2009-10 Recruits

[bigticket1]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

A post on the message boards at Gopherhole.com says Wragge had a great showing at a tournament in Orlando and that he will be getting an offer from Marquette and will be meeting with the Gopher staff soon.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Wragge has had a very good summer showing a lot of range from 3 point range for a 6'7 shooting guard. He initially had offers from SDSU, NDSU and Wisc Green Bay. He now has added offers from UNI, Marquette, Delaware, Providence, Wright State and Colorado State. He is also looking at Drake and Creighton, University of Nebraska and Minnesota. Minnesota wants him to walk on initially. He does want to stay close to home so UNI, Marquette and the Gophers may be the frontrunners.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Chris Halvorson 6'8 forward Class of 2009 from Mendota Heights Henry Sibley in Minnesota has over 15 scholarship offers including one from the Jacks.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

They are reporting on MN Preps that SDSU is the favorite to land Nate Wolters a 6'3 point guard from St Cloud Tech and that it speaks volumes that he will visit Brookings first this coming weekend. They felt he outplayed most of the top guards in Minnesota this summer. Also considering Winona State, USD, MN State and the rest of the other D2's in Minnesota. UNI showed interest until a recent backcourt committment. Has also had other DI interest including Bucknell, Cal Poly and others that he considers too far away.

[jackwatcher]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

JACKGUYII: I really appreciate you keeping us updated on this information!

However, I continue to be sceptical when we seem to be the only non-D2 a kid is considering.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

JACKGUYII: I really appreciate you keeping us updated on this information!

However, I continue to be sceptical when we seem to be the only non-D2 a kid is considering.

I couldn't agree with you more. Most of the Minnesota recruits that NDSU is hosting this weekend have multiple offers from other DI's.

[filbert]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Until the basketball team has on-court success, we need to work with whatever scraps are left on the table by more successful programs. We're simply not going to win head-to-head recruiting battles against our peer schools until the on-court product improves.

The record indicates that they don't have a chance to win at SDSU. That's the harsh reality. Kids want to go where they have a chance to win.

Which means that the coaches and players we have need to suck it up and figure out a way to win the games they lost last year (California road trip, anyone?). Winning begets winning.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Until the basketball team has on-court success, we need to work with whatever scraps are left on the table by more successful programs. We're simply not going to win head-to-head recruiting battles against our peer schools until the on-court product improves.

The record indicates that they don't have a chance to win at SDSU. That's the harsh reality. Kids want to go where they have a chance to win.

Which means that the coaches and players we have need to suck it up and figure out a way to win the games they lost last year (California road trip, anyone?). Winning begets winning.

So true. You don't see the SDSU Women's program losing anyone in the region they really wanted with the exception of Sam Ostarello who took the Purdue scholarship, but was still torn about it. On the other hand I don't believe we will have a long term challenge competing with the Bison for recruits unless they finally build a real first class facility.

[rabbit_boy]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

I totally agree with Filbert, as per usual. I also hope everyone had a great summer and cant wait til the start of the season.

[NorCalJack]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Cadsev-Are the Jacks still in the running for either Ethan Wragge of Eden Prairie or Nate Wolters of St. Cloud Tech?

Ethan Wragge just verbally committed to Creighton.

Here is the link.

Go Jacks!!!
Go State!!!

[EQguy]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

They are reporting on MN Preps that SDSU is the favorite to land Nate Wolters a 6'3 point guard from St Cloud Tech and that it speaks volumes that he will visit Brookings first this coming weekend. They felt he outplayed most of the top guards in Minnesota this summer. Also considering Winona State, USD, MN State and the rest of the other D2's in Minnesota. UNI showed interest until a recent backcourt committment. Has also had other DI interest including Bucknell, Cal Poly and others that he considers too far away.

Until the basketball team has on-court success, we need to work with whatever scraps are left on the table by more successful programs. We're simply not going to win head-to-head recruiting battles against our peer schools until the on-court product improves.

I don't think you can look at this kid as table scraps. Fact is other D-I schools have shown interest, UNI backed away after receiving another commitment and Cal Poly and Bucknell were interested they just were not close enough to home for Nate.

SDSU still has something to offer a recruit. The chance to come in a play right away, a damn fine arena and the history of SDSU basketball suggests that any kid coming would be a hero if he was part of a turnaround. Is that as much as UNI or Creighton, probably not, but coaches still shouldn't just back away from a kid just because a Big 10, Big 12 or MoValley school is recruiting him.

You just never know when your dealing with 18 year olds.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Nate Wolters took his official trip to SDSU the first weekend of September. He is going to Minnesota State at the end of the month and Augustana the first week in October. Also still considering Winona State and St Cloud State.

[JamesJacks]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

I don't think people think of Wolters as "talblescraps" as someone put it. I just think people want to see us getting kids in the mens program who are being heavily recruited by other D1 schools instead of us being one of only two D1 schools and a bunch of D2 schools on their list. You want kids who, as high school seniors, are attractive to more than just two D1 coaches.

[Grizzled_Jack]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Is there really such a bright line delineating mid-major D-I talent? Somewhere in here is a quote from Nagy stating that his best D-II clubs would have won about 17 games against the present (two years ago?) schedule.

[filbert]

Re: 2009-10 Recruits

Is there really such a bright line delineating mid-major D-I talent? Somewhere in here is a quote from Nagy stating that his best D-II clubs would have won about 17 games against the present (two years ago?) schedule.

The bell curves definitely overlap, there's no doubt.

There's an element of D-I talent that's raw physical ability. And there's an element that's desire, want-to, inner drive, mental toughness. We've all seen guys on NCC teams (Northern Colorado and Nebraska-Omaha come immediately to mind) who had superior talent, but didn't have the mental game necessary to be a D-I athlete, so there they were, in D-II. And a lot of those guys had D-I physical ability but didn't even have the discipline to be good D-II players--you all saw it in Frost Arena, every time UNC or UNO came to town. UNO got good when their physically talented players started playing with enough discipline to be effective D-II players.

You can only teach physical ability to a limited extent. You can teach desire and toughness if you get teachable recruits. But success also feeds on success. We haven't had much of that since the transition began.

SDSU during our D-II heyday never had a lot of the really superior physical athletes--our best players have almost always had adequate athletic ability combined with superior desire to be stars at the D-II level.

I think that's a model we need to pursue into D-I. The truly gifted athletes are going to gravitate towards the elite programs. We need to get enough physical ability on the court to be competitive, then combine it with really superior effort and mental toughness to make our program work in D-I.

Could lightning strike and we get a steal of a guy who will turn the whole thing around? Sure.

Could the guys we have get some things figured out and start clawing their way out of the hole this program has dug for itself? Yes. That's more likely than lighning striking, in fact. I expect some modest improvement this year over last year, simply because the freshmen and sophomores last year are now sophomores and juniors. Experience counts.

My expectation is that SDSU makes it to the Summit League tournament this year. If that happens, who knows? Maybe they get hot and win three games in a row in Sioux Falls, and get to play Duke at 11 a.m. on Thursday of the tournament?