Allen Payne - Visiting on 9/26 & VCU leads his recruiting

Mercury said:
AG_fan said:
Mercury, hope you don't mind me throwing my $.02 in:

This is exactly the scenario I envisioned when Grant left and Norwood replaced him with another young, upwardly-mobile Florida assistant. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that opposing coaches were going to immediately pounce on the opportunity to go negative against us in recruiting -- you can just hear them telling recruits "Grant didn't stay at VCU until his first recruiting class graduated. Do you want to take that chance with Smart?"

Having dealt with thousands of high school basketball players over the last 20 years, I can't see the campus or anything else being a factor in this process. As we've seen, the vast majority of kids choose a coach first and a school second, and our rookie head coach has no built-in credibility to assure the 17- and 18-year-olds he's recruiting that he'll still be here by the time they're seniors.

Look at Smart's resume. He's never spent more than three seasons at one school. Kids (and parents) pay attention to that stuff and they know if he has the same kind of success Grant had, the BCS schools are going to come calling for him, too.
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I don't mind lol and I figured thats what it is..I don't expect Smart to be around much longer, just hope he leaves the program in better shape than he got it in.My money is on Mike Rhoades being the HC that becomes the long term face of the program.
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Interesting that you say that. I know Shaka has set a personal goal of becoming the all-time winningest coach at VCU. That would require several years of 20+win seasons. Of course all that can conveniently go out the window if a big-time school comes calling. Rhoades certainly would be a great choice for a long-term head coach once he gets a couple of years of experience at this level.
 
r4m said:
how was allen payne's visit this weekend?
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It went well, no commitment though, didn't hear anything about Basabe. Siena wants him pretty badly and I believe they were the first program to offer him. Obviously we are waiting on Michael Bradley's decision as he's coming in next weekend. We may hear some news after the visit as it seems he's not too enthusiastic about going to Boston College to visit (they don't have a pharmacy school or a pre-pharm program). Bradley is a very bright young man who has been taking mostly AP classes in high school. The kid is going to get a good amount of AP credit at VCU which is something the staff is selling him on (VCU gives more credit for AP test scores in the 3 range than a lot of other schools do). Bradley would graduate early at VCU and looking at Larry Sanders as a model (who also can graduate in the summer after his 3rd year, and possibly move on to the NBA), this should be very appealing to Bradley. Our Pharm school is top notch and MCV is probably our biggest asset going into this visit. I'm confident that we should hear some news in the next 2 weeks or so. Bradley has said he would make a decision after he has made all his visits and BC is iffy, so his announcement might just be after he visits with us.
 
Re: Payne. Apparently we are still his leader per his coach Donnie Gillespie, but he's got some increased interest this week from SEC-member Auburn. Payne was visited by the Auburn coaching staff on Wednesday and is probably going to visit both Auburn and Bradley sometime this coming month.Shaka I think went to visit Payne at his school on the September 8th. I wouldn't count on hearing a decision from Payne soon, which could be costly for him if Bradley or Basabe commit before then. He wanted to make a decision before his ball season starts though. He's solid academically with a 3.0 GPA going into his senior year. He's one the top 3 unsigned players in Ohio along with Adreian Payne and Geron Johnson. It just goes to show how tricky recruiting is.

*Payne will be visiting Auburn on October 31st
 
DB, your recent posts seem to focus more on BC as competition for Bradley than UConn. Do you have some inside info that UConn is no longer a player for him? Because I'd think if a Big East power really wanted Bradley that would be a problem for VCU -- awesome pharmacy program or not.
 
AG_fan said:
DB, your recent posts seem to focus more on BC as competition for Bradley than UConn. Do you have some inside info that UConn is no longer a player for him? Because I'd think if a Big East power really wanted Bradley that would be a problem for VCU -- awesome pharmacy program or not.
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UConn is still in the picture for Bradley. Didn't mean to infer they are out of it. He played some pickup games with the guys but apparently didn't too much although he did show off his athleticism. He visited along with several other 5 star players including one of my friends' brother (Cory Joseph). You may remember we were recruiting Devoe, who is starting his sophomore year at Minnesota. Talking to Cory afterwards, he said Bradley was very quiet and reserved...didn't seem to be very excited to be there. Bradley is a bit raw, and he probably saw that he wouldn't get playing time from the get-go and that he would likely be recruited over a la Jon Mandedove. This is solely based off what Cory told me...he may well have loved it, he just didn't show it.
 
Thanks DB for the info...

Any chance that VCU may offer 2 more scholly's and let someone go after this season?

VCUBeatsduke
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see us sign two more players, and let things sort themselves out in the off season.

Then again, that's just my opinion.
 
xjohnx said:
I wouldn't be surprised to see us sign two more players, and let things sort themselves out in the off season.

Then again, that's just my opinion.
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This could certainly happen. I doubt our coaching staff would tell anyone outright to pack their bags and leave. Oftentimes it's more subtle (ie. getting little to no playing time). I don't really see that happening though since most guys are either seniors next year, starting players, or Smart's own recruits. Those that fall in between (like Saintil) are needed for their size next year. We do have a ridiculous number of guards and I assume someone will likely leave of their own accord if they aren't getting any playing time. Kinda like Myk Brown last year who saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave.

That said, Shaka is a new coach and sometimes players don't fit certain coaches plans. We've already seen this when Ndongo left the program. We really won't know until this month shakes out as far as who is commiting to us.
 
I hope Bradley does a google search on "Mandeldove" "UConn" and "Red Shirt." Very interesting stuff. Apparently he was OK with red shirting last season and Calhoun just happened to play him slightly more than the max thus burning his junior season. Actually its kinda sad how his career panned out. No guarantee things would've been different at VCU but at least he would've gotten an opportunity to prove himself.
 
But, Chill, you're dismissing Calhoun's national reputation as being an elite developer of big men ... Travis Knight, Emeka Okafor, Hasheem Thabeet, Donyell Marshall, Josh Boone, Cliff Robinson, Jake Voskuhl ... just to name a few in recent memory. All in all, Stoors doesn't seem to be too bad landing spot for guys 6-9 and up. Every school has a few failures, even UConn.

I know Ed Davis narrowed his Final Two to UNC and UConn, mainly because of father Terry Davis' respect for the Huskies' sideline boss.
 
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