Kelly Farris Class!

[MilfordHusky]

I'm losing it. I do recall Taber being an ardent Christian. I was confusing home school with small private school. I recall nothing about her scoring.

I know EDD was the prior (2008) class. My point was that it still looked as if she would be at UConn and that affected the 2009 class. Except for Griner, Elena was far better than anyone in 2009.

 

[Scotter]

Here's a rough timeline and I'm going to begin with Nov/Dec 2007 when recruiting really gets serious enough that UConn narrows the list.

Chris Dailey thought she had Chelsey Lee wrapped as the fifth member of UConn's class of 2008, but she decided to sign with Rutgers.

Bone and Diggins were the intital targets with both having the versatile basketball skills to fit in well at UConn.

Kelly Faris and Taber Spani were added as primary targets for the 4 open scholarships UConn had.

At some point after her visit in early March UConn decided not to continue recruiting Spani, but Faris did verbal at the end of March. By this point it was also becoming clear that neither Bones or Diggins had much interest in coming to Storrs and the UConn coaches started looking at other players such as Tayler Hill for a brief period.

In late Spring the coaches decided to accept the transfer of Jessica McCormack leaving them with two open scholarships, which they decided to target Krista Gross and Jasmine Hassell for. Jumping in late with both of them.

In the summer there was the EDD disappearance, while the staff was trying to interest Gross and Hassell in UConn.

We know what happened at the end of the summer with EDD, Hassell would commit to Georgia in September without ever visiting Storrs, and Gross did make it to First Night before ultimately choosing UNC over UConn and Stanford.

And thus UConn was left with three unused scholarships of the 2009-10 season, which would become four when McCormack left the next Spring.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Nice detail. Thanks.

I barely remember Hassell.

I recall JMac. I'll take your word that we pursued her when things did not look good with Bone.

The Horde were reporting as late as July 2008 (maybe later) that we were interested in Diggins. Rich's blog is still out there. Publically, our interest in Bone might have continued that late as well. It sounds as if the Horde may have been 3 months behind on the status of Diggins at least.

Would JMac have been in Kelly's class?

Having just Kelly as a HS recruit in 2009 would not have had the impact it did if JMac had been healthy and stayed and had EDD been happy at UConn. Despite the small class, we did pretty well over Kelly's 2 years.

Edit: On July 28, 2008, Rich Elliott was still listing Bone and Diggins as UConn targets.

 

[Scotter]

Nice detail. Thanks.
The Horde were reporting as late as July 2008 (maybe later) that we were interested in Diggins. Rich's blog is still out there. Publically, our interest in Bone might have continued that late as well. It sounds as if the Horde may have been 3 months behind on the status of Diggins at least.

Would JMac have been in Kelly's class?

I don't think the horde was necessarily late. They were just reporting facts because I don't think UConn ever completely shut the door to either one. i expect the coaches were maintaining contact in case a game changing player that the coaches liked had a late change of heart. I'm pretty sure Rich and Jim both new the odds of getting either Diggins or Bone were very slim. There had been the complaints about the UConn media from Bone's mother and nothing to indicate either one had much interest. And UConn would have held the open scholarships for them if they were serious as is typical UConn practice, rather than making offers to Gross and Hassell. UConn doesn't typically offer more scholarships than they have open. In later interviews both Geno and CD have implied that they knew early on that things weren't going well with Bone or Diggins.

JMac as a transfer would have been in Tiff's class had she played all three years after sitting out on the 08/09 season.

 

[DaddyChoc]

Bone/Diggins = package deal

 

[MilfordHusky]

Yeah, DC, I saw that and remember it.

I was more optimistic, especially about Bone, than Geno and CD were for at least a few months. W.r.t. Skylar, she seemed less interested in UConn--and she was from South Bend.

Particularly after getting Tina, Maya, and Elena, it seemed that Kelsey, the latest #1, was within reach.

To address the original question, we were involved with at least 6-7 kids in their junior and senior years, but this was one of those rare years whn mist kids said no.

 

[bruinbball]

WRT Diggins, I am sure UConn was appealing to her, but IMO it was always going to be Stanford or Notre Dame.