is Lakeville North and McAndrew is from Wayzata so that wasn’t it. They got a commitment from a similar player in Grayson Grove who I’m guessing they knew they could get. The recruitment was similar to the Gophers getting an early commitment from Isaac Asuma which stopped their recruitment of Daniel Freitag. I know if I could pick one pair or the other, I’d pick Freitag and McAndrew, so the fact that they didn’t really recruit McAndrew and stopped recruiting a Freitag is really confusing. The Gophers are about as frustrating of a high major program as you can possibly imagine. Everyone from Minnesota knows that the elite players from here are going somewhere else, but we still hold out hope that we can get them. Outside of Amir Coffey and Daniel Oturu, we’ve missed out on all of the top 100 Minnesota kids forever. It makes me think that this staff is punting on the elite kids and trying to find the diamonds in the rough. We’re really good at getting guys to come back after their first, or second school. The more strange part of it to me is the AAU affiliation. Freitag and McAndrew are Howard Pulley guys, where Grove and Asuma are D1 MN guys. Makes me wonder if there is a relationship problem between the staff and HP. Lots of concern in Minnesota right now that this staff isn’t the answer.
Lithuanian… and the highlight video I saw of him only showed help side defense. I’ve also seen that he’s a good defender and is raw offensively. I’m tempering my expectations.
