by HJS on Wed Oct 07, 2009 9:15 pm
A few things...
1. No basketball recruit not being recruited by Duke ever considers academics. If they say that they are, they are liars. College basketball recruit is the single most corrupt aspect of ALL sports. You either play the game by finding creative ways to pay-off players, their families and handlers... or you don't land top kids. It is as simple as that. I N-E-V-E-R thought we had a chance with this kid once he started talking about Louisville, West Virginia and Arizona.
2. Everyone would have written off this kid if the imbeciles that post on EI and EA would just stop making shit up... or at least stop posting things from someone else who is just fabricating stories. Odom was a cute little story when OJ was posting things like "Oh great... our best chance at landing a shooting forward is Odom and he only has interest from Harvard." But, as soon as he decided to do the dog-and-pony summer circuit to garner "bigger" interest, it was over. I wrote him off... many other wrote him off. But, there were posters and "columnists" on EA and EI who constantly talked about how Odom was all but a silent verbal. Honetly, no one would've ever really cared/been surprised by this news if those people who allegedly are "in the know" would just stop pretending. Or, at the very least, tell their "sources" that they are full of shit.
3. I never understood the philosophy of being the last visit for a kid. I can't even count the number of times BC has positioned themselves to get the last visit and the kid gets the hard sell on an earlier visit and never makes it to campus.
4. I also never really understand the whole "holding off on offering anyone while your top choice strings you along". BC has been burned by this silliness in the past. You freaking pick like 4 of 5 guys per position... target them... work like hell to get them to commit... first one who does gets the schollie.
5. Zona is a crap program without Lute Olsen. Always has been and always will be.
6. The story has been that Odom's parents sacrificed financially to send their kid to a private boarding school so he can get a better education. If they did, it was an utter waste of money. The kid could have gone to a slum school like Boys and Girls and been more than qualified for the "academic challenges" of University of Arizona. It is simply one of the worst academic schools in the country. Also, it is one of the cheapest. Shit... they could've sent the kid to some gang-ridden local school... saved the money... and if he never EVER played basketball, they STILL could have sent him to Arizona because (a) he would have qualified academically and (b) they would've been able to afford it as it is cheaper than his boarding school.
7. At the end of the day... stupid people do stupid things.
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