SWC75
Bored Historian
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In the last two days, I've twice called into the Orange Nation Radio Show with Steve Intanti and Paulie Scibilia to discuss out problematic big men. It's been a theme of mine that we've recruit a lot of foreign-born big men in recent years and we are always complaining that we are weak in that area. Jim Boeheim has said many times both that big men take longer to develop and that foreign born players also take longer to develop because they didn't grow up playing the game. My point was that having all the big men on your roster born in other countries will tend to mean that you are going to have to wait to see them develop and they may not even peak while they are here. As a contrast, Duke sent in the little-used Mark Williams from Norfolk Virginia and he dominates while our three healthy centers watch from the sidelines, 'developing'.
I had acknowledged that the 7-0 245 Williams was a Macdonald's All-American. Steve and Paulie took that and ran with it, saying that you couldn't expect our guys to be as good.
I called back today to explain that my point was that, not playing the game until recently and grow up in places where their diet might not have the protein in the American diet, our guys had no chance to develop their bodies and skills the way Williams did. We don't know that they might not have been 7-0 245 McDonald's All-Americans had they grown up here. We have to wait 2-3 years to find out.
Earlier I'd called into a post game show that Demetris Nichols was on to make the same point. He said that from his experience the players in Europe do grow up with the game and that a 10 year old European player is probably more skilled than a 10 year old American player. Infanti had been on that show and referred to Nichol's point. The problem with that is that, of our 5 big men, (Dolezaj, Sidibe, Edwards, Ajak and Anselem), three of them are African and of the two Europeans, one of them, Edwards, only took up the game as a teenager after seeing LeBron James videos on You-Tube.
Scibilia was dismissive of my theory that we need to focus on domestic big men so they might be able to help us immediately. "It doesn't matter where they come from. The guys we have were just recruiting 'misses', that's all". The fact is, we don't know if they were recruiting 'misses', (certainly Marek wasn't), and we won't find out for another year or two. Pauley said that "Rony Seikaly and Fab Melo were pretty good!" The fact is, Rony Seikaly and Fab Melo were both pretty bad when they got here. Fortunately they got good. Baye Keita was pretty good Chinoso Oboko was not.
I've been looking a the basketball recruiting page and reading about Riley Mulvey, Elijah Everett, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, Donovan Clingen, Enoch Boakye and Tichyque Musaka. The first four are all domestic. Boakye is from Canada, which really isn't different in this regard form the US. All weigh at least 225 pounds except for Musaka who is from the Congo and who we apparently haven't offered a scholarship yet. This suggests that Jim Boeheim and his staff may be thinking the same way I am. of course maybe we have just been settling for foreign-born big men because we keep losing the battle to get domestic big men like Thomas Bryant and Isaiah Stewart, etc. Maybe we'll fail to get these guys too and wind up offering Musaka or someone like him.
I thought I'd run a poll and see if the board thinks it matters where our big men come from.
I had acknowledged that the 7-0 245 Williams was a Macdonald's All-American. Steve and Paulie took that and ran with it, saying that you couldn't expect our guys to be as good.
I called back today to explain that my point was that, not playing the game until recently and grow up in places where their diet might not have the protein in the American diet, our guys had no chance to develop their bodies and skills the way Williams did. We don't know that they might not have been 7-0 245 McDonald's All-Americans had they grown up here. We have to wait 2-3 years to find out.
Earlier I'd called into a post game show that Demetris Nichols was on to make the same point. He said that from his experience the players in Europe do grow up with the game and that a 10 year old European player is probably more skilled than a 10 year old American player. Infanti had been on that show and referred to Nichol's point. The problem with that is that, of our 5 big men, (Dolezaj, Sidibe, Edwards, Ajak and Anselem), three of them are African and of the two Europeans, one of them, Edwards, only took up the game as a teenager after seeing LeBron James videos on You-Tube.
Scibilia was dismissive of my theory that we need to focus on domestic big men so they might be able to help us immediately. "It doesn't matter where they come from. The guys we have were just recruiting 'misses', that's all". The fact is, we don't know if they were recruiting 'misses', (certainly Marek wasn't), and we won't find out for another year or two. Pauley said that "Rony Seikaly and Fab Melo were pretty good!" The fact is, Rony Seikaly and Fab Melo were both pretty bad when they got here. Fortunately they got good. Baye Keita was pretty good Chinoso Oboko was not.
I've been looking a the basketball recruiting page and reading about Riley Mulvey, Elijah Everett, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, Donovan Clingen, Enoch Boakye and Tichyque Musaka. The first four are all domestic. Boakye is from Canada, which really isn't different in this regard form the US. All weigh at least 225 pounds except for Musaka who is from the Congo and who we apparently haven't offered a scholarship yet. This suggests that Jim Boeheim and his staff may be thinking the same way I am. of course maybe we have just been settling for foreign-born big men because we keep losing the battle to get domestic big men like Thomas Bryant and Isaiah Stewart, etc. Maybe we'll fail to get these guys too and wind up offering Musaka or someone like him.
I thought I'd run a poll and see if the board thinks it matters where our big men come from.