PF Mamadou Diarra (Signed LOI on 11/14) | Page 19 | The Boneyard

PF Mamadou Diarra (Signed LOI on 11/14)

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Sky ball said:
Not trying to be a negative Nancy but Diarra had how many quality Offers? We beat out the St Peter's and Iona's. Did we land just an OK Mid-major player?

School Interest Offer Visit Recruited by
Connecticut COMMITTED (05/22/2015) Offered None
VCU High Offered None
Boston U. None Offered None
Drexel None Offered None
Duquesne None Offered None
Iona None Offered None
Minnesota None Offered None Kimani Young
Norfolk St. None Offered None
Quinnipiac None Offered None
St. Peter's None Offered None
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St Johns and PC also offered. I know that for a fact.

CAHUSKY said:
And I forgot Adams!!!
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And Enoch.

For all the complaining, UConn has ended with solid rosters every year Ollie has been coach. Last years had some youth and injury issues and some bad luck but was a solid roster.
 
johnhuskies95 said:
I think Diarra will end up being pretty good because he's far from a finished product, but I don't know how you can say that offer lists don't mean much.

Granted they're tough to go off of because what the websites have are often inaccurate or out of date(for example, I highly doubt Terrence Samuel had a Louisville offer or Nolan had an Arizona offer. But guys with high major offers are just going to be better overall on average than guys without high major offers. I don't really see how that's debatable.
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Depends on the situation but in this case it doesn't mean much. He's a late bloomer and UConn liked him early as did VCU. But between his soph and jr year he was showing improvement that led to many more at least thinking about jumping in and who knows how many may have wanted to after this summer?

"Minnesota, Dayton, Seton Hall and St. John's were among the schools that showed interest, Espinosa said."
 
Stairmaster said:
I love when people look at the worst offers a guy had to fuel their preconceived notion that the staff can't recruit. Nothing like some good old confirmation bias.

Aside from having other P5 and high-major offers not listed on R i v a l s, Diarra plays for a small school that attracts very few big-time coaches. He's actually the 2nd player the school has ever sent to a high major (Scoochie Smith of Dayton is the first) and the first to a blue blood program. Furthermore, the former Putnam Science Academy was a NEPSAC independent, meaning that he didn't get the same exposure that a guy playing regular games in the NMH/Brewster gyms gets. He's under-the-radar, but as talented as one can find given that qualifier.

He's rated the exact same number of stars as and one point lower than Steve Enoch is on ESPN, and this is before the summer season in which many are predicting an absolute breakout. You will be lucky that we locked him up when he did.

Another thought on offer lists; here are some of the schools who also offered some of our recent recruits (all according to VerbalCommits).
  • Kentan Facey: Florida, Louisville, Pittsburgh, UCLA
  • Terrence Samuel: Louisville, Pittsburgh
  • Phil Nolan: Arizona, Baylor, Oregon, Texas
Spoiler alert: it doesn't mean too much.
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When did I say the staff could not recruit? All I said was why was THIS board getting their panties wet over a 3 star prospect with few big school offers?
[
He gets plenty of exposure on the AAU circuit with NY Jayhawks. I don't think HS play is as important as it once was in may instances.
 
Sky ball said:
When did I say the staff could not recruit? All I said was why was THIS board getting their panties wet over a 3 star prospect with few big school offers?
[
He gets plenty of exposure on the AAU circuit with NY Jayhawks. I don't think HS play is as important as it once was in may instances.
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Jeff Borzello @jeffborzello


Four-star junior power forward Mamadou Diarra announces he has committed to UConn.


Just saying, let's get our "stars" right. Late bloomers are the best if you see them earlier than the rest of the big dogs. Not saying he is going to be something special but his game seems to be growing. No one is getting their panties wet but we should commend the staff on what would seem to be a nice find.
 
Stairmaster said:
I know from personal correspondence with site staff that VerbalCommits cross-references these offers with coaching staffs .
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That is interesting as a coach is not allowed to talk about a prospective recruit until after the kid sign's an LOI.

I'm not saying that this is the case with Nolan or Samuel (as each ended up at a top program) but there have been plenty of kids who've claimed to have received offers from top schools (which the schools in question cannot deny) yet for some reason end up at mid-level program when the time comes to sign on the dotted line. Conservatively about 30%-35% of the offers listed on the internet were never offered.
 
Marty Jackson said:
everytime i hear someone say 'dumpster fire' or 'I threw up in my mouth', it's like nails on a chalkboard.
there is potential with this conference. as long as there are 2-3 teams in the Top 25 and one of them is uconn, the conference will be fine.
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I'm the opposite - the nails on a chalkboard for me are the folks that want to rationalize that it's acceptable to be in the AAC. When you're in a conference with a wacky amalgamation of schools that have zero common reference point it's a bad deal. Spin that there could be 3 top 25 teams all you want, the conference is filled with schools that aren't well known nationally and in most cases arent flag ships in their own state.

Conference affiliation won't determine our on court success in the short term, even if the AAC affiliation can be a recruiting disadvantage, but how people can convince themselves that there is potential in this conference while knowing what is driving college athletics is beyond me.

If it's simply case of being optimistic, congratulations, I wish I had wherewithal to look at it positively.

Sorry to add to the conference affiliation part of this thread which is so far off topic from the great news of MD coming aboard.
 
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When a local kid expresses an interest in UConn and UConn is all over him, just how much energy is another school expected to expend on him when the chances are he is going to UConn no matter what it does. For a lot of schools, UConn is the 800 lb gorilla in the recruiting lounge. First, thing I would ask his coach before showing up on campus is whether he has heard from CT and what is there interest.
 
mauconnfan said:
Jeff Borzello @jeffborzello


Four-star junior power forward Mamadou Diarra announces he has committed to UConn.


Just saying, let's get our "stars" right. Late bloomers are the best if you see them earlier than the rest of the big dogs. Not saying he is going to be something special but his game seems to be growing. No one is getting their panties wet but we should commend the staff on what would seem to be a nice find.
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LOL ..Yesterday I looked at his Star ranking and he was 3 star at Rivals, Scout and one other with an ESPN exception of 4 star. Just now I see he is 4 Star at Rivals. Quick rating change? Hopefully our staff sees the potential in Diarra and are correct in their assessment.

From the Boneyard Blog:
His rankings:
247Sports: 3 star
ESPN: 4 star
Rivals: 3 star
Scout: 3 star
 
Sky ball said:
LOL ..Yesterday I looked at his Star ranking and he was 3 star at Rivals, Scout and one other with an ESPN exception of 4 star. Just now I see he is 4 Star at Rivals. Quick rating change? Hopefully our staff sees the potential in Diarra and are correct in their assessment.
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When is was younger I used to rank my farts. Never occurred to me to rank my diarrhea.
 
uchusky32 said:
When is was younger I used to rank my farts. Never occurred to me to rank my diarrhea.
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I think we should stop the Shi$$y comments about Diarra's name. We have potty mouths with the runs.
 
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Sky ball said:
When did I say the staff could not recruit? All I said was why was THIS board getting their panties wet over a 3 star prospect with few big school offers?
[
He gets plenty of exposure on the AAU circuit with NY Jayhawks. I don't think HS play is as important as it once was in may instances.
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In the past several weeks I got my panties wet. All KO did was take me from apathy to excitement over our upcoming season, then put a nice start onto 2016. Hope and change.
 
Sky ball said:
Not trying to be a negative Nancy but Diarra had how many quality Offers? We beat out the St Peter's and Iona's. Did we land just an OK Mid-major player?

School Interest Offer Visit Recruited by
Connecticut COMMITTED (05/22/2015) Offered None
VCU High Offered None
Boston U. None Offered None
Drexel None Offered None
Duquesne None Offered None
Iona None Offered None
Minnesota None Offered None Kimani Young
Norfolk St. None Offered None
Quinnipiac None Offered None
St. Peter's None Offered None
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I would tend to agree with you except for one point. The fact that the staff was so interested in him this early means the staff has him high on their list. If this was a late recruitment like Lubin I wold be less excited. With Lubin it was obvious that the staff struck out on the first choices and settled for Rubin. With Mamadou he is one of the first choices and the staff knows basketball more than me or the recruiting services so we can be confident that Mamadou is going to be good.
 
Go_Huskies said:
I would tend to agree with you except for one point. The fact that the staff was so interested in him this early means the staff has him high on their list. If this was a late recruitment like Lubin I wold be less excited. With Lubin it was obvious that the staff struck out on the first choices and settled for Rubin. With Mamadou he is one of the first choices and the staff knows basketball more than me or the recruiting services so we can be confident that Mamadou is going to be good.
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Agree but still, he does have a lot of offers so it's not like no one knew about him. I guess all the other good basketball schools coaches can't judge talent. Overall I'll take Ollies judgement of talent over the rating services but still overall and year by year if we get 4 recruits I would rather have 4 - 5 stars than 4 - 3 stars that Ollie thought were underrated. I hope Ollie is right, and yes he and his staff are better judges of talent then you, me not so much...LOL (Joking for all you literal readers)
 
FfldCntyFan said:
That is interesting as a coach is not allowed to talk about a prospective recruit until after the kid sign's an LOI.
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The recruiting gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the only thing a coach can say is they can confirm scholarship offers.
 
Sky ball said:
Agree but still, he does have a lot of offers so it's not like no one knew about him. I guess all the other good basketball schools coaches can't judge talent. Overall I'll take Ollies judgement of talent over the rating services but still overall and year by year if we get 4 recruits I would rather have 4 - 5 stars than 4 - 3 stars that Ollie thought were underrated. I hope Ollie is right, and yes he and his staff are better judges of talent then you, me not so much...LOL (Joking for all you literal readers)
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Let's re-examine these star ratings next spring. Will you feel better when he is 4-star, Top 70? That's a real possibility.
 
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HooperScooper said:
The recruiting gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the only thing a coach can say is they can confirm scholarship offers.
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I believe a verbal commitment is non-binding and the kid is officially (legally) still on the market. Not 100% on this?
 
tzznandrew said:
Let's re-examine these star ratings next spring. Will you feel better when he is 4-star, Top 70? That's a real possibility.
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Yes

Will you feel better if he is a 3 star top 300?
 
Sky ball said:
Not trying to be a negative Nancy but Diarra had how many quality Offers? We beat out the St Peter's and Iona's. Did we land just an OK Mid-major player?
a recruit's
School Interest Offer Visit Recruited by
Connecticut COMMITTED (05/22/2015) Offered None
VCU High Offered None
Boston U. None Offered None
Drexel None Offered None
Duquesne None Offered None
Iona None Offered None
Minnesota None Offered None Kimani Young
Norfolk St. None Offered None
Quinnipiac None Offered None
St. Peter's None Offered None
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My only addition to this discussion is that it's pretty common to see a recruit's ranking go way up or down the summer before their senior year when the recruiting analysts see them in all these AAU tournaments and the kids have improved a lot over their junior years in high school when recruiting analysts aren't seeing them play. Rudy Gay went from the 75 range to top 10 that summer before his senior year and UConn was on him before he rose in the rankings. Jeff Adrien also went up a lot that summer and then saw lots of big time schools come after him, including UConn. Before July he probably had offers like Diarra had.

As others have mentioned the key is to see the potential in a recruit before everyone else does. Diarra isn't one of those lock top 50 recruits at this point but that's not to say he may end up looking like one. As always you have to trust your coaching staff. Ollie likes kids with a high motor, athleticism, good work ethic and high character because those things usually can't be gained at this age. You can work with kids like this and teach them skills. Let's see how Diarra progresses.
 
Sky ball said:
I guess all the other good basketball schools coaches can't judge talent.
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I agree I would like to see more big time schools offering him. It would be definately more reassuring. But just because coaches didn't offer him doesn't mean they don't think he has talent. There could be other reasons.

1.) They don't think they have a legitimately shot at him given that Uconn was his dream school - so why waste your time.

2.) They didn't see enough of him to make an evaluation. A very strong likelihood this early in recruiting.

3.) When they did see him he wasn't as good as he as now because he either grew or just got better. I believe this is probably the case with Mamadou by reading his coach's comments. It definitely is the case with Enoch.

4.) They don't have a scholarship to give

5.) They don't need a PF
 
Sky ball said:
I believe a verbal commitment is non-binding and the kid is officially (legally) still on the market. Not 100% on this?
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Yes, correct. Unlike football it's more frowned upon in basketball recruiting for other coaches to go after verbal commits. But it does happen and you'd have to be naive to think it doesn't happen a lot.
 
Played last night. His team lost by 20 but he had 12 and 9 rebounds. 6 on the O side
 
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husky99 said:
Played last night. His team lost by 20 but he had 12 and 9 rebounds. 6 on the O side
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We haven't had a good offensive rebounder in a long time. I don't recall his stats but Roscoe was a decent offensive rebounder. AD was too but only played a year.
 
Chief00 said:
We haven't had a good offensive rebounder in a long time. I don't recall his stats but Roscoe was a decent offensive rebounder. AD was too but only played a year.
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09. Maybe AO
 
Chief00 said:
We haven't had a good offensive rebounder in a long time. I don't recall his stats but Roscoe was a decent offensive rebounder. AD was too but only played a year.
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Oriakhi in 2011 and Drummond in 2012. Both were top 30 in offensive rebounding %.
 
2 Things:

I'm totally tired of the who offered crap. Particularly in Football. But also here with Diarra. It's not a solid metric or significant qualitative value. Kids lie. Recruiting services lie. It's just crap. There are little facts mixed with speculation. And, when a kid says ... Dream School ... I think he's unlikely to see 30 more offers.

Lubin. He's clearly not the worst recruit in 15 years. He is more skilled than some of the Bigs who came through. I hope he has a HUGE few years at a Western Kentucky or something. I liked his game. Neither he or UConn waited to see it development in our little farm village / Collegetown.
 
the fact that diarra has been playing at a very high level of competition is more than encouraging. I also like his top ten player in new england ranking off NERR, one of the best sites for ranking nepsac competition going back to when napier reclassified
 
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