and the talk turned to Beilein and why he couldn't seem to land many top 25 ish players even in light of the program's recent success. He named all of the things which have been discussed here and elsewhere ad nauseum--from JB's personal style to AAU relationships to style of play to outright cheating--but he then said that in his view, the biggest reason was that Beilein did not want to spend most of his time during and after the recruiting process managing the egos of players and/or their parents, coaches or "advisors," and that this was something you need to do to get most highly publicized big timers these days. Like him or not, John Calipari is very good at this--so too was Steve Fisher back in the Fab Five era. It's not one of Beilein's strengths, the coach told me, and he knows it and plays to what he's good at. Bo Ryan is the same. On the downside, guys like Beilein and Ryan are less likely to get McDs AAs than are others who have achieved no more (and in many cases less) than they have. On the upside, you virtually never see their team with off court issues, or on court chemistry concerns.
I asked why Beilein was recruiting the top 25 kids at all if this was inevitably going to result, and he said that he has to go after the kids if they're great, clean, and don't show signs of being bad kids--there will be kids (and he specifically mentioned Kam Chatman, whom he still thinks will be good) who will buy in and come. Beilein will though, in his opinion, do much better with kids who are ranked 50-100, or even slightly below, and especially with kids who blow up late, because those kids do not generally have the same ego issues.
This is not a guy who ever worked with Beilein, or who is good friends with him, but he's very familiar with big time basketball recruiting, and knows people well who have worked for JB. He has no dog in this race, nor was he expressing an opinion as to whether the way Beilein recruits was "right" or "wrong," other than to say he was spectacular at finding guys who fit what he wanted systemically.
I asked why Beilein was recruiting the top 25 kids at all if this was inevitably going to result, and he said that he has to go after the kids if they're great, clean, and don't show signs of being bad kids--there will be kids (and he specifically mentioned Kam Chatman, whom he still thinks will be good) who will buy in and come. Beilein will though, in his opinion, do much better with kids who are ranked 50-100, or even slightly below, and especially with kids who blow up late, because those kids do not generally have the same ego issues.
This is not a guy who ever worked with Beilein, or who is good friends with him, but he's very familiar with big time basketball recruiting, and knows people well who have worked for JB. He has no dog in this race, nor was he expressing an opinion as to whether the way Beilein recruits was "right" or "wrong," other than to say he was spectacular at finding guys who fit what he wanted systemically.
