Chris Obekpa
- Thread starter Moose
- Start date
UC_Bearcats
New member
The only people making those claims on the Cincinnati boards are the blatant trolls. Most UC fans respect St. Johns and find ourselves in the same position (historic programs trying to reclaim their days of glory).
Don't know if you followed twitter after obekpa announced but there were a bunch of Cincy fans making asses of themselves publicly saying Lavin paid him. Totally absurd and I don't see SJU fans doing that on twitter when we lose a prospect. It's not just one or two trolls.
As far as Obekpa goes, there is one thing he has that is hard to match aside from his shotblocking presence, which is is his motor. Kid always plays all-out and from all I've heard has a tremendous drive to get better. Doesnt take plays off. That is something that you can't teach. Staff will have a field day coaching a kid like that.
I agree our fan base doesn't bash kids on twitter like that.
But do you remember what was being said when Gathers committed to Baylor?
I'd say 75% of the posts in the days following implied he was paid or his brother was paid.
We might not be as bad as Cinci or Providence fans, but we're not choir boys. Our fans jump to conclusions when we lose a a recruit too.
I can't understand why anyone would doubt the allure of living in Wacko err Waco . It's only 90 minutes from Big D and 90 minutes from Austin, and we are 30 minutes from. The Big Apple.
Gathers needed no more incentive than that to pick us over the Bares err Bears and especially when we had such a good rapport going with the kid.
Makes no sense right ! Get the picture !
So Lavin just picks himself up, brushes himself off and makes a better widget.
Try and keep a good man down and he'll go one up on you !
You aint seen nothin yet. With a little bit o luck, MICHAEL CHANDLER " GO NCAA and/or GO BIG EAST and show some mercy
Gathers needed no more incentive than that to pick us over the Bares err Bears and especially when we had such a good rapport going with the kid.
Makes no sense right ! Get the picture !
So Lavin just picks himself up, brushes himself off and makes a better widget.
Try and keep a good man down and he'll go one up on you !
You aint seen nothin yet. With a little bit o luck, MICHAEL CHANDLER " GO NCAA and/or GO BIG EAST and show some mercy
The reason our fans said something about Gathers commitment to Baylor because you never heard a word from his brother until he reneged on St. John's.
It was rather odd he became Ricardo's PR guy after he backed out with us and for the remainder of his recruitment. I also believe some other fans of ours feel Baylor and Drew are dirty. IMO, I felt it was the former. I guess both kinda goes hand-in-hand, huh? Nevertheless, I've been on this particular board since 1998, and I can say overall that the members here are generally well-grounded when we miss out on a recruit.
With all due respect, for you to take one particular recruitment and romanticize it to something more is fallacy. Many Providence fans have cried foul play on nearly every recruit we've picked up since March.
Fair enough. I trust your judgement, I haven't been a member of the online community nearly as long, so I can't speak to that.
I was just trying to make the point that we're not immune to jumping to conclusions. It seems college fans across the country have a habit of doing it, and we might be more reserved, but we still do it occasionally.
No, we're nowhere near as bad as Providence fans have been this year. You make a good point, they've cried foul after nearly every recruit we've signed this spring... so you can tell they're reactionary.
And there may be some truth behind the accusations about Baylor. Certainly Drew doesn't run the cleanest program, and RG's brother speaking up at the end was odd to say the least. But do we really know anything? And to give another recent example, some of our fans implied Phil Nolan must have been given a financial incentive to go to UCONN because he never took a visit, and had seemed very high on us after visiting the week before.
It's dangerous to make generalized comments like this about a fan base, I realize that - but I just think it's natural for fans to think something illegal must be going on for a recruit to choose another school over there's. We all think people should view the schools the way we do.
But that's just my take, and you make a convincing argument - we're definitely not as rabid as some.
Some of our fans have cried foul play on when it came to recruiting. I'm not gonna deny that at all. I believe from an overall standpoint that many of our fans are pretty even-keel when we miss out on a recruit. No doubt about it that we've missed out on many kids during the Jarvis and Roberts era. Many times, our fans placed the onus on the coaching staff moreso than crying foul play.
I'm not sure we can prove anything when it comes to Baylor and Drew. We've beaten them out for recruits of late, in Harrison and the first time around with Sampson (it seems they backed off from him the second time once Gathers committed to the Bears). So, who knows!?! But, I became piqued when Gathers' brother started doing interviews around the time he reneged from St. John's. He continued to be his mouthpiece throughout his recruitment 'til the day he verballed to Baylor. I never knew he existed until he backed out with the Johnnies. I just found it rather odd. There might've not been nothing to it. A few others on the board do not trust Baylor and Drew and feels some shenanigans were involved.
I believe the folks on the board who mentioned funds being involved with Nolan was done facetiously. I could be wrong, but that is how it seemed to me. I'm sure a couple or so believed something was awry in his recruitment. But I think for the most part many fans believed Nolan probably always invisioned going to a school like UConn, Kentucky, UNC, Kansas or Duke. Nolan probably was always waiting for such an offer and jumped on it once he got it. Not to mention, UConn's frontcourt situation will enable Nolan to get more burn.
Like I stated earlier, I think this board has generally stayed away from crying foul play whenever we miss out on a target. I guess we're now doing something good, if we have the opposition worried about us on the recruiting front.
I guess we're now doing something good, if we have the opposition worried about us on the recruiting front.
Haha agreed. Also, thanks MJ for adding the updated rivals notes for McCullough and Jermaine lately.
Very helpful in following their summer recruiting process.
Yes I did feel Drew at Baylor was/is dirty. So do almost all the other NCAA coaches. My point was about posting it on twitter. Twitter is like a real time stock ticker and advertises a point like the out there for everyone to see. One will only see it on Redmen if they register and join. It's a little different, I'm not denying SJU fans do this. I just hated what Cincy fans did pasting it all over twitter.
Della9250
Active member
Very nice but no mention of Darrick Wood, not that that comes as a surprise.
It's always good to hear the official news, although I wasn't sweating it. There was no mention of Wood, as I don't believe (as, well as a few others) he's gonna end up with us in '12-'13. I really believe he can help us in the upcoming season. He has an array of ways to put the ball in the basket.
would it be the worst thing in the world to have a player or 2 not qualify every year and then come back after a prep year? (sampson, wood) Can't hurt especially now with all of our depth.. kind of like a stable/early start to next years recruiting class
-just an optimistic view
-just an optimistic view
No because you risk losing them to another school and you have to waste more time recruiting a kid you previously had commited. If we didn't continue to spend time and show the love to Jakarr he probably would have gone elsewhere. See also N. Pelle (thou he seems a bit lost in general).
