Swift

[aceboon]

In fairness to Cleveland, JC had him wrong.
Cleveland Melvin clearly falls into JC's "I ed up" category along with Gomes.

I don't see how that falls in the Gomes category, JC got on Melvin early while with Gomes he didn't like him at all. I remember there was alot of handringing on here when we got him because of the other schools recruiting him and a poster went and saw him play for ND Prep during the HS Prep Invitational in New Haven and said he was awful. If JC told him he wanted to use him at the PF spot while Melvin wanted to play SF(even though he ended up playing PF at DePaul) as reported, there's not much you can do there if the player sees things differently and wants to go elsewhere.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

In fairness to Cleveland, JC had him wrong.
Cleveland Melvin clearly falls into JC's "I ed up" category along with Gomes.

Those two situations were very, very different.

 

[HuskyNationJE]

Exactly.

He has a lot of athleticism and would be great on the break, but how much of the game is played on the break? What is this kid going to do in the half court, when he's got to present some sort of danger off the ball if he's not directly part of the pick-and-roll? From what I've seen and read, not much.

And then defensively, can he guard the wing? He's a 4 in high school, but will be an undersized 4 in college. No easy match-ups there.

I remain content with our recruiting class, and would rather keep the scholarship open for a late flip, a 5th-year guy, JaQuan Lyle, or simply roll it over into the 2015 group.

(I reserve the right to reverse my position on all of this if we happen to sign him!)

I do wish there was more footage of him doing stuff other than dunking the ball, as good as it looks. Would love to land Lyle but I see him heading to Kansas since he wanted to play with Cliff Alexander anyways. Wouldn't mind the extra scholarship for 2015 as long as we can land a few big time players. I still feel like sometimes athleticism alone is huge. Stix wasn't a great basketball player but he could jump through the roof which allowed him to grab rebounds, get above defenders for points and also block shots. If Swift could be a 2014 Stanley Robinson, I'd take that on the roster.

 

[Gurleyman]

We won a national title after Gomes ended his senior year bowing out meekly in the first round to Pacific. We won a national title after curb-stomping Melvin and DePaul in the first of our 11 straight wins. Personally, I don't regret either of them getting away for a second. They didn't cost us anything other than losing a January game and the ensuing press conference.

Perhaps we could have won those titles by more, I guess. Maybe with Gomes we have a better 2003 tourney, or a better 2012 tourney with Melvin, but if we went back in time, there's no way of knowing the ripple effect (Giffey and Daniels perhaps both don't come with Melvin here - CV, HA and Boone don't come with Gomes here, etc.).