MSU Red Cedar Message Board

wtf is this article? they finished .500 in the conference, didn't get out of the first weekend of the tourney, but they've got "proven talent" to support "the most talented Big Man in the Big Ten?"

This is eerily familiar to a situation a few years ago when a certain Michigan football coach was blowing up the recruiting rankings and the fans started talking BCS championships...

There are a lot of ifs, and I'll address a few of them.

1. Hardaway returning to school is by no means a certainty. His dad is in serious financial trouble, and THJ may have an issue similar to Morris that his stock may not go much higher. This is a big if, and some UM slapdick will be on here in 20 minutes saying that THJ is forecast #6 in some 2013 mock draft. So I'll save them the trouble. Mock Drafts are pretty useless, anyway.

2. McGary's game may take a little longer to adjust than people think. McGary is a big, strong kid who plays every play 100 miles an hour. He plays on the verge of out of control at all times. He will likely have a long adjustment period to college officiating. He also has reached his #2 status by killing people in the paint. He had a fairly average summer shooting the ball, and he wants to be a big who plays on the perimeter. If he's coachable enough to listen to JB's instruction, he may become a pretty lethal inside-out big. But that's not going to happen right away.

3. They need to find a point guard. I know the UM slapdicks are in love with Trey Burke because of a bunch of Rocky-style YouTube videos he made, but the jury's out on how he'll fit in JB's offense. He's more a shooter than a distributor. We'll see. Morris was a great player for them due to his ability to get into the lane against basically anyone and distribute. They need to find someone else to do that.

If everything goes to plan, sure, they could make a run at an FF. They could have a lot of pieces in place. But those pieces won't have much time to figure it out. McGary, unless he struggles mightily, is a very likely one and done player.

Heat's on.

I think we should just forfiet all of our games with UM over the next 4 years. After reading that article, its obvious that we don't have a chance against them.

All of the basketball optimism basically comes from "nearly beating" Duke in the tournament. Just because you almost beat a team, it doesn't make you the same as them. This is a team that had to win their last two games to finish with the same conference record as us (including beating us) and had come back from being down 11 versus Illinois to even MAKE the tournament. The reason they finished strong was due to the play of Morris and now he's gone. Color me cynical.

Nailed it. Without Morris, that was an 8-win team. He leaves, and they are now contenders? Addition by what?

Nobody had ever heard of Morris before the Big Ten season last year. Somebody else has to step up. Hardaway needs to become a BTPOY candidate.

hardaway is a gun more in the mode of buford from tosu. He runs hot and cold, but will keep shooting anyway. Not tough on D or a great passer, not BTPOY material.

They beat Wayne State 47-39. Hardaway is their only good player. Morgan is alright

McGary is 6'10" and 220. A pipe cleaner.

I gotta laugh at the um slappy's reaction to this commit.

Exactly.

And Sims was a legit beast. Completely under-used, in part due to manny being a gun, yet the sell to McGary was that um was great at developing big men. And btw, they have a gun on the roster.

To be fair, compare the classes of 4-5 years. some of those guys um signed were legit 1 stars before they signed and got bumped to 2 or 3 stars. Which is why, without morris last yer, they were an 8-win team.

But um doesn't recruit or accept academic risks!

Also, funny story- um never recruited Hardaway, he was sent to them. They completely lucked out in him, due to past connections. And Hardaway himself was a stupid find, as he was buried by an inept HS program, and people didn't look past that and see him, especially playing with his dad in the Miami semi-pro leagues. Pure, pure luck for um.