Do we have good players coming in? Yes. But it feels like a lot of NIU fans get excited over ANY new recruits regardless of who they are. Any player who receives a D1 scholarship is OK to some degree and should have garnered some pretty nice accolades in high school but that doesn't mean they are necessarily a good fit for our program.

(coming from the Blue Demons Rivals site) I'm just not super excited about a 6-foot guard who "plays more like an off-guard" (Dinunno), a guy who "doesn't do anything great, but everything good" and is a "great roll player" (Hall), and Storm who wasn't ranked top 25 and from the little I saw of him looks like a less athletic Ben Rand coming out of high school ... before Rand's injuries.

I just want to see NIU get a potential high major recruit. Like a Jeremy Fears (Joliet) who went to Ohio. Or, Anthony Harris who went to Miami-FL, but his dad graduated from NIU and we had a great inside track to him w/ Donald Whiteside but couldn't get it done.

It feels like NIU hasn't gotten any hidden gems like that in awhile ... but maybe we have we just didn't notice it for whatever reason.

Paige Paulson looked great in the NCAA Tournament with Wisconsin-Milwaukee (after he left NIU). Ben Rand had a ton of potential but the injuries set him back. I think Mike McKinney and James Hughes both had star potential but they were both dramatically held back in Judson's balanced offense that didn't allow for any one person to rise above the team.

It's been said for awhile now that we have the proximity to Chicago and the facilities w/ the Convo Center, but we can't generate the buzz to make the basketball team anywhere close to what it could be.

It doesn't make you a bad fan to be critical of your team and want more.

Many of the recruiting sites are biased. They tend to know players in their area better and see them more and often get rank those players higher than those in other parts of the state. For example MidStateHoops had Storm as a top 10 probably because he is more in their area and they know him better.
http://www.midstatehoops.com/articles/20...opten.html
These services can be something to go by but can't be held as being 'gospel'. Fun to read though.

Scout and Rivals do see these guys in AAU play and can judge pretty well and if you look back over the years have done pretty well a naming the top players. That is their career and they make good money at it. They have to be fairly accurate or wouldn't have been around so long. That doesn't mean they are 'gospel' either, just something else to go by. They might even partly use some of the local scouting services and college coaches as resources for their rankings. Scout has Storm as the #32 SF in the country. That's pretty good. Dinnuno and Hall aren't ranked by them.
http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=9...43&yr=2008

Rivals has Storm listed as the top SF recruit in the MAC
Mid-American
Point guard: Ronnie Moss, Kent State
Shooting guard: Daniel Barnes, Eastern Michigan
Small forward: Tyler Storm, Northern Illinois
Power forward: Flenard Whitfield, W. Michigan
Center: Julian Mavunga, Miami-OH
http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/c...cid=739345

And I agree with Round42 that good fans can want more and can be critical, but at the same time they should be excited and supportive and have a certain level of trust in a new staff. We haven't even seen any of what is really their first recruiting class yet. Like I've said before, give it a couple years and then judge the class and their recruiting. Patton and his staff are trying to make inroads to Chicago so lets see what they can do with that over the next couple years.

I do want more and I expect more from a “big time coach” I should not have to wait and see what happens when a big 12 coach come down to the MAC. Another reason I complain about his recruiting is it is eerily familiar to Judson recruiting mid level state players with never heard of JUCO players with good numbers i.e. Corey Sims. Maybe I wouldn’t complain as much if Patton was an assistant and never was a head coach before he came to NIU then I could see me wait and see more as a new head coach needs more time. But Patton has a 12 year head coaching career and it is an averaged head coaching career with only 3 wins in post season play.

Here is rankings that I found over the years of Judson recruits and It gave NIU one MAC championship game and one West MAC Champion and the recruits or fans still didn’t come

Ben Rand 6' 6" Rank - 12 - 2003
Zach Pancratz 6'4" Rank - 18 - 2004
Ftank Clair 6'6" Rank - 22 - 2004
Cody Yelder 6'1" Rank - 25 - 2006
Todd Peterson 6'7" Rank - 26 - 2002
Rome Sanders 6'7" Rank - 28 - 2002
Michael McKinney 6'4" Rank - 29 - 2003
Darien Anderson 6'2" Rank - 29 - 2006
Ryan Paradise 6'1" Rank - 34 - 2003
Craig Reichel 6'8" Rank - 36 - 2004
Jarvis Nichols 6'2" Rank - 40 - 2003
Darrius Gaters 6'6" Rank - 43 - 2006
James Hughes 6'10" Rank - 50 - 2002

Zao123 Wrote:I do want more and I expect more from a “big time coach” I should not have to wait and see what happens when a big 12 coach come down to the MAC. Another reason I complain about his recruiting is it is eerily familiar to Judson recruiting mid level state players with never heard of JUCO players with good numbers i.e. Corey Sims.

Patton had never coached anywhere in the Midwest before and I doubt he had any sort of relationship with HS coaches in the area. That takes some level of time to cultivate. The program is also going to have to show it is going in the right direction a little bit by winning some games before most kids are willing to take a "leap of faith", so to speak, to play in DeKalb over some other mid-majors that are stronger right now.

He was never going to be able to show up and just start getting anybody he wanted. It wasn't going to happen given where he came from and what his background is.

U are amazing but consistently negative..........if you knew anything about basketball you would not knock Corey Sims....he was a very good MAC player who could get to the hole whenever he wanted and helped them win many games.........all your listing above shows is that these "rankings" are done by amateurs--in some cases by guys like you who think they know the game but just go with the "buzz" around the AAU circuit......Reichel had no heart and quit on his team twice--Anderson is obviously better than his ranking as wasw Yelder--both judson recruits. you fail to list Cyrus Tate who is a Hawkeye captain as we speak who signed to come here.

you have no idea of how difficult it is to recruit in the MAC and the rankings won't necessarily find you the players you need and will sign with you..........you would gripe if the football dawgs signed tom brady cuz he wasn't ranked high enough.........why don't you wait until we see who can play before we annoint great players of knock the extremely competent corey sims of the hoops world?

Zao123 Wrote:Here is rankings that I found over the years of Judson recruits and It gave NIU one MAC championship game and one West MAC Champion and the recruits or fans still didn’t come

Ben Rand 6' 6" Rank - 12 - 2003
Zach Pancratz 6'4" Rank - 18 - 2004
Ftank Clair 6'6" Rank - 22 - 2004
Cody Yelder 6'1" Rank - 25 - 2006
Todd Peterson 6'7" Rank - 26 - 2002
Rome Sanders 6'7" Rank - 28 - 2002
Michael McKinney 6'4" Rank - 29 - 2003
Darien Anderson 6'2" Rank - 29 - 2006
Ryan Paradise 6'1" Rank - 34 - 2003
Craig Reichel 6'8" Rank - 36 - 2004
Jarvis Nichols 6'2" Rank - 40 - 2003
Darrius Gaters 6'6" Rank - 43 - 2006
James Hughes 6'10" Rank - 50 - 2002

It then sounds more like a Judson issue than a recruiting issue. You are saying we got some good ranked players but we didn't win. So let's see what Patton and staff can do over the next three years. Maybe these type of players can win in the MAC with the right coaching and style of play. (Also, how many academic and injury issues with those players listed that couldn't be forseen?)

Where did you find those rankings? Chicagohoops.com? I think it's more accurate to get rankings from several different sources. Hard to put too much stock in one guy's opinion who might also have other agendas.

cagy cager Wrote:you fail to list Cyrus Tate who is a Hawkeye captain as we speak who signed to come here.

Good point about Tate. However, he didn't ever come close to playing here. He began to hear the negatives of NIU, DeKalb and Judson after he signed his letter of intent and was already close to not qualifying academically so let's just say he wasn't dissapointed when he wasn't getting As. He went to JuCo first, thereby getting him out of his letter of intent.

Also, there's the case of Rome Sanders leaving and Jamel Staten (a Brian Hammell recruit) who Judson practically ran off the team. Two potential All-MAC type players that more could've been done to keep them around. Sanders had a minor run-in w/ the law and Staten had a kid back in Wisconsin.

The more you think about it, NIU could've probably been pretty good the last 5 years. I just think Judson's coaching style didn't allow for players to express themselves on or off the court and that translated into players feeling trapped and tied down.

I just can't wait for this program to move on. GL to Patton!!!

Zao123 Wrote:I do want more and I expect more from a “big time coach” I should not have to wait and see what happens when a big 12 coach come down to the MAC. Another reason I complain about his recruiting is it is eerily familiar to Judson recruiting mid level state players with never heard of JUCO players with good numbers i.e. Corey Sims. Maybe I wouldn’t complain as much if Patton was an assistant and never was a head coach before he came to NIU then I could see me wait and see more as a new head coach needs more time. But Patton has a 12 year head coaching career and it is an averaged head coaching career with only 3 wins in post season play.

Here is rankings that I found over the years of Judson recruits and It gave NIU one MAC championship game and one West MAC Champion and the recruits or fans still didn’t come

Ben Rand 6' 6" Rank - 12 - 2003
Zach Pancratz 6'4" Rank - 18 - 2004
Ftank Clair 6'6" Rank - 22 - 2004
Cody Yelder 6'1" Rank - 25 - 2006
Todd Peterson 6'7" Rank - 26 - 2002
Rome Sanders 6'7" Rank - 28 - 2002
Michael McKinney 6'4" Rank - 29 - 2003
Darien Anderson 6'2" Rank - 29 - 2006
Ryan Paradise 6'1" Rank - 34 - 2003
Craig Reichel 6'8" Rank - 36 - 2004
Jarvis Nichols 6'2" Rank - 40 - 2003
Darrius Gaters 6'6" Rank - 43 - 2006
James Hughes 6'10" Rank - 50 - 2002

At least there is one thing we can all agree on, Tyler Storm is the best player to join the Huskies since Lux. I cannot wait for the 08-09 basketball season. Definitely will be some buzz around this team and more importantly for the next few years to come!

Zao123 Wrote:Here is rankings that I found over the years of Judson recruits and It gave NIU one MAC championship game and one West MAC Champion and the recruits or fans still didn’t come

Ben Rand 6' 6" Rank - 12 - 2003
Zach Pancratz 6'4" Rank - 18 - 2004
Ftank Clair 6'6" Rank - 22 - 2004
Cody Yelder 6'1" Rank - 25 - 2006
Todd Peterson 6'7" Rank - 26 - 2002
Rome Sanders 6'7" Rank - 28 - 2002
Michael McKinney 6'4" Rank - 29 - 2003
Darien Anderson 6'2" Rank - 29 - 2006
Ryan Paradise 6'1" Rank - 34 - 2003
Craig Reichel 6'8" Rank - 36 - 2004
Jarvis Nichols 6'2" Rank - 40 - 2003
Darrius Gaters 6'6" Rank - 43 - 2006
James Hughes 6'10" Rank - 50 - 2002

We never won a MAC Championship under Judson. If we did we would have been in the postseason at least once, which we weren't.

From that list above, only four of those players finished their career at NIU. Half of them transferred (Sanders, Reichel, and Clair), had academic issues (Yelder and Gators), or quit (Paradise).

For NIU to be successful, we need to keep most of our players all four years of their career. The mid-majors that are successful do well because they have experience. We had none last season and we'll have very little this coming season.

One MAC championship game

epasnoopy Wrote:For NIU to be successful, we need to keep most of our players all four years of their career. The mid-majors that are successful do well because they have experience. We had none last season and we'll have very little this coming season.

And it is this precise reason why Im excited about NIU basketball, you have built a strong fresh/soph core that will be playing together for awhile, that is what you need.

Zao123 Wrote:One MAC championship game

We haven't been to the MAC championship game in Bball since '82. Judson certainly never got us there. We made only 2 trips to Cleveland with Judson. One we made the semis, the other as the #2 seed, we lost in the quarters.

We were MAC west champs 3 years ago, not MAC champs. We lost in the MAC tounament that year.

Round42 Wrote:Do we have good players coming in? Yes. But it feels like a lot of NIU fans get excited over ANY new recruits regardless of who they are. Any player who receives a D1 scholarship is OK to some degree and should have garnered some pretty nice accolades in high school but that doesn't mean they are necessarily a good fit for our program.

(coming from the Blue Demons Rivals site) I'm just not super excited about a 6-foot guard who "plays more like an off-guard" (Dinunno), a guy who "doesn't do anything great, but everything good" and is a "great roll player" (Hall), and Storm who wasn't ranked top 25 and from the little I saw of him looks like a less athletic Ben Rand coming out of high school ... before Rand's injuries.

I just want to see NIU get a potential high major recruit. Like a Jeremy Fears (Joliet) who went to Ohio. Or, Anthony Harris who went to Miami-FL, but his dad graduated from NIU and we had a great inside track to him w/ Donald Whiteside but couldn't get it done.

It feels like NIU hasn't gotten any hidden gems like that in awhile ... but maybe we have we just didn't notice it for whatever reason.

Paige Paulson looked great in the NCAA Tournament with Wisconsin-Milwaukee (after he left NIU). Ben Rand had a ton of potential but the injuries set him back. I think Mike McKinney and James Hughes both had star potential but they were both dramatically held back in Judson's balanced offense that didn't allow for any one person to rise above the team.

It's been said for awhile now that we have the proximity to Chicago and the facilities w/ the Convo Center, but we can't generate the buzz to make the basketball team anywhere close to what it could be.

It doesn't make you a bad fan to be critical of your team and want more.

Good luck with that one. THey are few and far between when it comes to playing in the MAC. Not sure how Ohio got him but I would be willing to bet it wasn't a conventional "get" for them. The MAC sucks so you won't see many of the players you want in the MAC. No tv and low to mid range conference in the national media. Getting that talent to come here is nearly impossible.

RobertN Wrote:

Round42 Wrote:Do we have good players coming in? Yes. But it feels like a lot of NIU fans get excited over ANY new recruits regardless of who they are. Any player who receives a D1 scholarship is OK to some degree and should have garnered some pretty nice accolades in high school but that doesn't mean they are necessarily a good fit for our program.

(coming from the Blue Demons Rivals site) I'm just not super excited about a 6-foot guard who "plays more like an off-guard" (Dinunno), a guy who "doesn't do anything great, but everything good" and is a "great roll player" (Hall), and Storm who wasn't ranked top 25 and from the little I saw of him looks like a less athletic Ben Rand coming out of high school ... before Rand's injuries.

I just want to see NIU get a potential high major recruit. Like a Jeremy Fears (Joliet) who went to Ohio. Or, Anthony Harris who went to Miami-FL, but his dad graduated from NIU and we had a great inside track to him w/ Donald Whiteside but couldn't get it done.

It feels like NIU hasn't gotten any hidden gems like that in awhile ... but maybe we have we just didn't notice it for whatever reason.

Paige Paulson looked great in the NCAA Tournament with Wisconsin-Milwaukee (after he left NIU). Ben Rand had a ton of potential but the injuries set him back. I think Mike McKinney and James Hughes both had star potential but they were both dramatically held back in Judson's balanced offense that didn't allow for any one person to rise above the team.

It's been said for awhile now that we have the proximity to Chicago and the facilities w/ the Convo Center, but we can't generate the buzz to make the basketball team anywhere close to what it could be.

It doesn't make you a bad fan to be critical of your team and want more.

Good luck with that one. THey are few and far between when it comes to playing in the MAC. Not sure how Ohio got him but I would be willing to bet it wasn't a conventional "get" for them. The MAC sucks so you won't see many of the players you want in the MAC. No tv and low to mid range conference in the national media. Getting that talent to come here is nearly impossible.

Fears didn't even finish his career at Ohio. He transferred out but something was fishy about the whole situation.

Would there be any schollies left for anyone going into the 2009-2010 season? If so, this guy is a flippin beast. He's only 5'10", but is absolutely clutch. One of the best shooters in the state. He was on the state-runner up team last year, and they're poised to make another run. He would be a great addition to NIU. I'm stunned he doesn't have any offers. Everytime I see him play, he gets better and better. This is from last night's game against #2/#3 Waukegan. It was a great, exciting game to be at.

http://yourseason.suntimes.com/1423892,0...an.article