Recruiting to Bozeman

[John K]

I guess I do not get it. We have a 4 year player from Montana who was bold and gracious enough to come on BN and discuss some of the issues that we have been debating all seaston. He deliberately addresses things like: coach Huse, Coach Preibe and recruting. He makes mention that recruting to Bozeman is difficult for certain reasons and the murder that took place 5 years ago had a strong inpact on that...so my question is why do we discredit this? Is there anyone more informed on this process than a 4 year player FROM Montana who has been recruited and seen 4 years of recruits come through MSU?
I do not want to start a huge debate over this becasue we all have pride in MSU, Montana and Bozeman, nonetheless; IMHO Howard would have much more insight into this process than anyone of us would

In no way did I mean to discredit Bobby's comments, and I give him kudos for coming on this board and expressing his opinion. I would also like to thank him for his contributions to MSU hoops during the past 4 years. You're absolutely correct in saying that he should have far more insight into this issue than I, or anyone else who posts on BN. I was only pointing out that if the football program has seemingly long since gotten past whatever negative issues were associated with it, doesn't it seem logical that the MBB program should have been able to overcome their issues by now? For that matter, WBB has also had some negative publicity surrounding their program, with several previous coaches having left the program under less than honorable circumstances, and they seem to have bounced back from that quite nicely as well.

The only difference that comes to my mind, is that the football program was generally trending upward at the time of the coaching change, despite the APR and legal issues associated with it. I remember being at the Triangle Classic in 2007, which was less than a month before Kramer was fired, and MSU fans were as positive about the future of the program as they had been for a long time, coming off our first playoff win in 22 years, and having beaten UM in in-state recruiting for the first time in many years. Maybe that made it easier for potential recruits to get past the negative issues. On the other hand, MBB had already been stuck in neutral for several years under Durham, without the same postive momentum as the football program, so maybe that has made the off the court issues harder to overcome? I don't know....it's just a theory.

[SonomaCat]

Also manipulating what the athletes themselve can and cannot read boils down to censorship plain and simple.

It's really no different than a coach having rules against engaging against any other legal activity (like drinking or skiing, for instance) during the season. And I can honestly understand why a coach would have rules like that -- there is no upside to them reading the posts here and quite possibly a huge downside to it.

[TomCat88]

If you were a parent of a top flight recruit and you keep hearing from the other schools that the past players of Program X were convicted of drug charges and murder, would that scare you away from the program?

Probably, yes.

I read an article on ESPN recently quoting a top flight football recruit saying something to the effect that one of the biggest turn offs is when a school recruits by knocking other schools. Most players (and I assume their parents) get turned off by that really fast. I suppose, however, that if every school in competition with MSU for a player is mentioning that dark episode in MSU's past then it may take its toll.

Personally, I would be really careful about doing that if I were recruiting someone. You also have to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you take any pride in winning recruits by running down other programs.

[c.falls cat]

i have to admit that i had forgotten the murder until i read Bob's post. i would think that the legs for something like that wouldn't last more than couple of years. like most on here, i am a bozeman lover, so when i read that part i quickly became defensive. but as it has been brought up, maybe inner-city kids don't gravitate to the same things that we all do. those things seem hard for me to believe, but i will readily admit that Bob would be more in the know than me, so i will give him the benefit of the doubt.

i am a homer on in-state kids, i love seeing our kids on the roster and wish there were more. personally i like to see the coaches gamble on local kids, but is Huse's defense, it's easy to say that when the well paying job you love is not on the line with such gambles.

i recently learned in the high school forum that class AA is apperently some sorta out or state pipeline, maybe Huse just needs to figure out how to keep some of the vast number of AA kids that leave the state yearly to play basketball at other institutions. Potential gold mine coach, ...gold! ( @ilovethecats)

[GrizinWashington]

There are a vast number of Montana kids who go play DI ball elsewhere??

Huh.

[bpcats]

I think there are some general things when it comes to recruiting to MSU for basketball that make it difficult:

1) You have schools like Gonzaga, St. Mary's etc whose primary sport and resulting fan support goes to basketball vs football. Want to play in front of 8000 people every night or 2500-4000 depending on the game.

2) The Big Sky conference is not any sort of power conference (like it is for D-1AA football) and has to compete with EVERYBODY for a shot at March Madness. Why come to MSU when you stay closer to home with even school like Drake, Dayton, Princeton offer the same post season shot.

3) History of winning - MSU hasn't been consistently playing for conference championships in over a decade. Having Will Bynum make top ten dunks on sports center helps a lot and gave Coach Huse a little boost in recruiting. Need more exposure like that.

4) Style of play - best example would actually be Lady Cats, or PSU. They both use up and down style of play that players enjoy being in. MSU's offense on the men's side is not really an up and down style. More set plays and a lot of screens.

5) Program issues - I remember when Baylor's men's basketball program was coming on and then they had a player kill another person and I think the Coach had some APR issues or didn't disclose all the details of that incident...when that all went down it turned and up and coming basketball program into a wasteland for a full DECADE. They are just now getting back to where they were.

With all that said I think that Coach Huse will get MSU back to where us fans hope it to be.

There are a couple of traits that I really like about his teams. Best thing is that they are mentally tough (yes they have their moments but overall they don't squirm under pressure). They give great effort every game. This cannot be understated. Huse is also a very good X's and O's coach. He does a very good job of designing plays to free up players. (they were not making their shots this year). He gets the most out of his players.

Most complete team wins the conference. For all the talent that is over at Missoula (and yes the refs sucked) there is no way they shouldn't have won the conference. The Griz had the point guard and the post players but nothing consistent at the wings.

[ilovethecats]

i recently learned in the high school forum that class AA is apperently some sorta out or state pipeline, maybe Huse just needs to figure out how to keep some of the vast number of AA kids that leave the state yearly to play basketball at other institutions. Potential gold mine coach, ...gold! ( @ilovethecats)

problem is i'm also the guy who thinks there is rarely more than one or two guys in the state that should be playing d1 ball. at least not if we want to start winning titles. but yes, a lot of kids who just want to continue playing a sport in college will do so...even if it means living in a tiny town in nevada or oregon that they have never even heard of.

but yes, if huse was coaching the lowest level of naia or perhaps d3....he could find plenty of kids here in montana.

[GrizinWashington]

1) You have schools like Gonzaga, St. Mary's etc whose primary sport and resulting fan support goes to basketball vs football. Want to play in front of 8000 people every night or 2500-4000 depending on the game.

While I agree somewhat philosophically with your point, you're way over-estimating the crowds at WCC games. The Kennel in Spokane only holds 6,000 and I believe it's the largest venue in the conference. The Gael's facility I would guess could hold 3,500 if you shoe-horned 'em in.

[John K]

i have to admit that i had forgotten the murder until i read Bob's post. i would think that the legs for something like that wouldn't last more than couple of years. like most on here, i am a bozeman lover, so when i read that part i quickly became defensive. but as it has been brought up, maybe inner-city kids don't gravitate to the same things that we all do. those things seem hard for me to believe, but i will readily admit that Bob would be more in the know than me, so i will give him the benefit of the doubt.

i am a homer on in-state kids, i love seeing our kids on the roster and wish there were more. personally i like to see the coaches gamble on local kids, but is Huse's defense, it's easy to say that when the well paying job you love is not on the line with such gambles.

i recently learned in the high school forum that class AA is apperently some sorta out or state pipeline, maybe Huse just needs to figure out how to keep some of the vast number of AA kids that leave the state yearly to play basketball at other institutions. Potential gold mine coach, ...gold! ( @ilovethecats)

I think you could say with absolute certainty that "inner-city kids don't gravitate to the same things that we all do", and that for most of them Bozeman would be very low on the list of places they would choose to spend 4-5 years of their life. There may be something to the theory that these sorts of cultural factors may hinder MSU's recrcuiting efforts more in basketball than in football. Although again, places like Missoula, Greely, Odgen, and Flagstaff are little, if any, more "urban" than Bozeman. The BSC schools that are located in or near larger metro areas, have not generally been any more successful in MBB than the schools that are located in less-populated areas, so I'm not really convinced that's a major factor.