Post by uncurselmu on Jun 5, 2014 12:11:39 GMT -5
My initial thought was that he felt like he'd have more opportunity for PT at USF but then again on second thought I don't feel like Dunlap is the type of coach to promise PT or a starting spot so unless he just felt like there was less competition at USF I feel like LMU should have had the edge.
If Dunlap is never going to promise playing time to any good recruit then he's in for a rude awakening. I mean its not just the kids involved, its parents, mentors, etc.
Yes, yes, I get it. You want a kid who is "willing to fight for and earn his spot" because he has this insane work ethic where he'd rather suffer mentally and agonize, wondering if he made the wrong decision, as opposed to a college where he was just "given" a spot because he must be lazy. You want Rudy.
I think everybody here is making it seem like every single American high school kid is some spoiled diva looking for an easy ride. First off, these kids bust their butts at practice all the time, travel all the time, play non-stop begging for some recruiters to look at them. I know. I have a nephew who is a talented soccer player who is getting some looks now, but he's literally in constant showcase and these are kids not adults. They get worn down. They play on the high school team where they are expected to lead all the time and take the blame when they lose. They play all summer when their friends are just hanging out. They want to play video games like 99.999% of the other kids do once in awhile. They get injured and have challenging social lives because of the expectations.
Second, why does the fact that "he doesn't need playing time" reflect a poor work ethic? What if he already has a solid work ethic, but other coaches actually do want him to play right away? If you are presented two options as adults : 1) internship where maybe you get to do a project here and there or you get buried serving coffee or 2) you get an entry level job where you can work on some small reports, which one are you picking? PLEASE. These kids have to pick the best situation for them and their family. If the kid is low income or poor or has parents who basically pay all their money for their traveling the kid will feel an honorable sense of duty to go to a place where they're going to get playing time and show their family the fruits of their labor. What kid from a hopeless situation is going to choose a risky situation where they get buried on the bench and everybody thinks they're a failure? Don't you know how that looks to the neighborhood back home? It's basically "we knew you'd fail" from the homies that want you to fail and come back begging for their assistance. Or the family members divorce because they spent all this time on the kid and he sucks. These kids do not exist in an alternate universe from their families. I'll tell you right now that if my nephew has a chance to play at UCSB or Cal State Long Beach and Long Beach is offering him a starting position and UCSB wants him to sit on the pine for 3 years and outplay another star recruit, where do you think his family will make him go? Maybe the kid wants to go the UCSB but he's going to Long Beach because of the pressure of having been playing all of these tournaments for 15 years and the family being there every step of the way.
Look, comparing Greg Popovich's style to Mike Dunlap in this regard is silly. Pop is dealing with adults who have money no matter if they play or don't. Those Euros, if they can't make it, will be traded or they can go back to Europe and still make a ton of money. If Dunlap is going to treat 16-17 year olds like older NBA vets, then he's definitely on another planet. But that overlooks yet another point. What right does Dunlap have to think that he's comparable to Popovich. What has Dunlap ever won or proven? He's been basically a career assistant in the NBA (fired after 1 year) he's bounced around the league, he bounced around colleges, and international basketball. Now he comes in saying that its "my way or the highway" because he knows something you don't? If you're buying a house from a realtor and he's telling you that this house is going to really boom and you find out he's been in 12 different markets, never knowing one really well but he's been around great investors, you're going to hesitate and that's as an adult.
Are the recruits at Kentucky divas? they are probably because that's the 1%, walking millionaires already. The top 100 recruits seem themselves as similar to that of the top 100 law school graduates or technology firm interns at Facebook. Those kids are destined already to make $25,000,000 over 5 years after a year or two of college.
But everybody else isn't that kid. I hate that everybody here is generalizing them. It's disturbing and its clear some of you have never been around youth, and go by what you see on TV or what politicians feed you.
I'm going to let this one roll for the most part because I get the feeling that this post derived from more than this thread. No one was judging him for choosing another school. Sure, myself, like most people on an LMU board, are biased towards our school for a number of reasons.
There's no judging him for looking to go elsewhere, or even going to a squad where he has a chance to play right away (if that were a bad thing we'd lose a major selling point with recruits). The thoughts offered were not meant to question him, but to try to understand our programs approach. I would assume that if we didn't already find a future starting PG that we would have had a better chance. That's no knock on him at all. It's important to understand why we miss out on a solid recruit.
Just as you decry generalizations you should avoid generalizing other people on this board and making grand assumptions. Maybe you feel as though you just have a strong sense for detecting experience with youth, susceptibility to the monolith of mass media, or a blind acceptance of the political status quo but I feel as though that's probably a bit difficult to do on a basketball message board.