2010 Gopher Hoop Offers

With the recent news that #1 recruit for 2010 Harrison Barnes has knocked the Gophers off his list of possibilities, it dawned on me that the team still doesn't have a commitment for 2010. I believe they will have three scholarships open (L-Dub, DJ, and Bostick) assuming Ralph doesn't go pro. It's not necessarily a huge worry, since the team has plenty of young talent and can roll scholarships over if need be, but with four more coming available in 2011, I doubt Tubby wants to have to fill 7 spots in one year. That was hard as hell to fill all your spots when you had that many open in College Hoops 2k6 on the playstation.

Anyway, according to Rivals, these are the players the Gophers have made an offer to for 2010, not including offers that have already been spurned (besides Barnes, Jordan Sibert (#37 recruit) has declared for Ohio State, Tim Hardaway (2 stars) to Michigan, and Zach McCabe (3 stars) to Iowa.

- Vander Blue - Madison, WI - #22 overall, #6 PG. Other than being sweet to steal a kid out of Madison, and this dude having a sweet name, it would be great to get a real point guard so we don't have to watch Al Nolen fumble around any more. Blue had verbally comitted to Wisconsin, but backed out in May after realizing that Bo Ryan looked exactly like Richard Vernon and taught the most boringest brand of basketball in existence. Unfortunately the Gophers seem to be on the outside looking in with Blue, who plans to visit Flordia, Arizona, UCLA, Tennessee, and a fifth school. The Gophers have a shot at being that fifth school. I hope so. Then we can say things like, "You're my boy, Blue!"

- Cory Joseph - Henderson, NV via Canada - #7 overall, #3 PG. I've written plenty on Joseph here in the past, but in case you have good taste and don't usually read this blog, he is current Gopher Devoe Joseph's brother, and has shot up the rankings over the past year. Joseph recently spent some time on the Minnesota campus hanging with his brother, and has also visited Marquette with trips to Villanova and UCONN coming up. Joseph is #1 on my wish list for the team now that Barnes is off the table.

- Trevor Releford - Shawnee Mission, KS - #98 overall, #24 PG. There's been a lot of chatter about this dude and the Gophers, but naturally I haven't paid that much attention to it. It seems I probably should of, because I think it's looking extremely likely that Releford ends up a Golden Gopher. In a recent interview when he was asked which schools were recruiting him, the only two he could name were the Gophers and Arizona. He also mentioned not only being impressed with Tubby Smith, but always having enjoyed Minnesota when he has been here for a tournament. He is described as being a pass first point guard, which is absolutely what this team will need with all the scoring talent coming in.

- Trey Ziegler - Mount Pleasant, MI - #26 overall, #4 SG. Ziegler is, like Cory Joseph, another fast riser who is finding himself high on many team's priority list, including Michigan State, Oklahoma, Pitt, and UCLA among several others, with UCLA recently really upping their efforts to land the swingman. Interestingly enough, despite a name like Trey, his strength isn't his perimeter shot. He's known for being strong with the dribble and being very strong at the rim, along with a solid mid-range game.

- Casey Prather - Jackson, TN - #64 overall, #13 SF. The last of the truly elite prospects on this list, Prather recently narrowed his list down to seven schools and, like with Barnes, the Gophers did not make the cut. He's only included here because I already started typing this before I realized he had removed the Gophers from consideration.

- Chad Calcaterra - Cloquet, MN - 3 stars. The good news on Calc is that the Gophers are the most high profile school on his list. The bad news is that the Gophers are the most high profile school on his list. Diamond in the rough, or not that good? Based on the reviews of his play in the Howard Pulley League, it's looking like he could be a diamond in the rough. He's very physical when he goes to the rim, has an excellent jump hook, and a good mid-range jumper, although at 6-10, 210 lbs. he needs to add some muscle. He also sounds like a nerd, since Harvard and Stanford are two of the schools he plans to visit - although this makes me like him better.

- Elliott Eliason - Chadron, NE - 3 stars. Another midwestern big man, Eliason also can count the offer from the Gophers as his most prestigious, but it sounds like it will be tough to dislodge him from Creighton at this point. He did take an unofficial visit here, and must have enjoyed himself because he's coming back again for an official visit September 12th, although he is also hitting Stanford over Labor Day weekend.


Overall, it looks like Tubby has set his sights pretty high, but as more and more recruits Tubby has shown interest in either drop the Gophers from consideration or commit elsewhere (besides the above, Ricky Kreklow is going to Missouri, Alex Kirk isn't interested, Frank Williams has made it clear he wants to play for Kansas State, and something weird happened with Aaron Cosby that now has him as a class of 2011 player), you have to wonder when Tubby is going to capture that first comittment.

I'm not exactly worried, more like curious. I expect to see Releford and one of the big men likely come here, with Joseph, Blue, and/or Ziegler a bonus. Plus who knows with Tubby, he's probably after some dude nobody has heard of yet who will end up being a five star. Like Fred Durst said, "You gotta have faith."

Where the Hell are all you People?

Seriously, I didn't grant writing privileges to four other people as well as giving Super Sioux Fan free reign to email me her random thoughts at any time for nobody to write anything when I'm busy for a stupid crazy month. I've made it abundantly clear that this month I won't really be able to keep up with the blog regularly, and yet we got one SSF post and nothing from anybody else. You people suck. Now I have to spend time writing about things I don't care that much about, just to make sure all the slack-jawed cretins out there keep coming back. Thanks assfaces.

- Well, first things first, Brettly Favre-i-licious will not be a Viking this year (allegedly). Which is really just confusing. What was all this for then, exactly? I mean, he even had the arm surgery. What was the point of that? This was just one big tease. This was pretty much the football equivalent of a strip club - all that anticipation and excitement with no payoff.

Of course, Brett being Brett, would it surprise anybody if he changes his mind again in a week? Hell, even tomorrow. If I woke up tomorrow and heard on the radio that he had changed his mind again and was going to be a Viking, I would be the least bit shocked. It makes me think of the part of a horror movie where you think the killer is dead, only to have him rise and kill again two minutes later. And you know damn well that even if he doesn't still end up coming back this year his name is going to be out there again next offseason - and don't count on him to put any speculation to rest either. Good riddance. I hope to god he at least stays out of the headlines until after the next Super Bowl.

My new favorite guys are the people who special ordered their Vikings #4 Favre jerseys. Nice job, morons.

- Sticking with morons, I've already heard from one guy on the radio and read from one guy on the internet that "Michael Vick would be a great fit for the Vikings." STOP. Lunacy. That's the kind of thing I'd expect Bogart to say because he's had his head up Vick's ass for years. And no, I don't really care about the dog fighting thing, he's just a god awful QB. The only thing he'd be good for is to come in and run the wildman or the wildcat or the catman or whatever it is, the one where the QB runs the ball half the time. An option with Vick and AP might work a handful of times a game, but anybody thinking this poor man's Vince Young can be a full-time QB is more deluded than Dawger and his Cal Ripken = Mike Cuddyer take.

- This batting stance guy shtick is just god awful. Where did they find him, youtube? I'd rather have the bat trick flipper guy. But I suppose they had to do things the Twins' way, and find the cheapest way possible to bring non-entertainment to the fans. I'm guessing the guy agreed to do it for like, $10 per segment filmed. Seriously, this is less entertaining than watching Delmon Young take batting practice.

- Pawing through the latest updates in Gopher hoop recruiting, I'm hearing a lot about this Kevin Noreen kid, a 6-5 wing from Minneapolis. He's not ranked in any meaningful way (class of 2011), and doesn't appear to be on the Gophers' radar, but Iowa and Wisconsin are starting to sniff around (his only offer so far is from Liberty), but it wouldn't shock me if he moves up lists the next couple of years. It sounds like with his long reach he's already an excellent, pesky perimeter defender, and he can hit the outside shot and led his team in scoring at the Best Buy Summer Classic. He's also got a nice pedigree, with a relative (too lazy to look up if it's his brother or cousin or what) in the class of 2010 committed to Boston College.

Remember the name.

- I kind of think this whole "All Metrodome team" is kind of stupid. It hasn't been around long enough for any meaningful debate. Who is going to be the second basemen if not Knoblauch, Lombo? I don't think so. Or catcher, Mauer vs. Laudner vs. Harper (not to mention J. Ortiz and Tom Neito). With only basically three sets of players, you aren't going to have many debates. Except of course at first base (Morneau vs. Hrbek) where they magically decided to award both guys spots on the team. Totally frickin' pointless. Just an excuse for everybody to pat everybody else on the ass and tell them the Metrodome doesn't suck. Oh, and Snacks actually likes watching baseball at the Dome, if that tells you anything about how stupid he is.

Even better is I heard Gladden and Gordo debating the All-Metrodome team of opponents, and they came up with obvious guys like Thome, but then they get to relief pitcher and Gladden comes up with Jeff Reardon, "because when he was with Boston he always shut us down."

Well Dazzle, I hate to bring facts to an idiot fight, but you're wrong. As a visiting pitcher at the Metrodome, Reardon pitched five innings, ringing up an ERA of 5.06 and a WHIP of 1.69. Sure, he had three saves, which I'm assuming is pretty much as far as Gladden's brain goes anyway. Bravo.

- The Gophers lost out on class of 2010 forward Zach McCabe, who recently comitted to Iowa. Tubby had extended an offer to him, but he verballed to the Hawkeyes a couple of weeks ago, and was starting to see interest from teams like Kansas and Notre Dame. I don't really know much about him, but based on the teams who were sniffing around and his junior season stats (16pts, 9 rebs, 6 assists with 43% three point shooting tells me Lickliter managed to actually get a good one - perhaps his first.

- Oh, and Cory Joseph is really god damn good.