2024 Recruiting

Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
 
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Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
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Someone help me make sense of how well we are recruiting. I know we have a top 5 coach and have had 2 consecutive NCAA runs, and we have a competitive NIL program. Does that equate to (2) 4 stars and potentially a 5 star in the same class? The lowest ranked of the (3) is the number 100 player in his class. Not the highest, the lowest. To say this would the best class ever is an absurd understatement.

Are we really this good? I know L works wonders and develops and wins. But it was always with 3 stars and borderline 4 stars. Add to this that a former 5 star transferred in from our biggest rival. Put all this together (I know I am rambling as a result of my disbelief and happiness) and we are now the preeminent program in the ACC. Forget Duke and UNC and UVA and any other school. With this level of coaching and recruting, UM is the top program in the ACC. Duke can recruit at our level (what a weird sentence to write) but they can’t coach at our level. UNC can’t do either.

WOW.
In recent years, Miami has been without a doubt the top program in the ACC. However, in the minds of many outside of South Florida, the pecking order in the ACC still has Duke and UNC at the top. Unfortunately, that's still how many of the elite prospects, their families and handlers think. And when I say elite I'm referring to the consensus top 10-20 guys, not top 100.

Biggest difference between the UNC or Duke staff's and Miami's is that our staff has to rely heavily on their relationships, not on the program's name. Biggest reason and probably only reason we're able to get inside the living room of an elite guy like Bethae is because of the personal relationship. In this case, Coach Irving. Hiring him may be the best and most underrated hiring by the program since Coach L's hiring back in 2011. Nationally, the Miami brand carries a lot of weight in football, kind of how Duke and UNC do in basketball. However, the Miami brand doesn't carry that kind of weight in hoops. People are starting to take notice, but we're not there yet. Do think another year or 2 like the past couple we've just had and they will have no choice but to see the program as a major force.
 
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Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
Wow, this is just a guy that can score. Those highlights are not only wide open dunks and 3’s; he’s making patient, tough shots. Always seems in control. Love this pick up more and more.
 
Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
I just watched his highlights. Lot of similarities to Jordan Miller. A 6'7" guy who can dribble, pass and shoot. Love the fact he can play with his back to the basket or facing it. A 3 level scorer in the half court setting, but who looks his best in the open court. Good court vision. Plays with great change of pace. Can grab a rebound and start the break, just as easily as he can fill the lane and it end the break. Doesn't show elite athleticism but is able to make up for it with his combination of size and skill. Like I said earlier, a lot of similarities to Jordan Miller.

Only thing I question from watching the video was level of competition he played against and how he'll transition to the ACC. Other than that I do like the pick up. GO CANES!!
 
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Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
Since I'm in Minnesota and have some familiarity with following hoops in the state, I can help answer this. Him being a late bloomer is part of the reason for being ranked where he is, but beyond that, while the highlights look great, his consistency isn't quite there yet. Especially with his outside shooting. He will still need some polishing, but if it comes together, he can definitely end up exceeding his ranking. But he also may not be the highest impact guy freshman year, since he may need some time to develop to fully reach his potential.

The guy who covers the MN hoops scene the best, Ryan James, gives him high marks in terms of his character. He's the person who would have seen him the most, and he's the one I've seen highlight his need for his consistency to improve.

Also worth noting, his high school teammate (Dothan Ijadimbola) is currently being rated as a top 50 player in the class of 2026.
 
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I think L would have made him better had he gotten 4 years with Quan, but let's be honest. Quan was an athlete pretending to play basketball, he had NO feel for the game, and unlike Jack McClinton, who had 10% of Quan's athletic ability he wasn't a guy that lived to be in the gym. I've always said that if Quan could have picked up 25% of Jack's awareness and work ethic, he would still be collecting NBA paychecks. Haith did a terrible job with Quan, but the dude didn't help himself, and honestly, he had a cup of coffee in the NBA because of his natural athletic ability, but there's a reason why he didn't last long.

We are talking about a guy that couldn't shoot, couldn't handle and honestly, never even attempted to get better. That isn't all coaching. Just playing basketball regularly and putting in work you can develop those skills, even with minimal coaching.

Quan’s one and only year with L was the first time in his college career (maybe basketball career) that he faced accountability. You could see the progress that was being made (at least I thought I could) and it was only one year after 3 years of bad habit fermentation with Haith.

Anthony Walker is the only player that I didn’t see improve significantly during his time with L at Miami.

Regardless - love to see L finally achieving the success and receiving the recognition he deserves.
 

Score from "everywhere on the court" at this point? I don't think so. A 17% shooter from beyond the arc.

But, that's more than OK. We always have three point shooters. If he's the all-round player he's touted to be, he'll fit in very nicely -- defending, rebounding, slashing to the hoop, etc. We rarely have enough of that type player.
 
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Quan’s one and only year with L was the first time in his college career (maybe basketball career) that he faced accountability. You could see the progress that was being made (at least I thought I could) and it was only one year after 3 years of bad habit fermentation with Haith.

Anthony Walker is the only player that I didn’t see improve significantly during his time with L at Miami.

Regardless - love to see L finally achieving the success and receiving the recognition he deserves.

I don't disagree that 4 years with L would have made him a better player. The problem is that I think his ceiling was a lot lower than anyone truly anticipated. Quan's recruitment was one of the first times I realized that the recruiting services didn't know a **** thing about the game of basketball and they just went off of raw numbers, instead of actually understanding how things work. When I went and watched Quan's HS tape, it didn't take me long to realize "This dude can't shoot, nor dribble and if he's asked to do anything outside of dunk or be an athlete, it's not happening".

If you were to compare Quan's tape to say a Isaiah Wong, you would say "This Wong guy isn't nearly the athlete of Jones, he's an inferior player". But to anyone with actually basketball IQ, Wong's tape was more impressive. Zay is a hooper, he was the day he came to campus, dude understands the game, and developed through a ton of hard work. Zay is a gym rat, you can't teach that. Zay understands that basketball is a matchup and movement game, even when he was developing, you could see that he saw the game differently. That's a gift you just can't teach, and Quan never had it. I think Quan's ceiling as a player would have been a solid transition scorer, a nice explosive play guy, who could lock up multiple positions due to his athletic ability. However, when he first got here, people thought he was going to be a transformative superstar, and honestly, that wasn't him.
 
Just a question, I thought teams weren’t allowed to mention recruits until they sign? I ask this because the team’s socials has a post about our recent commit.
 
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Do yourselves a favor and go and watch this young man’s HUDL hIghlights. He scores at all 3 levels, his shot looks very comfortable and easy. And he is explosive off the ground. He also dunks with either hand. His ball handling needs to improve but that is easy to improve. He is already better built than some college players. I can see why he is being compared to Jordan Miller, but he is much better at this age than Miller was. Whether he will be as good as Miller when he is a senior will depend on how hard he works. But he has everything we could want in a player.

Frankly, I am curious as to why he is only ranked #100.
You can't tell anything about a guy's outside shooting from highlights. Every guy is going to make a smooth-looking 3 or two. Long range shooting is about consistency. His shooting numbers that I've seen from 3 are pretty bad.

He may develop into a good outside shooter here. But we shouldn't expect him to contribute from outside the first year or two (or three).
 
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