- Larry Wright Update
Lacy has the latest. UM’s if they want him? - Beilein making progress with top 100 prospect
Latest on Darius Morris from RivalS ($) - Year In Review: Larry Wright
East Coast Bias looks at Wright’s season at St Johns. Some great info and thanks a lot to the East Coast Bias for getting this up there. - Bulls looking at Izzo?
Spartans Weblog has the latest. - Only Larry Wright video I found on YouTube
Doesn’t show much… - Nix Picks Spartans
Alot of Sparty news around. What does this mean for Donovan Kirk and DaShonte Riley now that MSU seems filled up with bigs?
Monthly Archive for April, 2008Page 2 of 5
There is another new transfer to pay close attention to the next few days and weeks and his name is Larry Wright. Wright, a former Saginaw High School guard is transferring from St Johns. Wright just finished up his sophomore year and has announced that he wishes to transfer closer to home because of an illness to a family member. I don’t know if this is a Tyler Smith situation but that certainly would be a blessing if we were to land Larry Wright and he was eligible to play this year.
Saginaw coach Dawkins on Michigan’s chances:
Asked if Michigan is a school Wright will consider, Dawkins told The Detroit News Tuesday it’s one of many that would be an “outstanding fit.” “It’s too early to tell,” said Dawkins of Wright’s future plans.
At 6-2 180 lbs Wright averaged 9.1 points per game in 18.9 minutes per game and shot 40.2% from three point range. The scary number is that Larry averaged only .5 assists per game both his freshman and sophomore years. So it appears that he is a lot more of a 2 guard than a point guard.
As a recruit Wright was a three star and played for state power Saginaw High and jumped on a scholarship offer and chance to play in the Big East at St. Johns. He also listed teams such as UNLV, St bonaventure, George Washington, Tennessee, Pittsburgh and Seton Hall throughout his recruitment.
If Wright could play in the fall based off a Tyler Smith-like appeal (don’t know the details of Larry’s family situation or how likely an appeal would be but you have to figure they would try) this would be a huge get in my opinion because Michigan needs all of the scoring help they can get and a 40% three point shooter seems like a good fit. Not to mention he already has 2 years of college experience under his belt and if he doesn’t turn out he would only hold a scholarship for 08 and 09 classes. Of course this would also help alleviate some of the talk of Beilein not recruiting Michigan city kids (even if he is a transfer).
From what I hear this is definetely a situation to keep a very close on eye on because it seems like the interest is there.
Made a few changes to the hot board. Removed a couple names and added a few. Also added a few tidbits and links to a few profiles. I will try to update the hotboard much more often over the summer when recruiting starts picking up during AAU season. The names are not very sorted right now, as the summer progresses I’ll try to sort them out some more. But don’t look too hard into order yet. View the hot board.
Removed:
- Mason Plumlee - Duke Verbal
- Diamond Taylor - WI Verbal
Added:
- Steven Pledger
- Tyler Koch
- Raymond Cowels
- Andrew Bock
- CJ Harris
I’m going to post some AAU notes throughout the day hopefully. I think I am going to miss most of Jordan’s game but hopefully those that watch can post comments in this post. Not really sure how best to cover these AAU tournaments so I will kind of see how it goes this weekend. Here are a few notes from last night:
- King James got smoked in tonights game against Raymond Cowel’s team, but it seems like it was a good tournament for King James overall. I’ll have more Monday hopefully.
- Andy Brown is #11(white) on Channel 2,for the SCA Select team. Beilein was on the baseline watching the game and also was at Jordan’s earlier games.
- King James knocked off the So-Cal All Stars Elite team that features the Wear twins (UNC) and will move on to play again tonight. The game will be on Court/Stream 2 at 10:15 EDT. Jordan Morgan stream here.
- Morgan had around fifteen in the first game today.
- Some thoughts on Jordan from his Saturday morning game:
- He is a big kid, needs to work on his conditioning but he already is huge and looks like he can keep growing into his frame.
- AAU ball is not a good place for him to show case his skills, the game was mostly jacking up threes.
- I think he needs to work a little harder on the glass and boxing out. Free throws were not good (something like 1-10) but his stroke didn’t look bad so maybe it was just a bad day.
- The few times I saw him get the ball in the post he usually at least got to the line.
- He also had a lot of nice put backs and follow ups as well as a couple nice dunks
- Andy Brown scored 22 points on 9-15 shooting (3-6 3pt), 2 steals in a win for his SoCal All Stars Select team Friday night. Brown’s team will play at 11:30 AM MST tomorrow against the Bay Area Warriors.
- Glen Rice Jr, Marcus Jordan and Nik Garcia at Kingwood.
- Some video of Steven Pledger shooting the three ball on the right hand side of ScoutHoops.com.
The King James team and I are playing well so far. In Toledo we ran through pool play and the bracket only to fall to the Michigan Mustangs in the championship game. Our team showed some problems with fatigue in the final game with two players suffering from bad cramps and another with a twisted ankle. I played pretty well, playing hard and shooting well even from the outside. In Virginia at Boo Williams we went 2-1 in pool play although we were missing five key players because of ACT testing and had to bring up three U16s. We lost to the champions and home team, Boo Williams, on the second day. We went to the silver bracket and beat SC Ravens, with a good guard/forward in John Wall, and Meanstreets (Chicago) to advance to the championship. There we lost our second championship game in a row to a good team in Memphis YOMCA that was very big and had a star player in Leslie McDonald.
Overall I played well. At times I know that I could have performed better but overall I think I played very well. When it comes to my basketball game the main thing that I need to improve is the mental aspect of my game. I need to turn the actions that are a thought process now into natural actions. I know that if I develop the mental aspect of my game, along with the work that I’m putting in to develop my body, I can become the very good player that I know I’m capable of being at U of M. At the moment I’m on the plane preparing to leave for Denver for the Pump Bros. Tournament. They have lives feeds of the games at grassrootstv.com so check it out.
Jordan’s pool play games at the Pump Brothers Tournament are scheduled for:
Friday 9PM MST - King James Shooting Stars vs Utah Swoosh Black *I don’t think this one is streamed*
Saturday 11:30 AM MST - Las Vegas Prospects vs King James Shooting Stars *This one is definetely on the schedule for being streamed online. *
-Schedule Link
One other link, Bill Martin on WTKA talking about a practice facility.
Congrats to Zack Novak for making the Indiana All-Star team. The Indiana team will play the Kentucky team at Conseco Fieldhouse on June 13 and then make a trip down to Louisville and play another game 2 days later. Certainly seems like Beilein might have found a gem with Novak and I for one can’t wait to see him in the Maize and Blue. Novak on making the team:
“Other than winning Mr. Basketball, it’s the biggest honor you can have here in Indiana,” said Novak, who was The Times Player of the Year for this past season and will play at Michigan next year. “I’ve dreamed about this ever since I was a little kid, especially since I was in high school.”
The Beilein/Maize Rage meeting took place last night and apparently went very well. The players stuck around for a few minutes and answered some questions. The best player quote that a couple people emailed me was from Anthony Wright about pre-game music:
Well every now and then a really good pump-up song will come on, then 10 seconds later the band will come in playin Yankee Doodle
Here are a few of the main points from the meeting:
- About 25 Maize Ragers were there, they ate Cottage Inn with the team for a while and then the team took off for study table. Beilein and some of the coaches stayed the entire time.
- The Maize Ragers also got a tour of the facilities, and most seemed impressed with the locker rooms and weight room. One note on S&C, the basketball strength coach for the basketball team is Jim Plocki, not the legendary Barwis.
- New sound system will be in next year.
- Some suggested improvements:
- Free tickets (hopefully).
- Better transportation to and from games. No more having 1 bus to try to pick up ALL the students.
- Improving the pre-game video.
- Some other ideas mentioned were things like improving the Maize Rage t-shirt as well as some kind of event in the fall during an away football game with the football game on the big screen
Overall it seems like it was a very good event and that Beilein definetely seems committed to improving the game day atmosphere. This of course is just a start to making real progress and I think improvements to facilities over the next few years (sound system, practice facility) are imminent. Hopefully improvements to Crisler mixed with a couple successful seasons will have Crisler rocking again. One final note, it was mentioned that Laval Lucas-Perry will probably not be eligible until after his Fall semester grades are in (but no official ruling has been made).
Steven Pledger
A couple more tidbits on Pledger’s recruitment from his father. There is a long list right now, and they like a lot of schools for a lot of different reasons. However the top 10 for Pledger right now in no particular order: Michigan, Oklahoma, VCU, Villanova, Virginia, George Mason, Wake Forest, Hampton, Marquette, and Texas. Pledger’s father did mention that they have always liked Coach Beilein and that Michigan has a definite leg up with Beilein at the helm.
Zack Novak
Zack Novak has faxed his signed LOI to the University of Michigan and is officially a part of the Michigan basketball program. It seems like this will likely wrap up Michigan’s 2008 recruiting class. Beilein on Zack:
“We are very pleased to have Zack join us. He has a real passion for the game and a competitive nature that any coach wants to coach. His range … let’s put it this way, the new (three-point) line will not bother his shooting range. He is a proven winner. He led his team this year, in fact during his entire career at Chesterton, after starting on varsity as a freshman, and we are hoping he will have the same success here at Michigan. We like players that can give us versatility, and Zack does that for us. He can play multiple positions. Of our three signees he is probably the most versatile, and we were really looking for a player with that ability during this signing.”
Zack has been playing great ball lately and looks to be a very good addition. With his strong showing at the Indiana Top 60 workout I would think he will make the Indiana/Kentucky contest which takes place in June.
Ebuka Anyaorah
Ebuka is set to sign his LOI with the University of Georgia today. Michigan never really seemed to be a big player in Ebuka’s recruitment after his decommit from Colorado. Ebuka chose Georgia from a final two of UGA and Colorado.
Notes
Big combo guard Raymond Cowels lists Michigan. Justin Watts’ recruitment has been pretty silent lately. Colt Ryan and Tyler Koch are among Michigan targets chosen for ‘08 Indiana Junior All-Stars Team. Old Tucker Halpern article, another article about Halpern in Boston Area HS All-Star game. Another quote on Halpern (4-14-08):
As for Halpern he continues to be a very potent catch and shoot player. But it was his willingness to do some dirty work today that caught our attention as he was very active on the glass in both the semi-finals and finals.
- UDM coach is at work
Kavon Rose re-opens recruitment. - Key Wolverine considers transferring
Free Press on Udoh, mentions Beilein’s trip to Germany. - Nothing New With Udoh
Lacy’s thoughts in his blog.
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