I agree with people who cringe a little bit when the coaching staff goes after these kids who are projects. In this case with Amida Brimah i think that was a no brainer. I think he can help the team from day 1. Somebody like Michael Bradley was going to be a project and we knew that as soon as he signed. Mandeldove is another example of somebody we knew would be a project. Look how it worked out with those two. Sometimes they will work out but every questionable big man recruit isnt going to be an Armstrong or Okafor.
Ah, but there were reasons for both of those signings.
Mandeldove was the first signing in the year when we had 10 scholarships available at once. All we had was Adrien, Austrie and AJ Price. That was our roster. We needed warm bodies. Later, we pulled in Curtis Kelly, and in the spring, Hasheem Thabeet (plus another project - Gavin - who developed into a starter). Had we not gotten Thabeet, Mandeldove might have actually had a larger role here. Once he was relegated to backup duty by players in his own class, he apparently turned his attention to enjoying college life.
Bradley - I think partially anyway - was signed when we were in the middle of our APR woes. He was a very bright kid brought in to be a backup with the idea that he may develop, but if not, we'll at least improve our APR scores. I can't prove that, but it seems to make a lot of sense. And we still don't know how he would have panned out with good health and an opportunity this year. I was bummed to see him go.
He was a different sort of a project, but Beverly was a reach at guard who was brought in when we had our entire roster coming back and it was impossible to recruit anyone (no playing time available). So we took a flyer on kid who could be a good fit without needing a lot of playing time (we were really, really lucky the next year to sign a willing-to-be-patient kid named Kemba Walker, who knew he would sit for a year behind a Price-Dyson backcourt).
Point is, every signing can't be treated equally. There's often a back story or extenuating circumstances that explains why you might reach a little to a kid who you hope might be a diamond in the rough. That's the case with this class - it was tough to recruit late this year with the sudden coaching turnover, and we needed immediate help in a few places (backup guard, post defender).
