Jason Capel is definitely not in the family.
2024 Men's Basketball Recruiting
- Thread starter JasonEvans
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Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
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Honestly, Hurley sounds a lot like Young K. Intense personality. Looks for slights and grievances to motivate. Demands the best from his players. I'm not sure if Danny has the penchant for strong language, but it wouldn't surprise me.
brevity
Member
Not quite during the visit, but Julius Halaifonua announced on Instagram today that he's a Hoya. As a reclass, he'll enroll by the start of the Fall 2024 term. Travis Branham of 247 Sports posted this graphic:
The signs indicated Georgetown (or at least Not UNC) for the past few days, but now it's official. Casual Hoya has compiled some information about the decision:
HOYA SAXA! New Zealander ’24 C Julius Halaifonua Commits to Big Man U
The 7-footer reclassified and is expected to enroll at Georgetown soon.
www.casualhoya.com
Dumb Carolina fans are still convinced that the only centers available will cost $2 million in not-really-NIL booster funds, and that their unwillingness to look at anyone else for the past several months is a badge of financial integrity. (I'm not sure what their go-to NIL excuse has to do with a New Zealander, but whatever.) I think Hubert Davis phoned this one in, and while I'm not here to gloat, a Georgetown fan went to Inside Carolina last week to do just that. It's provided below. One UNC fan tried to make a Fred Brown/1982 championship game insult, but it backfired.
Brutal! I'm here for it.
SkyBrickey
Member
"Just a skinny forward with a broken knee, and a short forward transferring from a bad Vandy team?"
Yowza. That's a couple of brutal digs. I guess when UNC fans go low, GT fans go even lower.
Yowza. That's a couple of brutal digs. I guess when UNC fans go low, GT fans go even lower.
UrinalCake
Member
Are these the same fans who a year ago bragged that a single donor gave Bacot $1M to return for his 8th year, and that nobody outbids them in NIL?
brevity
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Georgetown got some additional news yesterday. Seal Diouf, a recent 6-8 signee from the 2025 class, also reclassified to 2024. They went from 10 scholarship players to 12 scholarship players in a single day... in August.
SEALED & DELIVERED: Forward Seal Diouf Will Join Georgetown’s ’24 Class
Cooley adds Diouf and Halaifonua to bolster front court immediately
www.casualhoya.com
"Highly rated" is relative. On3's page of Georgetown's 2024 commits shows a group of 3-star and 4-star freshmen and incoming transfers, with one 5-star rating for Malik Mack, a point guard who played for Harvard last year.
Here's a look at their frontcourt depth -- not wings, but those likely to play the 4 or 5 positions.
Jordan Burks (sophomore 6-9 F, 1.9 pts and 1.7 reb for Kentucky last season)
Seal Diouf (freshman 6-8 F/C, unranked)
Drew Fielder (sophomore 6-10 F/C, 5.2 pts and 3.1 reb last season)
Julius Halaifonua (freshman 7-0 C, #60 in updated On3 for 2024)
Thomas Sorber (freshman 6-9 C, #40 in RSCI from May 2024)
Not bad, really, and a lot better than it was a few days ago. This will be Ed Cooley's second season as the head coach of Georgetown, and he seems to have them on the path to respectability. The Hoyas have not finished with a winning record since 2018-2019 (though they went 4-0 in the Big East Tournament in 2020-2021 and then lost in the NCAA first round, getting them to a .500 record).
brevity
Member
In the latest episode of The Last-Minute Recruiting Adventures of Georgetown, the Hoyas have added their third and final scholarship athlete this week. I thought it might be Georgia Tech grad transfer Tyzhaun Claude, recently cleared by the NCAA for next season, but instead it's a local 3-star high schooler who reclassified from 2025 to 2024. Joe Tipton just posted about Jayden Fort:
Their frontcourt gets deeper but also even younger. It's remarkable what Georgetown coach Ed Cooley has accomplished so late in the summer, making this last addition during the NCAA recruiting dead period (no in-person meetings; electronic contact only).
Hubert Davis must have a lot of faith in his 11 scholarship players to sit on his hands all this time. I may need to break down UNC's frontcourt depth soon, so I can try to understand.
SkyBrickey
Member
Here's the short version of UNC's frontcourt issues. If they'd signed Maliq Brown out of the portal, Maliq would almost certainly be their starting center and play 30mpg.
As it is, it will be a platoon between 6-10 Jalen Washington and the Vandy transfer 6-8 Ven-Allen Lubin. Both should be OK at scoring the ball. Washington has legit range out to the 3 point line and we will have to cover him out there.
There are questions about their rebounding. And there are even bigger questions about their defense. Lubin was not very good at defending SEC bigs last year. And Washington's physicality and lateral movement continue to be questionable following a serious knee injury.
It's pretty interesting looking at the advanced metrics last season between Lubin and Maliq Brown, both undersized 6-8 centers. They are similar rebounders. But then it's no contest on the offensive end, and especially on the defensive end. BIG advantage Maliq.
This honestly just shows what a knucklehead Hubert was for chasing the "top centers" in the portal and whiffing on all of them.
Disclaimer: past advanced metrics don't guarantee future results....
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I hope we aren’t undervaluing Lubin. He concerns me. Yes you can look at season averages but his 12 point 6 .rebounds for year then finished as 17 point 9 rebounds in the last 5 games - ALL VERSUS TOP LEVEL SEC TEAMS (UK, UF etc). So he was improving fast. And versus high level competition. IE he finished the last half year and especially last 5 games STRONG. He could be even better this year if improving like that. My numbers may be slightly off but point is he was definitely better as year progressed so full year numbers don’t do him justice. And he could be better and stronger this year
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brevity
Member
Here's the short version of UNC's frontcourt issues. If they'd signed Maliq Brown out of the portal, Maliq would almost certainly be their starting center and play 30mpg.
As it is, it will be a platoon between 6-10 Jalen Washington and the Vandy transfer 6-8 Ven-Allen Lubin. Both should be OK at scoring the ball. Washington has legit range out to the 3 point line and we will have to cover him out there.
There are questions about their rebounding. And there are even bigger questions about their defense. Lubin was not very good at defending SEC bigs last year. And Washington's physicality and lateral movement continue to be questionable following a serious knee injury.
It's pretty interesting looking at the advanced metrics last season between Lubin and Maliq Brown, both undersized 6-8 centers. They are similar rebounders. But then it's no contest on the offensive end, and especially on the defensive end. BIG advantage Maliq.
This honestly just shows what a knucklehead Hubert was for chasing the "top centers" in the portal and whiffing on all of them.
Disclaimer: past advanced metrics don't guarantee future results....
When it came to the transfer portal this year, Duke was playing chess and UNC was playing Operation. They succeeded with Shooting Hand (Cade Tyson) but kept getting the red light buzzer for Center of Gravity (Aidoo, Ballo, Bradshaw, Omoruyi, Onyenso, Reynaud, Wolf...). Jon Scheyer looked for team fit, while Hubert Davis looked at transfer portal rankings.
I think I've said this before, but once Coach Davis started striking out on the superstar 7-footers, he should have directed all of his attention to Norchad Omier, a great 4 and an acceptable 5. It would have been like an extra year of Armando Bacot. Hit the snooze button until 2025.
Here's a glance at UNC's frontcourt depth (same rules as Georgetown above -- no wings).
James Brown (freshman 6-9 F, RSCI #93)
Zayden High (sophomore 6-9 F, 0.8 pts and 1.1 reb last season)
Ven-Allen Lubin (junior 6-8 F, 12.3 pts and 6.3 reb for Vandy last season)
Jalen Washington (junior 6-10 F, 3.9 pts and 2.6 reb last season)
Jae'Lyn Withers (senior 6-9 F, 4.2 pts and 3.6 reb last season)
Not exactly a bare cupboard, but there was a reason UNC kept looking for a big man. The one thing Coach Davis knew this offseason was that Bacot was going to be gone. He had more than a year to plan accordingly. Given the results, it's still hilarious.
SkyBrickey
Member
Good analysis. And fair point, jduke, on Lubin improving late in the year.
I'm not banking on Maliq having a better offensive season than Lubin. Where I think he's much better is on the defensive end.
I think our main advantage over UNC inside this year should be on defensive rim protection. I think our guards and wings, including Cooper, should be able to get into the lane for buckets against Lubin/Washington. I think UNC's guards and wings will see much tougher resistance against Maliq and Khaman. Hopefully Khaman also scores a bunch of easy buckets inside over the top of those guys.
Ok, I was curious enough about Lubin to dig into his last 5 games to see what he did. He had two MONSTER games against Arkansas (what kind of interior defense were they playing?). His other 3 games were against Kentucky, LSU and Florida where he shot a combined 16-37 from 2 (43%) and 2-6 from 3 (33%). This compares to his season averages of 53% from 2 and 33% from 3.
So I'm not sure what happened with Arkansas, but I don't think we can conclude he made some huge leap with his game late in the season.