PG Nick Russell

[Stallion]

looks like SMU might have a shot.:

http://blogs.cjonline.com/index.php?entry=7986

[mathman]

Nice find Stallion. Just wonder how good he is. His offers are outstanding. It would get real interesting at PG if we did pick him up.

[SoCal_Pony]

In SMU’s last 20+ years, have we had even 10 commitments more highly regarded than Dia and McCoy? I am talking about Basketball AND Football. The only 2 names I can come up with in our recent past are Vincent Chase and BHop.

Add Russell and/or Dotson and we are headed towards respectability.

How cool would it be to play UT at Moody and not know the outcome before tip-off? Ya think that game might be a sell-out with a packed student section?

[MustangIcon]

In SMU’s last 20+ years, have we had even 10 commitments more highly regarded than Dia and McCoy? I am talking about Basketball AND Football. The only 2 names I can come up with in our recent past are Vincent Chase and BHop.

Add Russell and/or Dotson and we are headed towards respectability.

How cool would it be to play UT at Moody and not know the outcome before tip-off? Ya think that game might be a sell-out with a packed student section?

I didnt know about recruiting services really pre-2001 So I cannot go to before then, but McCoy and Dia are certaintly our best hoops recruits (other than BHop) since prior to 2001. Derrick Roberts was a 3-star coming out of high school and led the city of Houston in scoring, but I don't recall him having offers like Kentucky, Lousiville etc.

Pre 2001 Sasser and to a lesser extent Willie Davis may have been blue chip recruits, but I don't claim to know anything about recruiting during that time.

[PonyDoh]

Sasser and Damon Hancock were National Top 100 kids. Dia and McCoy were great pick-ups, but neither were consensus Top 100. McCoy got the "Jai Lucas' bump, a recent phenomena attributed to signing late. All the bigs scramble, have one ship left to give or saw attrition during the season, and start focusing on good players left on the board. The attention and late offers makes rating services bump the kids up, despite not being truly elite. The only ratings jumps you get in hoops are based on AAU play, not high school play, unless you sign late senior year.

The fact that we are in the Top 4 w/two Top 120 types is great news. Need to close on Russell or Dotson.

Tim Frazier is visiting TCU this weekend.

[Stallion]

Sasser was about the No. 3 Recruit in Texas and Davis was somewhere in the No. 6-8 rated recruit in Texas.

[MustangIcon]

That is about what I expected. So basically our b-ball recruiting is better than it has been since the late 90's. Coincidently the last time we played in the NIT was '99-'00- led by those top recruits.

Doherty is bringing in quality players and is in on som legit blue-chippers. I cannot help but have a positive outlook for our basketball program as long as Doherty is at the helm.

[Stallion]

I think right now Dement/Tubbs was slightly better in recruiting under much stricter university restrictions-they did a great job under the circumstances in early recruiting building the program. Doherty seems to have more up-side potential though in recruiting-because he seems to have a wider net. He really needs to break through with a couple of local players. Just remember though that a good percentage of Doherty's recruits wouldn't have gotten into SMU in prior years.

[PonyDoh]

I think right now Dement/Tubbs was slightly better in recruiting under much stricter university restrictions-they did a great job under the circumstances in early recruiting building the program. Doherty seems to have more up-side potential though in recruiting-because he seems to have a wider net. He really needs to break through with a couple of local players. Just remember though that a good percentage of Doherty's recruits wouldn't have gotten into SMU in prior years.

In some ways, it's astounding how bad a game day coach Dement was. Obviously, the expanded WAC was a pretty decent hoops conference w/Tubbs at TCU, UNLV, Fresno, Tulsa, BYU etc, but he had Sas/Hancock/Ross in back to back to back classes. Should have had more then 1 NIT.

[Stallion]

If Dement had been in Doherty situation he would have gone out and picked up the missing piece-a big guy who could chew gum and walk too. That's the big reason those teams failed to reach their goals. Probably the best example of how university policies really handicapped this school. We've seen the failures at this university in both football and basketball-perhaps we should appreciate what Dement did under difficult circumstances. He built a conference/NCAA Tourney competitive team,-that's better than any other Coach in either sport has done. *

* I don't care to hear about John Shumate.

[PonyDoh]

If Dement had been in Doherty situation he would have gone out and picked up the missing piece-a big guy who could chew gum and walk too. That's the big reason those teams failed to reach their goals. Probably the best example of how university policies really handicapped this school. We've seen the failures at this university in both football and basketball-perhaps we should appreciate what Dement did under difficult circumstances. He built a conference/NCAA Tourney competitive team,-that's better than any other Coach in either sport has done. *

* I don't care to hear about John Shumate.

The issue w/Dement was that in order to get some of those players, he gave up his right to coach them. More then a couple had the green light and few listened. They played horrible perimeter D and had nothing inside, as you mentioned. Things might have been different if Nigel Smith wasn't so oft and seriously injured. He may have been a legit big, not so much w/Forinash & Niemi. DeWayne Floyd was a head case, but had some upside if Dement could have gotten through to him.

[Hoop Fan]

agree with nearly all of the points made in this thread, well said. I'm ready to see some upside in Program Doh. Last year was miserable. If you went to the games, you know. We have the same weak schedule this year, so to prevent it from being another one like last year, we have to post a guady non-conference record. I dont know how many we play, but something like 11-1 or 10-2 is in order with this schedule if we really do have legit young talent. Get a little positive feeling going, even if we are no better than .500 conference team. This is an important swing year in Dohertys program as he is now in Year 3.

[MustangIcon]

agree with nearly all of the points made in this thread, well said. I'm ready to see some upside in Program Doh. Last year was miserable. If you went to the games, you know. We have the same weak schedule this year, so to prevent it from being another one like last year, we have to post a guady non-conference record. I dont know how many we play, but something like 11-1 or 10-2 is in order with this schedule if we really do have legit young talent. Get a little positive feeling going, even if we are no better than .500 conference team. This is an important swing year in Dohertys program as he is now in Year 3.

I think we can hope for 10 wins OOC but I'd like to expect 8. A&M and Illinois St. are pretty likely losses. After that I would think the rest of the games we should be no worse than 5 point road underdogs, but the majority favored. I count on us blowing a couple games we could have won, so 8 sounds like a solid guess to me. I'd be very pleased with 10 wins non conference.

Being that your primary two ballhandlers (Williams and McCoy) are both new to the squad, our success early on will largely depend on how quickly they adapt and the team gels with them.

[LA_Mustang]

I still think the success of our season will depend whether someone steps up at the 2 - Haynes, Malone, Harp......

I am optimistic that Williams can slide over to the 2 at some point. Based on his stats he averaged 19 pts and 4 1/2 assists per game last year at Western Texas JC - which leads me to believe he may be more of shoot first PG.

btw, I have a friend who is a private school coach in the area and he said that Russell is an absolute stud....one of the best players, public or private, in DFW

[Stallion]

http://blogs.kansas.com/kstated/2008/10 ... k-russell/