Kamall Richards (Xavier Commit)

[DC Muskie]

We finally agree on something.

Thanks for chiming in princess.

[MHettel]

When I hear an opinion about a player, and that opinion is from an average Joe and he declares that "player X is going to be awesome!", I take it with a grain of salt. It's EASY to predict success.

You just dont normally hear opinons where people express surprise that a player got picked up by a certain team because they didn't beleive they were good enough...

An so what if the guy is an AP clerk. He's an AAU Coach and is close to the game. Ed Hochuli and every other NFL referee have "day jobs", but I'd take their opinion when it came to matters concering the NFL.

The source is a coach and the source is indicating that we might be stretching.

Lets face facts. We had ZERO recruits going into the signing period. We sequentially struck out on 3-4 guys in a row, finally settling on Richards who nobody knew was even on the radar. We didn't sign him because he was the player we targeted. We signed him because we needed to sign someone and when we didnt get the guys we really wanted, we settled for him. Now we hear less than glowing reviews about him from a guy qualified to give reviews....

I'll take Cage ALL DAY. I would love another Cage. If thats his upside, then I'm fine with that. Not all guys actually achieve their upside, however...

Last point. In 1998 or so I was REALLY following XU recruting and we struggled to land a few targets. I had all my hopes pinned on a kid named Ricky Wright, who ultimately picked Villanova and had a solid career there. At the time, we appeared out of options, having not landed multiple targets. We settled for David West. I expressed my doubts about that one.....

[waggy]

Is Kamall even real?

[ArizonaXUGrad]

Just busting balls. I think Kamall will be a pleasant suprise.

I agree, I think he is going to progress into exactly the kind of player XU has seen over the years.

[CSS85]

Is Kamall even real?

I wish Churchill Odia wasn't. It cracks me up that people get so worked up about ANYONE's projections about players this young. It's not like Semaj was a highly rated player since he was 14 or something. That's one of the reasons Mack thinks he is so coachable. There can be many problems with Prima Donna players (UCLA???) so if we can find guys who are late bloomers, who "experts" think aren't very good, who develop AND have a chip on their shoulder, that seems like a very promising formula for success.

[LA Muskie]

How many times have we heard this though ?

We heard Taylor and Philmore were tearing it up in practice and they both struggled in their first year back.

This was my thought exactly. I hope he does tear it up next year, but experience says that the transfer transition is a tough one.

[PMI]

When I hear an opinion about a player, and that opinion is from an average Joe and he declares that "player X is going to be awesome!", I take it with a grain of salt. It's EASY to predict success.

You just dont normally hear opinons where people express surprise that a player got picked up by a certain team because they didn't beleive they were good enough...

An so what if the guy is an AP clerk. He's an AAU Coach and is close to the game. Ed Hochuli and every other NFL referee have "day jobs", but I'd take their opinion when it came to matters concering the NFL.

The source is a coach and the source is indicating that we might be stretching.

Lets face facts. We had ZERO recruits going into the signing period. We sequentially struck out on 3-4 guys in a row, finally settling on Richards who nobody knew was even on the radar. We didn't sign him because he was the player we targeted. We signed him because we needed to sign someone and when we didnt get the guys we really wanted, we settled for him. Now we hear less than glowing reviews about him from a guy qualified to give reviews....

I'll take Cage ALL DAY. I would love another Cage. If thats his upside, then I'm fine with that. Not all guys actually achieve their upside, however...

Last point. In 1998 or so I was REALLY following XU recruting and we struggled to land a few targets. I had all my hopes pinned on a kid named Ricky Wright, who ultimately picked Villanova and had a solid career there. At the time, we appeared out of options, having not landed multiple targets. We settled for David West. I expressed my doubts about that one.....

1. There are plenty of times where people think a player out-kicked his coverage in terms of where he committed to school, and not just in basketball. You don't hear about it as often because people don't generally want to publicly say negative things about kids, but if you have any connections to high school/AAU coaching, you hear it plenty. Hell, I've heard it about past Xavier recruits too. I heard it about several players from my high school, most recently Tyler Thorton of Duke, who is having a pretty solid career.

2. Ed Hochuli is the most overrated referee in professional sports history. I would take any of his opinions with a grain of salt.

3. I love Justin Cage. He's one of my all-time favorite Musketeers. But I'll never understand why his name comes up so often in comparison to other recruits of young players. It seems like anyone who isn't a 4 or 5 star and who is known to work hard and hustle gets compared to Cage. Obviously, Cage did all of those things well, but he was also a really solid all around player, and very rarely do you see a player come in who completely reminds you of a past player, because all players are unique. I understand the concept of comparing players, but I guess I don't get why it's always Cage who is compared to every player who is known to do the little things well.

5. I don't get why people get so worked up over what they perceive to be "just taking a player for the sake of taking one." First off, Mack isn't going to take someone who he truly believes couldn't play here, even if they may have an uphill battle. And if they do have an uphill battle, it's only because there are better players in the program at their position. You either use your scholarships or you waste them. It's not like we were choosing between Richards and three other 5 stars, all of whom would've committed on the spot. If he can play, great. If he can't see many minutes, he will probably transfer and his scholarship will be replaced. It happens every year. We've never had all of our scholarship players play, and we never will.

4. I do not doubt that you doubted David West. And if it's so EASY to predict success as you say, you wouldn't have expressed many doubts, would you?

Take it from Denny Green. What people are apparently now just discovering about Richards as a prospect are what we thought they were. Nothing groundbreaking has been said in this thread in the past two days. It's exactly what we were told months ago. What we don't know is how it will play out on the court when he gets here.

[Xman95]

Is Kamall even real?

Yes, he is. I saw him the other day eating dinner with Lennay Kekua.

[Masterofreality]

3. I love Justin Cage. He's one of my all-time favorite Musketeers. But I'll never understand why his name comes up so often in comparison to other recruits of young players. It seems like anyone who isn't a 4 or 5 star and who is known to work hard and hustle gets compared to Cage. Obviously, Cage did all of those things well, but he was also a really solid all around player, and very rarely do you see a player come in who completely reminds you of a past player, because all players are unique. I understand the concept of comparing players, but I guess I don't get why it's always Cage who is compared to every player who is known to do the little things well.

People forget that Justin Cage was Indiana's Mr. Basketball in 2003. I always though that Justin had the skill set to be another Mark Aguirre,but for whatever reason, he never performed like that.....until the Ohio State game, and we know what happened in that one.

[ammtd34]

I have a couple UD buddies who told me they saw Semaj play in HS and weren't impressed. hehehe

It was probably in the district final in 2011 against Travis Trice's Wayne team. The game was at UD and Semaj was in foul trouble most of the game so he didn't play much. He had 13. Trice had 38, but Winton Woods won the game.