It’s February – Time to get to Work.

On By @gtmoblueIn college basketball 365

Good Afternoon All:

It is a warm, balmy February 1st here in the Beltway…A beautiful day here in Shirlington (Arlington, VA). Gonna go to Caribou’s in a minute to get a coffee and watch all of the pretty, young filly’s go by. But 1st – to the business at hand.

Sitting here watching 4 Weddings and a Funeral on the telly. Thoughts of marriage came flooding into consciousness (I generally walk about in unconscious, oblivious mode), and the thoughts of all of the ex-Mrs. gtmoes brought me back to the harsh realities of life in the US in 2009. I hereby vow to do all within my power to assist my Jays (married to CU by proxy) storm back onto the national viewscreen and the NCAA discussions, in earnest.

Now is the time for all good men, women, and brats…to roll up our collective sleeves, put on our hard hats, and do all we can within the confines of prudence, civility, and good character – to spur on the Bluejays to “Press On” with their best efforts to close out this season with a conference regular season championship. I also expect a great showing in the MVC Tourney, and a exceptional showing in the NCAAs. 1st things 1st – Win the Conference. Play hard & smart. Play for the team and each other. Play to win. Be Champions, again.

Is is common, becoming a Altman Era tradition, and is expected – for the Jays to perform their February “Creighton Run”. It is definitely ‘in order’ this season, to put to bed the roller coaster ride, as some have dubbed it, of the season thus far.

Let’s Go Blue. The best way to quiet naysayers, fair-weather fans, doubters, trolls, and the like, is to shore up the fortitude, trice up the grit & determination, and heave to with confidence and tenacity – Win.

Winning will put to rest all of the negative banter and critiques. Winning will help loyal fans bolster their pride and confidence. Winning will cause to media mice to scurry in finding ways to backpedal from their spurious, demeaning articles and their undermining inuendoes.

Winning will cure the seasons’ ails. Let’s go Blue! Winning will propel us to exceed our goals and surpass our expectations. Winning will find us, in March, where we want to be as a team, as a competitor – at the Dance.

Just Win, baby. Everything else will fall into its’ proper place. Win.

Jays – The Short History: Hits and Misses

On By @gtmoblueIn Div 1 Basketball - Recruiting, Sports - Men's, Sports Commentary

The Recruiting Short History: Hits & Misses.

Need for increased continuity and retention.

-gtmoBlue


Folks over at the BJC are up in arms. Several laments – Too high expectations. Too young a team (still). Poor coaching. Lack of effort by the team members. Poor recruiting. Not enough hardy, tough Midwestern kids, and too many slick 3 & 4 star players. On and on it goes.

I have pointed out/argued on the BJC that had we not been fortunate enough in our recruiting to snag several West Coast, Texas, and other out-of-area players, that the Jays would indeed be in dire straits. We have fallen on hard times in our recruitment of midwestern region kids. We have dropped to approx 20% success rate in regional recruiting.

Much of the fault lies with coaching changes in many of the regional universities, and as such, an increase in the competition for regional recruits.

Mike Anderson – Missouri

Tubby Smith – Minnesota

Rick (Tubby) Majerus – St Louis

Cuonzo Martin – Missouri St

Gregg Marshall – Wichita St

Iowa State

Iowa

Butler

both Dakota State teams

Also as some of our traditional recruiting opponents have seen recent program successes, their respective recruiting has also prospered.

Wisconsin

Minnesota

Marquette

Illinois

Bradley

Kansas State

Illinois State

Colorado State

Butler

When the above schools are added into the areas’ traditional Big 10, Big 12, CUSA, MAC, & MVC recruiting wars – it’s a crowded field.

Now add in intruders from outside the region:

Providence

Seton Hall

Virginia

Baylor

SMU

Santa Clara

Arizona State

Gonzaga

Portland

Oregon State

and others…

The Midwestern recruiting grounds have now become a free for all, a melee with elbows flying, a serious slugfest.

The chart below shows the Jays recruiting hits and misses over the last few years. In reviewing this chart one can see that because of the increased competition we have missed several good midwestern kids. Were it not for our out-of-area recruiting, we would have a very shorthanded squad today.

Two points:

Our missing an additional big in 2006 & 2007, along with some negative retention issues have left us short of talent in-the-paint. It is not lack of talent, but lack of bodies.

1) Our missing out on Matt Hill and Keith Spenser (2006), and George Goode, Festus Ezeli, or Chandler Parsons (2007) hurt more than we could have imagined back then (we still had AT & Dane aboard). Not landing one of the many 2008 midwest bigs or Greg Echenique further compounded the problem.

2) Additionally, not retaining Steve Smith and Ty Morrison contributed a bit to the problems, although they would have graduated last year. Both could/would have lent some continuity for the current bigs.

We are painfully short on Bigs. We need to be smarter in both our recruiting and retention policies. The coaches are ‘busting butt’ to fix the problem(s). What is also called for is a bit of patience, a bit of support, and a little faith in the program.

Go Big Blue.

CU Recruiting Talley Hits and Misses: 2006 – 2010
2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011
Chad Millard (So.) Booker Woodfox (Jr.) Justin Carter (Jr.) Ethan Wragge (Fr)
Ty Morrison (Jr.) Cavel Witter (So.) Josh Jones (Fr.) Andrew Bock (Fr)
Kenny Lawson (Fr.) P’Allen Stinnett (Fr.) Antoine Young (Fr.)
Isaac Miles (Fr.) Kenton Walker (Fr.)
Casey Harriman (Fr.) Kaleb Korver (Fr.)
D’Angelo Jackson (Fr.)

Aaron Brandt (Fr.)



2 1 4 (3) 2 (3) 3








Matt Hi NE

 G Goode MO G Gibbs IA Cougill IA C Creekmur IA
C Johnson MN Anthony Slack KS M Gatens IA Uhlenhopp IA Cody Larson SD
C Bailey KS Conner Teahan KS J Reid KS Van Deest IA E Anderson WS
K Spenser KS

J Brandenburg MO Bohannon IA C Cerroni WS
M Moss KS

J Coy MO E May IA C Godfrey WS
R Gentry IA

M Denmon MO D Kelly KS




S Moore MO R White MN




S Suggs MO R Cowels MN




W Eikmeier NE M Dixon MO




A DuFault ND





C Iverson SD













L Fields CA R Westbrook CA R Miller CA A Stover CA

A Smith AZ F Ezeli CA Frank Otis CA T Honeycutt CA
M Maynard AZ JD Luster CA J Underwood AZ A Marshall NV

W Donahue AZ

T Whitehead AZ









B Young FL C Parsons FL X Keeling AL J Carmichael CT

T Crocker NC A McFarland NH G Echenique NJ M Henderson TX

B Morningstar NH Jordan Crawford VA E Negedu NH M Marquis TX