Class of 2020 C Matt Haarms / Transferring from Purdue

[GoCuse14]

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It is beautiful there. My older sister went to BYU and I visited in like 9th grade. Hiked to the Y while there. Love Utah.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

It is beautiful there. My older sister went to BYU and I visited in like 9th grade. Hiked to the Y while there. Love Utah.

Hiking the Y. Nice!

 

[Cusesky8214]

It is beautiful there. My older sister went to BYU and I visited in like 9th grade. Hiked to the Y while there. Love Utah.

Its beautiful out there. Great school too

 

[Dave]

it’s the same posters that blame the refs for every single game we loose.
That gets real old too

Lose. It is the refs.

 

[Grbac]

Funny how BYU coach Mark Pope won a national title with UK under Pitino in 96.
Must feel pretty good winning a player over UK.
Pope was good at Utah Valley St. he is building a nice resume so far.

 

[SWFLCUSE]

love him even more for this.

The age thing actually makes a bit of sense to me. Most of BYU's is older and probably has a similar mindset and maturity as Haarms. Compare that to a Kentucky roster that is going to be filled with 18 and 19 year old kids who, for the most part, are getting their first taste of being out in the world.

 

[sutomcat]

It is beautiful there. My older sister went to BYU and I visited in like 9th grade. Hiked to the Y while there. Love Utah.

It is beautiful but wow, if you want to talk about changing your geography in a transfer, this is pretty extreme.

I have been to Purdue. It is in the middle of corn fields. The drive from Gary to West Lafayette is one long run of absolutely flat fields filled with corn plants.

You go from there to Provo, in the middle of snow covered mountains? That is a serious change. Seems like a good guy. I hope he does well there.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

So, I worked my few connections (which are not the most reliable, a lot of BYU people think they know stuff but they mostly just talk a lot) and this is what I found out - Pope is viewed as a really good coach that's matched up really well with the BYU program. He gets BYU, and is able to talk about how things some athletes view as negatives (fear of the honor code, the high religious population) are great positives to players with a certain focus strictly on becoming better basketball players. It also sounds like he and Haarms connected as skilled big men and just hit it off. Combine that with the thought that Pope knows how to put a big in position to succeed, and add in that there's room for a guy to step in and be a big contributor after a lot of talent finished up, and there is a clear path for Haarms to be heavily featured. This was simply a case of a great match between player, program and coach and Pope was able to represent that in a way that Haarms was most comfortable with.

BYU will always be able to pull a certain amount of talent from athletes already affiliated with the church, and there's growing optimism that Pope is building the credibility to expand the recruiting pool