Coach Martin & Memphis Recruiting

#51
#51
John Calipari didn't even recruit in Memphis, and Keith Easterwood sends kids to Nike schools. I'd think CCM would be spending his time better elsewhere.
 
#52
#52
aekdb151 said:
people seriously underestimate the hatred of ut coming from that city
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mtennvol said:
I go to college about an hour from Memphis. Most people in Memphis resent UT unless they are the upper class donors or Med students there. They don't want to go to UT regardless of the coach
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These couldnt be futher from the truth. Lived here my whole life and you would be surprised. Of course there is a huge majority of memphis fans here but not all hate UT. Many like UT second best in b-ball. If we have a winning coach that can have a good rapport here he can pull a few. Not saying the majority but we only need to get a few.
 
#53
#53
The last few years there has beena gradual movement with the local high school coaches to get kids out of Memphis. The mentality has always been to stay home. But they are realizing that for the most part these kids are being held back by their environment.

The question being asked is, who were the last kids from Memphis that stayed home and went on to be successful in the NBA?

The biggest problem for UT with the Memphis kids is Mr. Anderson being hired at UAF. The second biggest problem is the d-bag Easterwood pimping the AAU circuit for Nike.
 
#54
#54
jerryvol44 said:
Balogna, if a coach comes in here and wins consistantly and goes to the NCAA every year, and puts players in the pros he will be able to recruit anywhere.
Actually recruiting is as much about evaluating talent as anything else. There are hundreds of kids playing in division 2 that could make it in 1.
Juan Smith is an example, he was not offered by a division 1 team and he walked on and became a star at UT.
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Phil Fulmer won a national championship and he was never able to recruit Memphis very well. And it's easier to pull football players out of there to Knoxville than it is basketball players.

I'm not saying UT coaches should completely ignore Memphis. But I think we have enough evidence by now to state confidently that we're never going to start regularly pulling Memphis's top talent all the way to Knoxville. We need to ignore the fact that it's legally in the state of Tennessee and start treating it as we would if it were the biggest city in Arkansas or Mississippi.
 
#55
#55
UT IE 95 said:
The last few years there has beena gradual movement with the local high school coaches to get kids out of Memphis. The mentality has always been to stay home. But they are realizing that for the most part these kids are being held back by their environment.

The question being asked is, who were the last kids from Memphis that stayed home and went on to be successful in the NBA?

The biggest problem for UT with the Memphis kids is Mr. Anderson being hired at UAF. The second biggest problem is the d-bag Easterwood pimping the AAU circuit for Nike.
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Although I disagree with you the vast majority of the time, I think this is spot on.
 
#56
#56
UT IE 95 said:
The question being asked is, who were the last kids from Memphis that stayed home and went on to be successful in the NBA?

The biggest problem for UT with the Memphis kids is Mr. Anderson being hired at UAF. The second biggest problem is the d-bag Easterwood pimping the AAU circuit for Nike.
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Keith Lee and Penny Hardaway.
 
#58
#58
Vercingetorix said:
Phil Fulmer won a national championship and he was never able to recruit Memphis very well. And it's easier to pull football players out of there to Knoxville than it is basketball players.

I'm not saying UT coaches should completely ignore Memphis. But I think we have enough evidence by now to state confidently that we're never going to start regularly pulling Memphis's top talent all the way to Knoxville. We need to ignore the fact that it's legally in the state of Tennessee and start treating it as we would if it were the biggest city in Arkansas or Mississippi.
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Terrible idea, and the reason Fulmer didnt get many players out of Memphis is because he hated memphis. He never recruited it hard and didnt hide his feelings about hating memphis, even in interviews after games against memphis on tv!
 
#59
#59
How many D1 basketball players come out of Memphis and where does the city rank? Somebody do it for me. I suck at research, plus I'm lazy because we are #1 in laziness, so i might as well be.
 
#60
#60
LynxVol said:
Memphis has to be a recruiting focus for UT basketball. Period.

I don't think he needs to bring someone with him that has specific connections with the city. That can be accomplished with time.

Given Zo's demeanor, history, and rapport, I think he will be a big hit with families and players in Memphisl.
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Seriously? His entire resume, save 1 year at Purdue, was littered with no impact on recruiting. No one thinks this guy is a top-talent level recruiter. His strength is on-court, not off it.


# of St. Louis Recruits @ Purdue 2000-2007: 0
# of Chicago Recruits @ Purdue 2000-2007: 1

# of St. Louis Recruits @ Missouri St. 2008-2010: 3
# of Chicago Recruits @ Missouri St. 2008-2010: 0

General recruiting...
# of 3* Recruits @ Missouri St. 2008-2010: 0

Compare his in-conference competitors --
# of 3* Recruits @ Wichita St. 2008-2010: 4
# of 3* Recruits @ Indiana St. 2008-2010: 2
# of 3* Recruits @ No. Iowa 2008-2010: 2
# of 3* Recruits @ Creighton 2008-2010: 3
# of 3* Recruits @ Evansville 2008-2010: 3

Compare his predecessors --
# of 3* Recruits @ Missouri St. 2002-2007: 6
 
#61
#61
bamasucks76 said:
Terrible idea, and the reason Fulmer didnt get many players out of Memphis is because he hated memphis. He never recruited it hard and didnt hide his feelings about hating memphis, even in interviews after games against memphis on tv!
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It's bigger than Fulmer; it's bigger than sports. You know how it is in Memphis: people think Knoxville might as well be on another planet. And culturally and geographically, they're right.

Over and over, Vol fans talk about how we need to finally lock down Memphis and start pulling all that talent to the home-state school, and over and over we get disappointed because UT is Memphis's home-state school in name only. I'm not saying abandon it totally, obviously; we should pick and choose kids to go after that we think we have a realistic shot at. But Vol fans need to give up on this fantasy that Memphis will suddenly start cranking talent our way if only we can get the right coach(es). It's never going to happen.
 
#63
#63
Vercingetorix said:
It's bigger than Fulmer; it's bigger than sports. You know how it is in Memphis: people think Knoxville might as well be on another planet. And culturally and geographically, they're right.

Over and over, Vol fans talk about how we need to finally lock down Memphis and start pulling all that talent to the home-state school, and over and over we get disappointed because UT is Memphis's home-state school in name only. I'm not saying abandon it totally, obviously; we should pick and choose kids to go after that we think we have a realistic shot at. But Vol fans need to give up on this fantasy that Memphis will suddenly start cranking talent our way if only we can get the right coach(es). It's never going to happen.
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We need to get the right coaches and some of the other teams need to get the wrong coaches for there to be any chance of that.

I think people are going to extremes on both sides. No, we can't lockdown on Memphis, but I definitely think we should get more out of Memphis than we have.
 
#64
#64
Vercingetorix said:
It's bigger than Fulmer; it's bigger than sports. You know how it is in Memphis: people think Knoxville might as well be on another planet. And culturally and geographically, they're right.

Over and over, Vol fans talk about how we need to finally lock down Memphis and start pulling all that talent to the home-state school, and over and over we get disappointed because UT is Memphis's home-state school in name only. I'm not saying abandon it totally, obviously; we should pick and choose kids to go after that we think we have a realistic shot at. But Vol fans need to give up on this fantasy that Memphis will suddenly start cranking talent our way if only we can get the right coach(es). It's never going to happen.
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Nobody is saying we can take over memphis. Its just not some foriegn land that some outside of memphis think. Have you seen the UT/memphis football games in memphis, or been to a bar or resturant when Ut and/or memphis are playing at the same time(like this year when they both played in the tourney the same day)?
There are TONS of UT football fans here, lots of UT basketball fans here, plus tons of UT football/memphis b-ball fans. There are also a lot that like both in basketball.

tvolsfan said:
We need to get the right coaches and some of the other teams need to get the wrong coaches for there to be any chance of that.

I think people are going to extremes on both sides. No, we can't lockdown on Memphis, but I definitely think we should get more out of Memphis than we have.
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Yes!
 
#65
#65
tvolsfan said:
How do you feel about the hire, Vercingetorix?
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I mostly think it's disappointing that we apparently went cheap because we're cheap, not just out of necessity. It would be one thing if the NCAA situation were so dire that that had scared everybody off, and we ended up having to take a relatively unknown quantity out of necessity, but if you can believe what you read online, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Apparently we just went cheap because we're cheap.

Now once you take that as a given, I like everything I've seen about this guy so far. It's impossible to read anything about him and not come away impressed with the guy. I like his demeanor; I like his emphasis on defense. I'd rather hire a young guy with a tremendous amount of upside than an older coach who's proven that he's good but not great.

I'm optimistic; I can't wait to see what he does with some of these returning players in the fall. I just wish that we'd reached down to the MVC for "young guy with tremendous upside" because we had to, not because that's all we wanted to pay.
 
#66
#66
Vercingetorix said:
I mostly think it's disappointing that we apparently went cheap because we're cheap, not just out of necessity. It would be one thing if the NCAA situation were so dire that that had scared everybody off, and we ended up having to take a relatively unknown quantity out of necessity, but if you can believe what you read online, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Apparently we just went cheap because we're cheap.
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Most coaches at mid-tier programs would be getting the equivalent of a ten-year guaranteed contract at their current salary to come here, so the NCAA risk wasn't going to scare that many people away, especially in a flighty profession where capitalizing on your opportunities is critical to get the jump up.
 
#67
#67
bamasucks76 said:
Nobody is saying we can take over memphis. Its just not some foriegn land that some outside of memphis think. Have you seen the UT/memphis football games in memphis, or been to a bar or resturant when Ut and/or memphis are playing at the same time(like this year when they both played in the tourney the same day)?
There are TONS of UT football fans here, lots of UT basketball fans here, plus tons of UT football/memphis b-ball fans. There are also a lot that like both in basketball.
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My wife has family in Memphis, so I've been there a lot. I've been to UT/Memphis in the Liberty Bowl. It's a great atmosphere, mostly because of the unrestrained hostility so many Memphis folks have for UT. It's clear as a Knoxville-born Vol fan that you're walking into somebody else's civil war.

I'm just think of recruiting in Memphis in terms of what UT should do with limited time and resources. The fact that Memphis is in Tennessee makes pulling recruits from there of high symbolic value, which in the past has led UT coaches to spend way more energy on kids that they really never had much chance to get. We need to approach recruiting Memphis realistically, which means forgetting as much as possible that it's in Tennessee. Both from a symbolism standpoint and the from notion that we have any advantage at all there.
 
#68
#68
Vercingetorix said:
I mostly think it's disappointing that we apparently went cheap because we're cheap, not just out of necessity. It would be one thing if the NCAA situation were so dire that that had scared everybody off, and we ended up having to take a relatively unknown quantity out of necessity, but if you can believe what you read online, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Apparently we just went cheap because we're cheap.

Now once you take that as a given, I like everything I've seen about this guy so far. It's impossible to read anything about him and not come away impressed with the guy. I like his demeanor; I like his emphasis on defense. I'd rather hire a young guy with a tremendous amount of upside than an older coach who's proven that he's good but not great.

I'm optimistic; I can't wait to see what he does with some of these returning players in the fall. I just wish that we'd reached down to the MVC for "young guy with tremendous upside" because we had to, not because that's all we wanted to pay.
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I agree with all of this. I'm not upset that we hired Martin, but I'm upset that we're supposedly unwilling to pay a basketball coach more than a football coach.
 
#69
#69
Vercingetorix said:
My wife has family in Memphis, so I've been there a lot. I've been to UT/Memphis in the Liberty Bowl. It's a great atmosphere, mostly because of the unrestrained hostility so many Memphis folks have for UT. It's clear as a Knoxville-born Vol fan that you're walking into somebody else's civil war.

I'm just think of recruiting in Memphis in terms of what UT should do with limited time and resources. The fact that Memphis is in Tennessee makes pulling recruits from there of high symbolic value, which in the past has led UT coaches to spend way more energy on kids that they really never had much chance to get. We need to approach recruiting Memphis realistically, which means forgetting as much as possible that it's in Tennessee. Both from a symbolism standpoint and the from notion that we have any advantage at all there.
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I was born in Memphis and live in central Ohio now. I think I'm closer to Knoxville than I was in Memphis. However, if we can pull Tobias Harris out of New York, I don't see how Memphis is supposed to be untouchable.
 
#70
#70
Vercingetorix said:
My wife has family in Memphis, so I've been there a lot. I've been to UT/Memphis in the Liberty Bowl. It's a great atmosphere, mostly because of the unrestrained hostility so many Memphis folks have for UT. It's clear as a Knoxville-born Vol fan that you're walking into somebody else's civil war.

I'm just think of recruiting in Memphis in terms of what UT should do with limited time and resources. The fact that Memphis is in Tennessee makes pulling recruits from there of high symbolic value, which in the past has led UT coaches to spend way more energy on kids that they really never had much chance to get. We need to approach recruiting Memphis realistically, which means forgetting as much as possible that it's in Tennessee. Both from a symbolism standpoint and the from notion that we have any advantage at all there.
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Cant go by the fans at the Liberty Bowl. The memphis fans that show up for that game are the hardest of hardcore memphis fans. Im just saying the general day to day life in memphis is not what some think. It IS a big cival war, but that also means there are a ton of UT fans here, so we cant just write it off. So if we dont openly crap on memphis, like Fulmer, we can pull recruits from memphis.
 
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#71
#71
The # of Memphis kids to make it to the NBA isnt really important to your recruiting. What is important is -- who is the last Memphis kid to play for the Vols and then be successful in the NBA?
 
#72
#72
tvolsfan said:
I was born in Memphis and live in central Ohio now. I think I'm closer to Knoxville than I was in Memphis. However, if we can pull Tobias Harris out of New York, I don't see how Memphis is supposed to be untouchable.
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It's obviously not untouchable. It's just a waste of resources to make it an area of special emphasis, like Vol fans constantly want to do. We should go in there and pull individual kids out whom we think we can get, like we did Harris out of New York, but there's no point concentrating on Memphis just because it's in Tennessee.
 
#74
#74
TIGER DEN said:
I wished Martin wouldn't recruit Memphis but he'd be a fool not to .
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I'm not too worried about it. Josh will keep who he wants in town. Even Stokes, thought to be a lock for TN, is now saying that Memphis is by no means out of it. Oh, and he just happens to be playing on a Memphis based Nike AAU team this summer instead of the adidas Atlanta Celtics team. Read between the lines.
 
#75
#75
tigerinmemphis said:
I'm not too worried about it. Josh will keep who he wants in town. Even Stokes, thought to be a lock for TN, is now saying that Memphis is by no means out of it. Oh, and he just happens to be playing on a Memphis based Nike AAU team this summer instead of the adidas Atlanta Celtics team. Read between the lines.
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Not a biased opinion at all.

You are giving Pastner way too much credit already. This coming season will be the evaluation year.
 
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