Ok I hope since people are giving their opinions, nobody confuses this with a "welcome" thread and rips me for being "mean" this time. This is also much more of a criticism of Pitino than it is of a kid who is just doing his best. Greenlee played on Team Knight on the Adidas summer circuit with 2 Gopher targets (that as most of 2019 recruiting went we lost to average competition) in Luke Anderson and Toumani Camara. The Gophers had targets on team Knight, they were certainly aware of Greenlee and were not interested. Greenlee. Greenlee shot 40.5% from the field, 42.9% from the free throw line, and 20% from 3 in Adidas Gauntlet play over a total of 11 games. It's a small sample size, and he was even less effective if you look at his last 5 games where he never shot above 33% from the field. This Iowa offer came along with 2 other offers to point guards who were not coveted by power 5 type schools. Iowa took a commitment from one of those guys (Toussaint who has since risen in the rankings a bit) before Greenlee could visit. Once Toussaint committed, Greenlee did not have a high major offer and would go from September to June without acquiring another one.
Meanwhile the Gophers were busy striking out on players at an alarming rate, so much so that they ran out of visits for 2019. The final joke was losing out on a mediocre guard who might have been told by Nebraska(!) to look elsewhere when Hoiberg took over. We were told that "Shoey's" decision to choose Cincinnati was over playing time but Jaevin Cumberland's much rumored transfer to Cincinnati to join his cousin would become official not long after Adams-Woods commitment. Playing time in the Cincy backcourt is no more available than it is in Minnesota.
A partial list of guards the Gophers missed on: DJ Carton, Austin Crowley, Joel Brown, Dereon Seabron, Tyson Etienne, Grant Sherfield, Mika Adams-Woods. Only one of these guys (Carton) was an elite recruit and none ended up at a Blue Blood.
I've seen a few comments along the lines of this is our "11th/12th" scholarship which just seems odd to me. Should we ever be in a position to take a recruit with zero other power 5 offers? I am not talking about someone we get to first, but someone who everyone has seen and not offered? I certainly don't believe so. Further, Sam Freeman is an 11th/12th type guy, Michael Hurt is an 11th/12th type guy, Peyton Willlis has performed to date like an 11th/12th type guy as has Jarvis Omersa. Of that group, I have the most hope for Omersa. Now you throw in the unknown of how Curry will recover from his latest injury and the fact that you still have a scholarship open and what do you have? That's 6 of your 13 scholarships used on players who could very easily be penciled in as 11-13th guys or "scholarships".
This is a program coming off a losing record in the B1G and losing it's two biggest impact players from that team. If you can't sell playing time in that scenario, you literally can never sell playing time. Pitino needed to grab impact players last Fall and he failed to do so (how funny/sad is it that we ran out of visits for 2019 and neither of the two big time recruits from Minnesota in Nnaji and Hurt even bothered to visit?). He did a decent job of recovering in the Spring, but that's assuming Ihnen is the real deal and a legit top 100 kid. Between Williams, Freeman, and Greenlee, I count 1 total offer (Freeman from TCU) from a power 5 type school that was commitable when they pledged to Minnesota. Hopefully some of these kids surprise, we're long past due to get lucky on a kid who profiles like this. Unfortunately, we're kind of at the point where we are depending on a surprise to just be a .500 type B1G team which is not a good spot to be in.
Meanwhile the Gophers were busy striking out on players at an alarming rate, so much so that they ran out of visits for 2019. The final joke was losing out on a mediocre guard who might have been told by Nebraska(!) to look elsewhere when Hoiberg took over. We were told that "Shoey's" decision to choose Cincinnati was over playing time but Jaevin Cumberland's much rumored transfer to Cincinnati to join his cousin would become official not long after Adams-Woods commitment. Playing time in the Cincy backcourt is no more available than it is in Minnesota.
A partial list of guards the Gophers missed on: DJ Carton, Austin Crowley, Joel Brown, Dereon Seabron, Tyson Etienne, Grant Sherfield, Mika Adams-Woods. Only one of these guys (Carton) was an elite recruit and none ended up at a Blue Blood.
I've seen a few comments along the lines of this is our "11th/12th" scholarship which just seems odd to me. Should we ever be in a position to take a recruit with zero other power 5 offers? I am not talking about someone we get to first, but someone who everyone has seen and not offered? I certainly don't believe so. Further, Sam Freeman is an 11th/12th type guy, Michael Hurt is an 11th/12th type guy, Peyton Willlis has performed to date like an 11th/12th type guy as has Jarvis Omersa. Of that group, I have the most hope for Omersa. Now you throw in the unknown of how Curry will recover from his latest injury and the fact that you still have a scholarship open and what do you have? That's 6 of your 13 scholarships used on players who could very easily be penciled in as 11-13th guys or "scholarships".
This is a program coming off a losing record in the B1G and losing it's two biggest impact players from that team. If you can't sell playing time in that scenario, you literally can never sell playing time. Pitino needed to grab impact players last Fall and he failed to do so (how funny/sad is it that we ran out of visits for 2019 and neither of the two big time recruits from Minnesota in Nnaji and Hurt even bothered to visit?). He did a decent job of recovering in the Spring, but that's assuming Ihnen is the real deal and a legit top 100 kid. Between Williams, Freeman, and Greenlee, I count 1 total offer (Freeman from TCU) from a power 5 type school that was commitable when they pledged to Minnesota. Hopefully some of these kids surprise, we're long past due to get lucky on a kid who profiles like this. Unfortunately, we're kind of at the point where we are depending on a surprise to just be a .500 type B1G team which is not a good spot to be in.