PiPress: Gophers basketball team increasingly looking outside U.S. for talent

This seemed to cross different recruiting years so I figured I'd give it its own thread. An interesting article from Marcus:

"A typical European or African kid doesn't know the difference between Buffalo, N.Y., and Hollywood, and they don't know the difference between Duke and Minnesota," Fraschilla said. "They just know they're getting a chance to play college basketball in the United States and get an education. For Richard, selling the University of Minnesota in a great league and in a great city is a little bit easier. He has got things that would be attractive for a kid from Senegal or from other parts of the world. It's smart that he's opening up another avenue to recruit because at this point they'll have trouble getting the top-25 player, unless it happens to be a kid in their backyard who likes the way the program is going."

"What I think a lot of people love about international kids is they're extremely humble," said Pitino, who coached Dieng as a Louisville assistant. "They're extremely appreciative and haven't gotten Americanized too soon. Not every guy who you coach would you consider a good friend. Gorgiu is one of those guys. He's as humble as it gets. He's very, very appreciative, and he works his butt off."

http://www.twincities.com/gophers/c...ketball-team-increasingly-looking-outside-u-s

Go Gophers!!

Good read. Fraschilla is one of my favorite college basketball guys, he's the foremost expert on international basketball.

top 25 players, is it only mentioned because we just had 3 in Mn for the first time

Interesting piece. I would say that although a top 25 player is great to have, half these guys leave after 1 or 2 years. Give me a recruiting class of 4 players in the top 100, after those McDonalds all-americans, and you will have a consistent team year in and year out.

BleedGopher said:

An interesting article from Marcus:

It's smart that he's opening up another avenue to recruit because at this point they'll have trouble getting the top-25 player, unless it happens to be a kid in their backyard who likes the way the program is going."

http://www.twincities.com/gophers/c...ketball-team-increasingly-looking-outside-u-s

Go Gophers!!

Click to expand...

MadtownGopher said:

Good read. Fraschilla is one of my favorite college basketball guys, he's the foremost expert on international basketball.

Click to expand...

I'm a big Fraschilla fan too knows a lot about those international players like you said.

I think this would be a very good approach for more schools to follow, kids from overseas also value an education much more than a lot of the American kids so even those that could probably jump to the NBA tend to stay for a few more years to get their degrees.

Something else to think about here is how culturally-diverse the Timberwolves are. For example, I'm sure Richard will recommend that Diedhiou reach out to Gorgui Dieng, and vice-versa.

Maybe that's a special situation because Richard coached Gorgui, but its still an avenue to be considered.