Been ut of town. Any updates on Men's basketball, coaching or recruiting wise???

Yep.

They still stink.

NO IL COACH MONTGOMERY WAS SPOTTED AT THE STATE FINALS IN EAST LANSING, PRESUMABLY RECRUITING TALENT FOR NO IL. I'M SURE HE WILL BE RECRUITING MICHIGAN PREPS HARD.

I was at all the Boys High schools games except the B finals. This year's games were better then last year's game. A lot closer games and good refs. Crowds were good.

Carl or (Charles) Thomas walked by me to watch some of the Lansing Sexton Detroit Country Day game. (Not sure what brother Charles is doing now?) Over in the end zone sat Mark Montgomery in his NIU gear, sitting with MSU's Stevens? (Appling & Nix were watching Detroit SE games).

Saturday both Thomas brothers were spotted across the Kalamazoo Central & Detroit SE game. A lot of strong players: #03 T.J. Buchanan had the flat top going reminded me of how the Thomas brothers played. #21 Tyler Bell will be a great player for some team. #00 D. McCants-Wilson excellent ball skills. On the Detroit SE side #24 Percy Gibson was better than Mr. Kearney. And #11 Michael Burgen, Jr. reminded me of Earl Boykins. However comes out of that crowd for EMU will be a good fine.

Player to watch in future #23 Luke Ryskamp from Schoolcraft. 10th grader with a lot of potential. His Eagles had a strong game and their band used our fight song! Strange to hear it in Breslin.

Lastly Mr. AD talk now with Lansing Sexton's Carlton Valentine to take over the EMU job in 2012, and bring his starting five with him.

Huron over Eagles - nice post on Michigan Tourney prep games. You must have an interest in Michigan preps and possibly EMU recruiting. Any vibes on what Ramsey might be doing this spring recruiting wise?

Everything is quiet from the recruiting prospective bu I for one would favor Michigan kids being recruited.

Again - nice post and report on Michigan preps.

Thanks. We been going to the games for years. Seen a lot of good players either going division one either big ten, power 6 confs, Mac players going WMU, CMU, in basketball or football, a lot leave the state and us behind and never look back. A successful coach today either has to have some strong D1 talent, or build a team around one star with role-players. At EMU we seam to be stalled in local talent or in the chemistry with those out of state players that we are getting. >>>>>Let's offer some sucessful Michigan high school coach an assistant position, to bring in some players from those programs. (like what Perry Watson did with the Fab two). Mr Valentine has ties we could be back to the 90 levels, if we plan ahead after Ramsey.

Or plan B, my dream, take any state champion team loaded with seniors and recruit the entire team! The next year recruit for needs. The third year start the process again. Think about it you will have some Div 1 players and some strong support players. And in two years start the process again while recruiting for any needs.

That system might sell some tickets. Think about the marketing opportunities for those communities that we come to our games to support those players. Think about creatring a buzz for basketball again. And when that coach leaves us and they always do, hire in the next coach State champion coach and team and repet the process again. Thinking about the national media talking about our program, completing against the big ten for those players. Assuming that kid buys in with staying to support those former players. If we are lucking you might have a Michigan coach that will stay and nursey this successful system.

Plan C is promote the Women's coach to take-over the men's team. She will be moving soon with more national success in a couple of years and EMU will be back in the basement looking for another light.

Anyone seen the 60 minutes interview of Coach Bobby Hurley, Sr. from St Anthony's HS in New Jersey? He coached 5 NBA 1st rounds, 150 Div1 players in his carreer. His son Bobby Hurley Jr. Duke national champion, 23 state champions & 3 national Catholic championships. He will never leave that school and he wants it that way.

He has 23 graduates in NCAA now and 5 players on Kansas, Richmond, Pitt, USC and Villanova, all were in the show. Can you image.

Ok my plan has merit.

What EMU needs? A PG like Virginia Commonwealth's Rodriguez, a kid that can control the tempo of a game and gert his teammates involved.

Can EMU find one during the April/May recruitign period? I certainly hope so!

Kent States Geno Ford to Bradley. A number of coaching moves in place this week.

(03-28-2011 09:11 AM)Dennis D. Rachwal Wrote:  What EMU needs? A PG like Virginia Commonwealth's Rodriguez, a kid that can control the tempo of a game and gert his teammates involved.

Can EMU find one during the April/May recruitign period? I certainly hope so!

Great coaches and PGs are very hard to find.

As you suggest in another post, the competition and salaries for HCs are getting pretty tough.

It seems that conferences WITHOUT I-A football* use money they'd use on FB and dump those bucks on hoops.

* Isn't it not surprising that the CAA, Horizon, MVC, etc. can afford to spend like crazy for head coaches...

I agree. Can Ramsey find players to save his job? He should be looking very hard.

If we cannot buy out Ramsey then we start planning for the next head coach. I would rather invest in a local coach with some history then to look for someone established and pay a boatload of money which we do not have. Who will likely have second thoughts about coming to Eastern, if they cannot bring in the players from around here.

If Eastern had a reputation of supporting michigan high coaches and players, we might have something in five years from now. Is it illegal to offer a student player a 4 year scholarship plus a 2 years towards a master's degree to study here? We have a excellent school of education, how about using it to recruit those players to come here and work hard for the university.

I would hate to see the football program go away for the basketball program. Although on the EMU site more people voted to the basketball program then any other sport at school. I am still in shock we dropped Mens soccer. We have some hardtimes ahead of us.

Doing things locally is over rated!

IF anyone did not understand how good PG play can elevate a team this is a little snippet from NBCSports on the PGs in the Final Four.

Excellent PG play is a staple of each Final Four team:

"Joey Rodriguez, VCU: The fact that Rodriguez is the “worst” point guard in this field should tell you something about the quality of the point guard play in the Final Four. J-Rod (yes, I’m calling him J-Rod) has been terrific in the tournament..."

Compare J-Rod to our PGs and it is like night and day.

I believe if J-Rod played last year on EMU we'd win maybe 7 or more additional games and some like B-Bow would have seen their averages increase as they got more and more easy buckets thanks to some very, very effient PG play.

Agree 100%

Where do we get such a PG especially this late in the recruiting season?

I'm not sure the PG's currently on the roster can do the job, they certainly didn't do it last year. Medlock was never replaced.

Roster currently lists 4 PG's - Lampley, Burton, Sims and Frazier. Have heard that Frazier will probably not return, what about the rest??

(03-30-2011 04:45 PM)Dennis D. Rachwal Wrote:  Roster currently lists 4 PG's - Lampley, Burton, Sims and Frazier. Have heard that Frazier will probably not return, what about the rest??

Lampley can't play defense. he was getting burned by that Madonna guard.

Frazier is too slow to be good at this level.

i didn't see enough of burton to have an opinion.

Sims looks comfortable in the offense. i didn't get a good read on his defense. he might be a decent scorer. i have hope that he'll end up being good (as in, serviceable). not sure if he'll ever be better than that.

ANYONE HAVE ACCESS TO AN UNSIGNED/UNCOMITTED POINT GUARD LISTING - CLASS OF 2011 JC AND PRE PLAYERS?????

How many scholies are you going to use at one position? I agree its probably the most important position. Sims is not a true point guard and was a red shirt freshmen. Burton was coming back from sitting out a year of playing basketball. Burton has the speed and quickness I think he has potential. Lampley well for a guy who started at St Peters his freshmen year and averaged 10 points a game he was a disappointment.

So the question is as it is with alot of the younger guys on the roster Harris, Stewart, Balkema, do they have the potential to improve? Or does Ramsey need to change his style of play?

Tight lid on the spring recruits and the status of current players.

(03-31-2011 10:23 AM)emu79 Wrote:  How many scholies are you going to use at one position? I agree its probably the most important position. Sims is not a true point guard and was a red shirt freshmen. Burton was coming back from sitting out a year of playing basketball. Burton has the speed and quickness I think he has potential. Lampley well for a guy who started at St Peters his freshmen year and averaged 10 points a game he was a disappointment.

So the question is as it is with alot of the younger guys on the roster Harris, Stewart, Balkema, do they have the potential to improve? Or does Ramsey need to change his style of play?

Tight lid on the spring recruits and the status of current players.

Harris and Balkema have the potential to improve with good coaching. unfortunately, good coaching doesn't really seem to exist with Rams & Co.