Money!

[citygriz]

This kid is special:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/07/the-towns-champion-oakland-high-finally-gets-past-oakland-tech-advances-to-cif-d-iii-state-final/

By the way, this game was highlighted on local sports talk shows this morning, when few high school games are ever mentioned. Damian Lillard went to Oakland HIgh and he apparently was following the game.

Kudos to our staff for recruiting Williams.

 

[citygriz]

Update: Yesterday Williams led his team to the Division 3 California State Championship, scoring 22 points while grabbing nine rebounds and adding four steals and two blocks in a 59-43 over Buena-Ventura.

After the game Williams said" "This is bigger than doing it just for our school or our league. We did this for our city. I want the youth of our city to look at this and say, 'I can do this.'
Don't let anyone or anything tear you down. You can accomplish your dreams."

Oakland, which got encouragement from Damian Lillard before the game, forced 23 turnovers and led from start to finish.

 

[GrizLA]

CIF games are being shown on tv in LA on Spectrum. One interviewer was asked by another why so many out of state (California) universities were recruiting so hard in California when coaches here don't necessarily go many places and his reply was that the high school level coaches from Eureka to Chula Vista really stress fundamentals and develop talent so much that even many juniors in HS are able to compete at the college level. Whether it's true nor not is not the point. Do Montana high school coaches do that? There does seem to be a dearth of well developed/coached players in Montana, judging from scholarship activities. The women seem to be far ahead of the men here.

 

[GrizBall]

I tend to take the cautious route when trying to predict the success of incoming Freshman, particularly at the Big Sky level (I am old enough to remember those touting a current player’s Florida State “offer” as evidence of what a steal he was and this is just one example). So when I hear someone coming to Montana is “special” I wince a little bit. From what I can tell:

1. He is not ranked by ESPN or 24/7 in the state of California.

2. He didn’t play on an AAU team that was on any of the shoe circuits. Special players from Oakland almost always play for the Oakland Soldiers.

3. I would need Grizfan-24 or someone else knowledgeable in CIF basketball, but from what I can tell he is playing lower level HS basketball. Again, someone may be able to educate me, but when I when I look at these brackets, most of the HS I recognize as historically producing talent are not in D-3, but in the brackets above.

https://www.cifstate.org/sports/basketball/B_brkts_2023/index

Again, he may be a Sayeed-type steal and that would be great, but sometimes I feel we need to slow down on the freshman predictions and particularly pump the breaks on the “special” label.

 

[casewinter13]

I tend to take the cautious route when trying to predict the success of incoming Freshman, particularly at the Big Sky level (I am old enough to remember those touting a current player’s Florida State “offer” as evidence of what a steal he was and this is just one example). So when I hear someone coming to Montana is “special” I wince a little bit. From what I can tell:

1. He is not ranked by ESPN or 24/7 in the state of California.

2. He didn’t play on an AAU team that was on any of the shoe circuits. Special players from Oakland almost always play for the Oakland Soldiers.

3. I would need Grizfan-24 or someone else knowledgeable in CIF basketball, but from what I can tell he is playing lower level HS basketball. Again, someone may be able to educate me, but when I when I look at these brackets, most of the HS I recognize as historically producing talent are not in D-3, but in the brackets above.

https://www.cifstate.org/sports/basketball/B_brkts_2023/index

Again, he may be a Sayeed-type steal and that would be great, but sometimes I feel we need to slow down on the freshman predictions and particularly pump the breaks on the “special” label.

He plays on the same team Lillard played at in HS and he plays on the Arsenal. If you aren't familiar with them, I'm not sure how familiar you are with AAU ball in Cali. He certainly passes the eye test and looks special there, but nothing wrong with a wait and see approach

 

[GrizBall]

I tend to take the cautious route when trying to predict the success of incoming Freshman, particularly at the Big Sky level (I am old enough to remember those touting a current player’s Florida State “offer” as evidence of what a steal he was and this is just one example). So when I hear someone coming to Montana is “special” I wince a little bit. From what I can tell:

1. He is not ranked by ESPN or 24/7 in the state of California.

2. He didn’t play on an AAU team that was on any of the shoe circuits. Special players from Oakland almost always play for the Oakland Soldiers.

3. I would need Grizfan-24 or someone else knowledgeable in CIF basketball, but from what I can tell he is playing lower level HS basketball. Again, someone may be able to educate me, but when I when I look at these brackets, most of the HS I recognize as historically producing talent are not in D-3, but in the brackets above.

https://www.cifstate.org/sports/basketball/B_brkts_2023/index

Again, he may be a Sayeed-type steal and that would be great, but sometimes I feel we need to slow down on the freshman predictions and particularly pump the breaks on the “special” label.

He plays on the same team Lillard played at in HS and he plays on the Arsenal. If you aren't familiar with them, I'm not sure how familiar you are with AAU ball in Cali. He certainly passes the eye test and looks special there, but nothing wrong with a wait and see approach

Very familiar with Arsenal. Timmy Falls old team and trainer. Naseem Gaskin and Elijah Hardy’s old team. Guys that went straight to the PAC-12 and then the Big Sky and then the Big West. Hardy couldn’t get on the court at PSU. Careers were very uninspiring. Arsenal is run by KP. Reps on Reps.

Lillard is a unicorn in just about every sense of the word. Like saying someone went to Weber as if that means anything other than it’s the same school Lillard went to.

Again, he could end up being a 4x all-BSC, and be a 1st pick like Lillard but just saying special players usually don’t pick Montana straight out of HS and there are very few HS players worthy of the “special” designation. But hope he is. It would be a great boost.

 

[Grizfan-24]

Money is the likely the best HS recruit Travis has got out of California in four or five years. He's more polished offensively, a bit more physical than his last handful of kids. I don't know a ton, but I know he had an opportunity to play transfer and play at a couple DI/II schools but wanted to stay home in Oakland. This is the same area/conference that produced Lillard, Pridgett, and Will Cherry.

I don't know that he's good as that group from Oakland, but he's a player that got some MWC interest prior to UM getting his signature, and might have had more offers this year had he held out. His team won the DIII state title, and that might be the most competitive division on California basketball.

My impression is that he's very capable of coming in and giving meaningful minutes next year as a Freshman. He's got a higher floor than Nap, for comparisons sake, and is more physically ready to play at the D1 level. He can score at three levels and probably the greatest tool he has is that he can play defense. That typically translates into early minutes in Travis's program.

 

[oldrunner]

Let's face it, we never really know what a player will become until they become that. Coaches are recruiting potential when they go after HS talent. You can get a player that was the apple of everyone's eye who turns out to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can also bring someone in who got very little attention and they become stars. Lillard was one of those. Those who are old enough can remember Bruce Collins, two schools recruited him and only Weber seriously. We've had many highly rated guys fall flat on their faces.

Money looks to have a lot of potential and we all hope that he can become a star. We won't really know for at least the first few months and maybe not for a few years. I agree with pumping the breaks on all the hype. You may be creating unrealistic expectations.

 

[Sport]

You’re absolutely right oldrunner. Until they prove themselves on the court there just another good ballplayer with potential. Let’s hope he’s a gem in the rough.. if he’s as good as he’s been advertised then expect a PAC-12 team to come calling. Wouldn’t be the first highly rated prospect to switch allegiance. Time will tell.

 

[citygriz]

Happy to enter a caveat here as well since I have not seen him play in person, as I did Will Cherry years ago.

After watching Cherry outplay several Power 5 recruits in an all-star game, I was sure we had a star in the making. I’ve only seen clips of Williams but one quality jumps out at me: How smoothly and effortlessly he plays the game. Never seems to be in a hurry but still gets there fast and efficiently. A knack for the game that you can’t always teach.

Oh, hell with it. Kid’s gonna be a star.

 

[mthoopsfan]

Let's face it, we never really know what a player will become until they become that. Coaches are recruiting potential when they go after HS talent. You can get a player that was the apple of everyone's eye who turns out to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can also bring someone in who got very little attention and they become stars. Lillard was one of those. Those who are old enough can remember Bruce Collins, two schools recruited him and only Weber seriously. We've had many highly rated guys fall flat on their faces.

Money looks to have a lot of potential and we all hope that he can become a star. We won't really know for at least the first few months and maybe not for a few years. I agree with pumping the breaks on all the hype. You may be creating unrealistic expectations.

You may not be able to judge talent, but good coaches generally can. Especially top and special talent.

 

[uptopgriz]

Let's face it, we never really know what a player will become until they become that. Coaches are recruiting potential when they go after HS talent. You can get a player that was the apple of everyone's eye who turns out to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can also bring someone in who got very little attention and they become stars. Lillard was one of those. Those who are old enough can remember Bruce Collins, two schools recruited him and only Weber seriously. We've had many highly rated guys fall flat on their faces.

Money looks to have a lot of potential and we all hope that he can become a star. We won't really know for at least the first few months and maybe not for a few years. I agree with pumping the breaks on all the hype. You may be creating unrealistic expectations.

You may not be able to judge talent, but good coaches generally can. Especially top and special talent.

That's what the problem has been with Griz football or maybe just poor coaching.

 

[GrizBall]

Let's face it, we never really know what a player will become until they become that. Coaches are recruiting potential when they go after HS talent. You can get a player that was the apple of everyone's eye who turns out to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can also bring someone in who got very little attention and they become stars. Lillard was one of those. Those who are old enough can remember Bruce Collins, two schools recruited him and only Weber seriously. We've had many highly rated guys fall flat on their faces.

Money looks to have a lot of potential and we all hope that he can become a star. We won't really know for at least the first few months and maybe not for a few years. I agree with pumping the breaks on all the hype. You may be creating unrealistic expectations.

You may not be able to judge talent, but good coaches generally can. Especially top and special talent.

I tend to agree with Oldrunner on this. NFL and NBA teams have full staffs of evaluators, spend 1000’s of hours watching film and seeing games live, have players go through every psychological and physical test known to man and blow picks all the time.

 

[grizzlyjournal]

Happy to enter a caveat here as well since I have not seen him play in person, as I did Will Cherry years ago.

After watching Cherry outplay several Power 5 recruits in an all-star game, I was sure we had a star in the making. I’ve only seen clips of Williams but one quality jumps out at me: How smoothly and effortlessly he plays the game. Never seems to be in a hurry but still gets there fast and efficiently. A knack for the game that you can’t always teach.

Oh, hell with it. Kid’s gonna be a star.

I'm with ya. Hope you're right. + :thumb: