I had a casual friend while I was working in SoCal who is a Hogs fan, and he said that the word was that Boogie was not well liked by his teammates. So much so, that when he went down on the floor during practice, they would not reach out to help him up. Then he got hurt, and noticed that the team played better without him. I think he figured out that he did not fit, and left for even more bucks to Florida.
Good intel. Thanks for sharing. Knock UF back a couple notches. Was my concern with him. It was amazing how much better they got immediately once he went down. Once Cal put Johnell Davis in it was a new team.
I think it's totally fair to criticize the dad. I don't understand why everything has to be 100% black or white. Toure not coming here is a completely rational, legit decision, and his dad talking about bentleys or cash in the media, can also be legit criticized as not smart. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course.
Weak class - not a ton of separation between top 10 and 30s, so if you believe in a kid like AT, the ranking shouldn’t be a massive dictator this year. He does have a lot of athletic upside.
“It was a tough decision, UConn and Providence were right there,” said Mamoudou Toure, Abdou’s father. “They did everything to try to get us, especially Providence, they did a lot. Their coach was over our house until midnight. It wasn’t an easy decision. … Calipari, he’s a good salesman, I can tell you.”
I don’t think there was any mystery about Nowell. I just think he wasn’t good enough last year. That’s a hard thing to put in a statement.
There will be some interesting non-Uconn items to follow next year. One will be watching Abraham & Nowell to see how they do at GTown & VCU, and to see if they are closer to what they thought they were coming in or closer to what Hurley felt moving off them. The other is watching some of the recruits we moved off of, like Bundalo, Thomas & Lewis.
This would make sense if Mahaney also wasn’t good enough but got all the opportunity in the world still.
Fully expect Abraham to play a role off the bench for Georgetown. Hes only going to be 3 and D pretty much though.
Yeah. I’ll be curious how it goes, with Nowell at least. I think the consensus when Abraham signed as a guy outside the top 100 was that he wasn’t really expected to contribute in year one and that maybe he could develop later in his career.
Abraham was a top 80 recruit.
I recommend Nowell cut his braids. New school, new do. Braids are a good look for some, a bad look for others. His always reminded me of Taye Diggs' character in the movie, "Malibu's Most Wanted" when he bought a wig to look tough....and well, it didn't go well...
And maybe it took twice as much effort and $ to get him to leave Connecticut and the draw of being a star on the home town team and the ease of watching him play in person much more easily and the notoriety of being in the local paper and tv stations. Just like Beverly ( Cincinnati/Syracuse ) last years star local player that nobody has heard about him since the day the committed elsewhere nor will they ever at this point.
Eh, I think Toure and Betsey are different prospects. Never expected much from Betsey but was happy he got his and is another athlete to go D1 from CT.
Here is how I see it - Hurley's system may not be perfect for you, but if you want a really functional program that is going to be fair, measured and constructive, you will not do better than it. He's not going to sugar coat it, not going to tell you what you want to hear because he wants to snooker you in. He'll be team first, ensure you're getting what you need to develop. It's not going to be rushed or forced, or fake. You'll go through their development process fairly and squarely and know where you stand.
And honestly we have heard from Mullins, Reibe, Furphy comments like "I don't care if I don't get minutes this year" and "I just want to learn and be a better player" (paraphrasing).
Reibe, and especially Mullins, said this? Can I actually see that quote. I can understand Furphy. But I don’t think Mullins would’ve came here if he thought he wasn’t going to get minutes.
Why couldn’t Nowell get the same opportunity? As a top 30ish kid that we went out and asked to come here over other schools because we thought he would be helpful for our program based on what we saw.
Issue is he really didn't look very good at all in any of the minutes he got, and we also didn't get to see him in practice. Let's see this year at VCU.
