Welcome Aboard, Amir Coffey!!

I'm currently on a plane, drinking Woodford Reserve because why wouldn't I, and I have a really horrible internet connection but it appears that twitter says Amir Coffey committed to the University of Minnesota and holy shit dude.  Not since the Rodney/Royce double pick up year has the U gotten a guy like this.  ESPN ranks him as the 33rd best recruit in the entire country for 2016 and 247 Sports composite puts him at #45.  That's a big deal! Dude had offers from tons of blue chippers like Arizona, Michigan State, and Texas but bam, sorry losers we got him.

The writing was pretty much on the wall that he would be a Gopher after his official visit back on September 3.  He tweeted pictures of him and his dad (Richard, duh) at Williams Arena, reports came out that he kept going back for unofficials to hang with the players, and he canceled an official visit to Texas.  It was still terrifying of course since, Minnesota sports, and I am glad I was on a plane and unable to load up anything to see who he chose until well after the fact, but it happened and we got him.

Coffey is a 6-7 guard, yes a 6-7 guard, and everything about him sounds awesome.  They say he can play all three perimeter positions.  He's smart, a good ball-handler and passer, and can hit from the perimeter or get to the rim.  He can defend already.  I mean everything sounds good.  His negatives are he needs to build up more strength, very common for a freshman, and he could be a more vocal leader.  That's all they could come up with.  ESPN calls him a special player with upside off the charts and even compared him to Jalen Rose.  Just the fact that he'll be able to come in and start and can already shoot and play defense puts him ahead of most freshman.  This is just awesome.

None of that is even the most important part though.  With Jarvis Johnson, Michael Hurt, and now Coffey Pitino has started to close the borders.  This is good, but I also must clarify.  The reason closing the borders is good is not because you get all the Minnesota players and if you think that way I bet you love P.A. too.  The reason closing the borders is good is because when you do have an instate awesome player his thought process STARTS with I'm going to be a Gopher.  It's not going to result in landing every stud, but that as the default is a much better way to start than "hey where should I go?"  Pitino is on a good run right now.

The other super awesome thing is that Coffey is besties with Eric Curry.  Curry is a power forward from Arkansas who visited the same time Amir did.  He's not ranked as highly as Amir, but he's the 106th ranked player by 247 composite and #22 power forward and that's still pretty damn awesome.  I won't get into talking too much about his abilities and what not since he hasn't committed here and may not, but it's looking better than ever right now.  You know Amir is on snapchat or periscope or whatever kids use recruiting him.

In short - hell yes.

Welcome aboard, Michael Hurt!

Richard Pitino and the Gophers secured their first 2016 commitment recently with Rochester forward Michael Hurt signing on.  Hurt may not have the greatest offer list right now (Gophers, Davidson, Northern Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and assorted other mid-majors) but the ratings sights like him quite a bit.  247sports has him as the #155 player in the class and #27 power forward, while ESPN has him all the way up at the #59 overall player and #15 power forward.  Likely as time went on Hurt's offers would get more impressive and rumors were Wisconsin and Oregon were sniffing around so locking up the home state kid early a great move by Pitino.

Hurt is a tweener forward, but in this case it sounds like that's a positive.  Rather than being too slow to go up against small fowards and too small to go against power forwards, Hurt sounds like he's too quick for small forwards to handle and too big for small forwards and I really hope that sentence made sense.  He's said to have an outstanding jump shot with a chance to be one of the best shooters in the class and to be a good enough ball handler where he could do a little bit of a point forward thing if needed.  Scouting reports also say he can score well both in transition and the half court, with or without the ball (cutting and such, obviously you can't score without the ball), and when he's the focal point of the defense he's adept and finding open teammates and is a good passer.

Well then.  This sounds pretty good.  The only weaknesses I could find listed by anyone are he needs size to go against college PFs (not a surprise for a high school kid) and he could be a more aggressive rebounder (and this can be taught).

All-in-all, a very good first pick up for 2016 for the team, and someone with a little bit of size as well which is still looking like a possible future issue.  I don't know if Hurt will be able to play PF right away when he gets on campus, but I know he'll be able to shoot and should be a capable player right off the bat.  Good start.  Oh, and he's lefty, so we'll get to look at that sweet, sweet lefty J.  Looking forward to it.

As for tonight's game the Gophers are terrible.  Nebraska 70, Minnesota 56.