My Green Question...z

[two3zone]

Having listened to Francis' podcast I am looking at the Green recruitment very differently. UK didn't just sweep in out of nowhere on Tuesday and break up a firm relationship between us and Green. I interpreted what Francis said in his podcast to suggest that we were never as "in" with Green as we all thought (maybe largely led in that direction by a certain source in the academic support department). I could be wrong, but thought Francis said Green never told us/reffirmed (after UK offered) that we were his top destination; and in fact, his actions in withholding a public verbal commitment - when we wanted/needed him to be recuiting others for us, attending UK's midnight madness, taking several officials etc. suggested that we really should have been pressing hard for him to explain what the hell he was thinking - before we cut ties with other options.

It sounds like Green was always looking for what would be perceived as the "best/most prestigious" offer he could get. When that finally came from UK over the summer we were in trouble with him, but just didn't realize it. Maybe we didn't recognize it because Green still thought Kentucky's offer was to play behind one of the more highly recruiting PGs that they will still after?

This looks to me more like the staff got caught with their pants down, then UK showed up at the last minute and lured a firm commitment away with money. I think they finally told a kid who wanted to be the top option at UK what he was waiting to hear... that the other PG prospects were headed in different directions - now making Quade UK's Plan A.

And as far as Seth Greenberg goes, until someone can find videotape of what he said, I don't believe he said it or, alternatively, when you actually hear his words the interpretation of what he said given his words here on this board will turn out to be a strained one at best.

You literally took the words out of my mouth that I couldn't figure out how to say.

 

[dlegend44]

I just finished reading Boeheim's book last week. One of the most interesting things I took from the book was his strategy on recruiting. I am sure many of you have also read it. He indicated that there is a certain element of luck in how a player will turn out and it is not as big of a deal to lose a highly rated recruit as many fans think. There are very few program changing players and I doubt that Green is one of those transcendent players. We will end up getting someone comparable, maybe even a better fit for our system than Green.

I was amazed to hear JB say that he doesn't even bother to compete against Duke, UNC or Kentucky for recruits. He said that those three schools ALWAYS get their prime targets and it is a waste of time and energy to try and compete. His honesty shocked me on this topic. So if Kentucky really wanted Green, they were going to get him.

If Calipari is using WWW to pay big time recruits, it will eventually catch-up with him. 10 years from now, UK will probably end-up vacating 400 wins. I absolutely do not blame Green for his decision. These athletes should be paid for their contributions and he is likely using college as a 1-year audition for the NBA. Kentucky might be a better fit for him. We will be fine and have a championship caliber team this year. Go 'Cuse!

 

[Cusefan0307]

I'm sure they would, but say Howard is averaging 10 points 7 assists this year in 22 minutes, how do you tell the guy and risk any sort of future pro aspirations that he isn't the exclusive point guard going forward?

Even if Howard split time with Green at the point, Green isn't going to have the ball in his hands 20+ minutes a game as our point guard.

This doesn't include that we have major roster concerns about next season.

Again I know you think UK is great, but why were they bad before Calipari showed up? It's not like every coach wins there.

Listen, I really don't give a crap about UK, I'll watch their games if I have money on them or if they're playing against another top ranked team but outside of that I really don't care and don't think they're "great". I see it how it is, they're way ahead of the curve when it comes to certain things as a basketball program.

I love our program and want nothing but the best for it and from it. I don't think I'm off base with anything I'm saying.[/QUOTE]

I wasn't calling you out, but you keep mentioning what UK offers compared to Syracuse outside of Calipari. I just think it's interesting someone like Billy Gillespie (who won at A&M, beat us in the tournament I might add) did not win there at all and all of a sudden Cal goes there and they win. They just didn't build new facilities overnight. That's all I'm saying.

 

[two3zone]

Jerry Maguire -- The Breakup

 

[two3zone]

Listen, I really don't give a crap about UK, I'll watch their games if I have money on them or if they're playing against another top ranked team but outside of that I really don't care and don't think they're "great". I see it how it is, they're way ahead of the curve when it comes to certain things as a basketball program.

I love our program and want nothing but the best for it and from it. I don't think I'm off base with anything I'm saying.

I wasn't calling you out, but you keep mentioning what UK offers compared to Syracuse outside of Calipari. I just think it's interesting someone like Billy Gillespie (who won at A&M, beat us in the tournament I might add) did not win there at all and all of a sudden Cal goes there and they win. They just didn't build new facilities overnight. That's all I'm saying.[/QUOTE]

Demarcus Cousins followed him from Memphis

John Wall wanted to go to UK before Calipari was even there and Gillespie almost ruined that, Cal comes in, Wall is back in the mix.

You put Cousins and Wall on any college team and then both go straight into the lottery you're going to get wins and you're going to get guys who are top ranked and want to follow in those footsteps.

 

[HoustonCuse]

I think the primary disagreement here is over the "bag" issue.

On the one hand - it reeks of sour grapes and is an easy copout to just say a kid got paid to go someplace else. There is definitely some of that lazy thinking in our fanbase - no doubt.
On the other hand - UK, love them or hate them, is clearly an outstanding destination for a top rated kid. We think Syracuse is too, and I believe it is, but UK does not need to pay a kid like Green to go there. I think we can agree on that.

All things being equal, I will personally not jump to the conclusion that something nefarious happened, even in a case as bizarre as this one. We are dealing with human beings, and teenagers at that. These are fickle creatures who have imperfect systems for making decisions, can change their minds, have many forces acting on their decision making process including family expectations, peer pressure, social media image, ego, current and future financial status, hormones, etc. So an 18 year old kid suddenly changing his mind is entirely possible and doesn't, to me anyway, require an extraordinary explanations.

BUT, we have this poster who says he knows Green and his family who says he got a "bag." That is the difference. I am inclined to lean in the direction of believing that poster because it is not like he appears to be a bleed-orange kind of guy. Most of his posts are about how bad of an idea it is to come to Syracuse. Most of the people on this board hate the guy because is so anti-homer that he's alienated everyone. That is not the typical mold of the sour-grapes orange-goggles crowd who just can't accept that a free-willed person would pick some other school.

So at least in my case, the "bag" talk is not coming from sour grapes, but rather from the unexpected revelation of a guy who is actively sticking up for Green through this whole aftermath. I think some posters are immediately reacting, as I normally would, to the "bag" talk as just being small-mindedness on the part of people who have a very soda straw perspective on things.

 

[Orijinal]

Technically, thats not what he said. He said he was going to go wherever he got a "bag." So that leaves the possibility, that SU didn't offer a "bag" because clearly, we didn't get him. With the amount of time he spent around the SU program and visiting, etc over the past 2 years, one would assume that we could have gotten that signed LOI instantly upon handing over such "bag" at any point. We didn't and so he waited until somebody was willing to hand it over.

As it should be. I don't care who you are recruiting, I always want my teams to be above board in their dealings even if it hurts them on the court or on the field

 

[Madbiker]

I wasn't calling you out, but you keep mentioning what UK offers compared to Syracuse outside of Calipari. I just think it's interesting someone like Billy Gillespie (who won at A&M, beat us in the tournament I might add) did not win there at all and all of a sudden Cal goes there and they win. They just didn't build new facilities overnight. That's all I'm saying.

Demarcus Cousins followed him from Memphis

John Wall wanted to go to UK before Calipari was even there and Gillespie almost ruined that, Cal comes in, Wall is back in the mix.

You put Cousins and Wall on any college team and then both go straight into the lottery you're going to get wins and you're going to get guys who are top ranked and want to follow in those footsteps.[/QUOTE]
Cal is a great salesman. He could sell ice to Eskimos. No doubt.

 

[jordville]

The only thing I have been able to find on Greenberg/Quade comes from a Kentucky page...
https://kentucky.forums./threads/syracuse-mod-dasher-makes-up-a-fake-quote-by-seth-greenberg.217388/

 

[Mr. M]

Nobody disagrees with that. But that has nothing to do with the fact that Green formally committed to the coaches on Monday, then called them on Tuesday to indicate that he'd changed his mind.

Francis was dead on that this should have been resolved much earlier, that they should have pushed for a public commitment at the end of the summer / early September, or that the staff should have gotten signed paper when he was on campus for the Colgate game, etc. which would have prevented any of this messiness from ever happening. They botched it. But what Francis didn't discuss is the information that has since come to light about Green's actions last week. It is one thing to give vague, wishy-washy allusions about wanting to commit and quite another to tell the coaches that it is resolved, and you're coming.

People are free to believe that or not, but given the source--I fully believe it. And it reinforces how dirty the kid did us. Which is his right--recruiting is an ugly business, and it ain't over until it's over. Alec Baldwin would NOT be proud of our coaching staff for failing to adhere to his cardinal rule, A-B-C.

They botched it? How do you know the staff didn't try to do those things and then Quade simply refused?

 

[TinyManInside]

Many people who are wired into SU recruiting knew there were Kentucky 'inducements' involved before any thing came across twitter showing that Green was wavering in his decision. Reading Green's coach's quotes last Wednesday morning made everything crystal clear based on what I heard on Monday and Tuesday.

So this notion that posters here are claiming that 'the bag' was only mentioned after Green committed is flatout false. It's not a knee-jerk sour grapes reaction, people knew something was up before the NG coach's interview.

 

[Mr. M]

I think the primary disagreement here is over the "bag" issue.

On the one hand - it reeks of sour grapes and is an easy copout to just say a kid got paid to go someplace else. There is definitely some of that lazy thinking in our fanbase - no doubt.
On the other hand - UK, love them or hate them, is clearly an outstanding destination for a top rated kid. We think Syracuse is too, and I believe it is, but UK does not need to pay a kid like Green to go there. I think we can agree on that.

All things being equal, I will personally not jump to the conclusion that something nefarious happened, even in a case as bizarre as this one. We are dealing with human beings, and teenagers at that. These are fickle creatures who have imperfect systems for making decisions, can change their minds, have many forces acting on their decision making process including family expectations, peer pressure, social media image, ego, current and future financial status, hormones, etc. So an 18 year old kid suddenly changing his mind is entirely possible and doesn't, to me anyway, require an extraordinary explanations.

BUT, we have this poster who says he knows Green and his family who says he got a "bag." That is the difference. I am inclined to lean in the direction of believing that poster because it is not like he appears to be a bleed-orange kind of guy. Most of his posts are about how bad of an idea it is to come to Syracuse. Most of the people on this board hate the guy because is so anti-homer that he's alienated everyone. That is not the typical mold of the sour-grapes orange-goggles crowd who just can't accept that a free-willed person would pick some other school.

So at least in my case, the "bag" talk is not coming from sour grapes, but rather from the unexpected revelation of a guy who is actively sticking up for Green through this whole aftermath. I think some posters are immediately reacting, as I normally would, to the "bag" talk as just being small-mindedness on the part of people who have a very soda straw perspective on things.

Agreed. And the whole thing seemed to go down too similar to the Noel situation which some reputable posters here claimed had some shadiness right before his commitment; similar to how Quade seemed to suddenly shift to UK.

 

[Mr. M]

He ain't committed without a signature. Who cares what happened and how. The recruitment is never over until the paper is signed period. The kid did us dirty only because we left no fall back option which is the staffs fault. Even a public commitment isn't a 100% commitment without a signed paper. And even if he gave the staff reassurance last week that didn't change the fact that we are in this situation because the staff not because Pay Pal, WWW or whoever else you want to point the finger at. We are here without a quality PG coming in because the staff got too comfortable and didn't either finish the recruitment of Green or hedge there bet and recruit other players.

You can say the same thing with Battle that he did Michigan dirty. Committed to them publicly. Then changed his mind and came to Cuse.

We have a quality point guard named Frank Howard...A lot of people on this forum seem to think that the staff was asleep at the wheel not having a fallback plan at PG, and we turned away all the other point guards for no good reason; I think otherwise..

They trust Frank to run the show and will try to get a Quade-type recruit of PG in the 2018 class rather than settling for a lesser PG in 2017.

I think the Staff's immediate plan all along if we lost Quade was to recruit a 2-guard 2017 kid and/or grab a grad transfer guard

 

[two3zone]

They botched it? How do you know the staff didn't try to do those things and then Quade simply refused?

If he simply refused then you move on.

Maybe the reason he signed with UK right away is because they put a timeline on it and said, "if you don't sign during this period the offer is off the table", something maybe Syracuse should have done a while back. Instead they the listened to a 18 year olds word and paid the price.

 

[RF2044]

We have a quality point guard named Frank Howard...A lot of people on this forum seem to think that the staff was asleep at the wheel not having a fallback plan at PG, and we turned away all the other point guards for no good reason; I think otherwise..

They trust Frank to run the show and will try to get a Quade-type recruit of PG in the 2018 class rather than settling for a lesser PG in 2017.

I think the Staff's immediate plan all along if we lost Quade was to recruit a 2-guard 2017 kid and/or grab a grad transfer guard

Agree about Frank, but I don't agree with what you say about the recruiting strategy. The staff was all-in on Quade, and their fallback was NOT just to recruit a 2 to replace him. They needed to recruit a 2 [or two] anyway, regardless of whether Quade came here or not, to flesh out the roster.