Class of 2019 C Jesse Edwards (NL/IMG) SIGNED WITH SYRACUSE

[dasher]

QG is a great win. Stewart is a level above.

I know that. I was just saying that was would he might be saying

 

[Consigliere]

There's better news: We're 274th in rebounding and our 7'2 center is leaving.

So as bob Dylan says, "If you ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose."

 

[moqui]

If you are going to stay JBA was our #1 choice over Akok or Stewart then you are saying our coaches think JBA is a top 40 recruit in the country.
Both Akok and Stewart were top 40 recruits and you are saying JBA isn’t a project and should be an immediate rotation player next year.

It makes no sense to put those expectations on JBA.
He wasn’t the staff’s top big target or our staff is stupid and our staff isn’t stupid. Being happy with JBA is fine but he wasn’t our top big choice.

I mean cmon. Edwards is a target because our staff knows we need a big.

fact 1: jba was the first big offered in this cycle. not stewart, not akok, not qudus: j.b.a.
fact 2: it was always the intention to take 2 bigs

 

[moqui]

lol you want a public statement that we inquired? lol We did. And the reason you haven't seen much is he doesn't seem to want us. I know you don't want him for some reason, but we would take him in a new york second.

he is eager to drop names to build himself up. syracuse is a marquee name and seemingly would be trumpeted

i'm not saying you are making things up, but you have to admit your information is not always correct. and that is true for all of us.

 

[Alsacs]

fact 1: jba was the first big offered in this cycle. not stewart, not akok, not qudus: j.b.a.
fact 2: it was always the intention to take 2 bigs

It doesn’t matter JBA was the first big offered.
There is no chance in hell he was our staff’s top big target.
Akok and Stewart were a lot higher rated.
If JB had a choice of JBA, Akok, Stewart he wouldn’t choose JBA first.
It’s just not believable as Jim Boeheim isn’t a moron. Stewart is a top 10 recruit nationally and Akok is a top 40 recruit nationally. JBA is a top 200 prospect.

If JBA plays 10-15 mpg next year we will be excited. Stewart is a McDonald’s all-American.
Just because JBA was the first offer doesn’t mean he was atop the Syracuse big wish list that is just not a smart argument to make.

Heck Edwards is probably going to get more minutes than JBA next year.

 

[jdubs30]

It doesn’t matter JBA was the first big offered.
There is no chance in hell he was our staff’s top big target.
Akok and Stewart were a lot higher rated.
If JB had a choice of JBA, Akok, Stewart he wouldn’t choose JBA first.
It’s just not believable as Jim Boeheim isn’t a moron. Stewart is a top 10 recruit nationally and Akok is a top 40 recruit nationally. JBA is a top 200 prospect.

If JBA plays 10-15 mpg next year we will be excited. Stewart is a McDonald’s all-American.
Just because JBA was the first offer doesn’t mean he was atop the Syracuse big wish list that is just not a smart argument to make.

Wasn’t JBA top 50 before the injury?

 

[Alsacs]

Wasn’t JBA top 50 before the injury?

I don’t know if he was top 50 and honestly JBA looks like a good prospect. I am glad we have him on the team. It’s not plausible to say JBa was our top big target for this class.
It’s just not a believable argument or it implies our staff is stupid.
Isiah Stewart has been a top 10 player in this class for a while. ESPN has him 5th overall in the nation.
No way the staff would prefer a top 50 kid to a top 10 kid. It’s like saying the staff prioritized Gerry McNamara to Carmelo Anthony.

 

[doc05]

Only on this website is JBA considered a national elite recruit on par with Stewart and Akok (nothing against him). It's like bizarro world here.

 

[kcsu]

No JBAs highest rating was around 100. I do think he is going to be a solid player for us. Edwards is a mystery but GT offered so that says he has skills.

 

[Cusefan0307]

As this FF has shown player rankings mean squat.

 

[Alsacs]

As this FF has shown player rankings mean squat.

I think JBA is a good prospect. This Edwards we don’t know but he looks at least like he has the measurables we could use.

I would ask you if you think JBA was our staff’s top big target this cycle?
I would say it’s unlikely that we preferred JBA to Isiah Stewart or Akok Akok.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I think JBA is a good prospect. This Edwards we don’t know but he looks at least like he has the measurables we could use.

I would ask you if you think JBA was our staff’s top big target this cycle?
I would say it’s unlikely that we preferred JBA to Isiah Stewart or Akok Akok.

No don’t think so. I just know the rankings mean squat. These teams getting to the elite 8 and FF are doing it with a lot of guys sub 100 and virtually everyone sub 40.

 

[kcsu]

JB only buys Wegman Birthday cakes for top rated recruit families

 

[jordville]

If I recall correctly... Stewart was offered Aug. '16 and JBA was offered Aug. '17. No question Zay was/is the better talent, higher priority recruit, and was option 1 in the bigs category for 2019. I will also say that JBA was a higher ranked recruit himself early on and dropped significantly due to injuries, etc, but we stuck with him despite all that.. so that says something about how the staff feels about him.

Think about all the bigs we offered (timeline) in this class... Zay 8/17, Kofi 4/17, A.I. 4/17, JBA 8/17, QW 1/18, Akok 3/18, Kai 7/18, Dimon 9/18, Edwards 2/19, Tre 2/19.

And only Edwards and Carrigan are still available.

 

[Melancer46]

FWIW as far as this discussion goes, JBA was rated #70 by two four seven back in September 2017

 

[RF2044]

If I recall correctly... Stewart was offered Aug. '16 and JBA was offered Aug. '17. No question Zay was/is the better talent, higher priority recruit, and was option 1 in the bigs category for 2019. I will also say that JBA was a higher ranked recruit himself early on and dropped significantly due to injuries, etc, but we stuck with him despite all that.. so that says something about how the staff feels about him.

Think about all the bigs we offered (timeline) in this class... Zay 8/17, Kofi 4/17, A.I. 4/17, JBA 8/17, QW 1/18, Akok 3/18, Kai 7/18, Dimon 9/18, Edwards 2/19, Tre 2/19.

And only Edwards and Carrigan are still available.

Thanks for compiling that data.

Someday, it would be nice to know the full story with Carrigan. Whole thing has been strange, dating back to when he was in HS.

 

[Alsacs]

FWIW as far as this discussion goes, JBA was rated #70 by two four seven back in September 2017

He isn’t a bum by any means. I actually think he is more than a project and should be able to get some run by his second year.
I just don’t think JBA was our top big priority this cycle.
He was a target the staff liked a lot but if they had a choice of who they wanted JBA wouldn’t have been ahead of Stewart.

 

[Melancer46]

Back on topic of Jesse Edwards, if anyone is interested in watching him in some scrimmages at IMG...

He's #12 on black. First game starts at 8:12. Second game starts at 59:30.


Seems like really low level competition here/everyone seems to be pretty lazy. He didn't really do anything to stand out IMO. Idk, I'm not nearly as optimistic about this kid as I was when Dolezaj came out of nowhere a couple years ago. I just don't really see it with Edwards.

 

[Noexcuse]

Back on topic of Jesse Edwards, if anyone is interested in watching him in some scrimmages at IMG...

He's #12 on black. First game starts at 8:12. Second game starts at 59:30.


Seems like really low level competition here/everyone seems to be pretty lazy. He didn't really do anything to stand out IMO. Idk, I'm not nearly as optimistic about this kid as I was when Dolezaj came out of nowhere a couple years ago. I just don't really see it with Edwards.

He did kill it on the opening tip.

 

[dasher]

he is eager to drop names to build himself up. syracuse is a marquee name and seemingly would be trumpeted

i'm not saying you are making things up, but you have to admit your information is not always correct. and that is true for all of us.

My source on this was as good as it can get. We reached out to him.

 

[doc05]

Guess based on this FF, throw out player rankings altogether -- who cares if a guy is ranked 400 etc or in this case, is unranked -- or what our class rank is (last year we were 43, whereas MSU was 17, TT was 33, Aub had no commits but in '17 they were 17, with UVA as the outlier at 63). Doesn't matter, can make a deep run regardless as every team now has a fighting chance so let's continue being mediocre on paper as those recruiting sites should take a hike!

 

[RF2044]

Guess based on this FF, throw out player rankings altogether -- who cares if a guy is ranked 400 etc or in this case, is unranked -- or what our class rank is (last year we were 43, whereas MSU was 17, TT was 33, Aub had no commits but in '17 they were 17, with UVA as the outlier at 63). Doesn't matter, can make a deep run regardless as every team now has a fighting chance so let's continue being mediocre on paper as those recruiting sites should take a hike!

This comes back to a fundamental system based issue -- you can either chase highly rated guys who aren't going to be around long, but then you have to have a recruiting mechanism in place to replace them with equally as talented guys. Duke, UK, Kansas, Arizona, etc. are all examples of this approach.

OR you need to recruit for system fit, develop them over the course of their career, and have year-over-year continuity with respect to personnel. Virginia, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, and Notre Dame [who have been down the last two years, but had a very solid 3-4 year top 10-ish run prior to that] are examples of this approach.

What you CAN'T do as a sustainable option is straddle the line. It is virtually impossible to be both, and our situation in recent years was exacerbated by having a lot of unplanned early departures that weren't fully expected in most cases [Lydon, Mali, Ennis, Grant, etc.] at the same time we had NCAA imposed scholarship reductions, which prevented us from filling the roster with four year program types to establish the type of continuity discussed above and step into those gaps.

I feel like we're getting back to that with players like Buddy, Girard, JBA, etc.

We've always seemed to have our best post-golden era teams when we've supplemented a roster of good system fits with a sprinkle of a higher rated prospect [or two].

 

[Funk Doc]

This comes back to a fundamental system based issue -- you can either chase highly rated guys who aren't going to be around long, but then you have to have a recruiting mechanism in place to replace them with equally as talented guys. Duke, UK, Kansas, Arizona, etc. are all examples of this approach.

OR you need to recruit for system fit, develop them over the course of their career, and have year-over-year continuity with respect to personnel. Virginia, Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame [who have been down the last two years, but had a very solid 3-4 year top 10-ish run prior to that] are examples of this approach.

What you CAN'T do as a sustainable option is straddle the line. It is virtually impossible to be both, and our situation in recent years was exacerbated by having a lot of unplanned early departures that weren't fully expected in most cases [Lydon, Mali, Ennis, Grant, etc.] at the same time we had NCAA imposed scholarship reductions, which prevented us from filling the roster with four year program types to establish the type of continuity discussed above and step into those gaps.

I feel like we're getting back to that with players like Buddy, Girard, JBA, etc.

We've always seemed to have our best post-golden era teams when we've supplemented a roster of good system fits with a sprinkle of a higher rated prospect [or two].

Yes! And Zona this year is a prime example of what happens when you are forced to deviate from the norm,(In their case their own decisions caused it) but the results showed.

 

[kcsu]

Any news?

 

[Cusesky8214]

There was a VIP post about his visit and decision timeframe etc. Not sure what was said in the article...just guessing but I bet we hear something soon. Not like the kid has a ton of visits or suitors lined up.