UM must recruit Florida HS Basketball

Kai Jones is from THE BAHAMAS....Had we really recruit him hard or early enough it would be a shoe in.

In fact my country is statrting to produce a good clip of bball players...maybe the old *** dude needs to take a trip over.

In this draft...Evan Mobley the center is also a Bahamian descent kid along with Kai Jones who is actually fully bahamian.
There are a bunch of kids there that can be stashed at prep school and bounce back this way....
@CaneSince4Ever like you said we have lottery guys...technically 2 in this draft if you count Mobley
Only P5 state school to recruit Kai Jones before he went to prep school was fsu, but they didn't offer until he started playing at Brewster. That's about the same time all the other major in-state programs (including Miami) started getting involved. By that time it was too late. Kai was torn between Shaka and coach Ham, but in the end Texas got it done.

Bahamas has definitely come a long way from their Mychal Thompson days. Over the last few years they have produced some quality NBA pros. I can see them making a run for the top FIBA spot in the Caribbean.
 
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I understand Florida HS ball has improved dramatically. Fact is, though, there were always known quality players in the state, not to mention "under the radar" kids, and none of our previous coaches recruited the state any better than L has. And that includes the now-revered Coach Ham!
20 years ago Florida wasn't producing hoopers at the rate we're seeing now. So it's understandable if coaches felt they had to go out of state for talent. With that being said, at the very least most if not all of our old teams carried at least 1 Florida kid. Since the program's resurrection in the 80's I can't remember ever seeing 0 players from Florida on the roster
 
Ronnie was a helluva a baseball player in HS. And that's it. By no stretch of the imagination was or is he to ever be considered a hooper. No chance in ****. I don't want to be mean to the man, so I'll leave it at that. His older brother on the other hand was a decent hooper.

Nahhhh Bro, Ronnie could hoop. He didn't play organized ball or anything like that, but I saw Ronnie servin' up some dudes on the basketball team a couple times. On that court on 19th Ave. if you're familiar with Central.
 
Nahhhh Bro, Ronnie could hoop. He didn't play organized ball or anything like that, but I saw Ronnie servin' up some dudes on the basketball team a couple times. On that court on 19th Ave. if you're familiar with Central.
Must've been playing against scrubs when you saw him. We ran in some of the same circles back then, I assure you he was NOT a baller. I repeat NOT a baller. I'll put it to you like this -- he wasn't good enough to play in any of the reputable city parks/courts on weekdays from 5pm-7pm. LOL!
 
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Don't disagree with you overall point, but ESPN's rankings are absolutely horrific and aren't worth looking at.
Fair enough. It's just impressive if not more if you look at 247's rankings

 
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Fair enough. It's just impressive if not more if you look at 247's rankings

It's a little misleading with a fair number of those players playing at IMG or Montverde coming from out of state and have only been in Florida for 1-2 years. George is the top ranked in state recruit, but he's really from Texas and will be going to Baylor. I'd consider him more of a Texas recruit, even if he is currently in Florida. I'm pretty sure the top seven on that list are not originally from Florida, with Dillon Mitchell the first that I believe is actually from Florida. I could see a little bit of a boost with them with those players getting some exposure to the state of Florida, but it isn't the same as someone like Scottie Barnes, for example.

That being said, once you get beyond those top seven, there are still a number of players from the state that we should have been done better with or gotten more involved with. That just means that instead of it being 0 for 24, it may be more like 0 for 15 or something like that. Either way, that needs to improve.

I won't pretend to know a ton about how his recruitment went, but I see a player like Taylor Hendricks - a top 100 player nationally that plays PF - end up committing to UCF when he could have been useful here as an Anthony Walker-type of player. We offered him, but how hard were we actually going after him? Malik Reneau is from here, and from what I understand, we may not have even been in the top 2 or 3 choices for him (behind UF, FSU, and arguably Memphis) by the time he made his decision.

I know we are in Udeh's top 10, and it sounds like we are in touch with him daily, but at the same time, it doesn't sound like we are necessarily a favorite there (though I don't know who would be).
 
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The next guy will recruit Florida.

I hope you're right. It's mind-boggling to see Larranaga refuse to go after some of the local talent.

Both mid majors Miami has lost to this season have guys on their teams from Florida who we didn't recruit. Dayton has a couple who could've easily been at Miami had Larranga wanted them. Elijah Weaver signed with USC out of HS, before transferring to Dayton. I'm not saying Coumani was a must get for us, but for what we have now an argument can be made that he is. And more than half of UCF's roster is comprised of players from Florida. Pretty sure a few of those guys would rather be on South Beach than in Disney World.
 
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I was thinking Tim Duncan (greatest NBA Forward of all time, according to some) was Bahamian but ... he grew up in the VI. He went to a local St. Croix high school and was only offered late by Wake, Providence, Hartford and Delaware.
 
Petino comes down from Iona and recruited Walter Clayton out of Bartow, but Coach L doesn’t recruit Clayton or anyone else in Florida. Iona upsets #10 Alabama, and what has Coach L done for us lately? Coach L isn’t interested in recruiting and developing players at this point. Transfer portal players who are good enough to keep us in the bottom tier of the ACC
 
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There's a 6'6" W in Orlando, that this staff needs to get on RIGHT NOW!!!! Angel Montas (2022) is the real deal and has NBA potential written all over him.
Might be good but who is he taking minutes from? Wooga? Robinson? Watson? unless someone leaves I'd rather us go after a couple bigs in the portal
 
Might be good but who is he taking minutes from? Wooga? Robinson? Watson? unless someone leaves I'd rather us go after a couple bigs in the portal

Personally, I think Montas is as good as any underclassmen we have coming back next year. That being said, you can never have enough good players. Bring him in and figure it out once he's on campus. Montas is the real deal. There's a reason ol' boy Rick Pitino has made him a priority.

Another big would also help
 
We have no Florida players on the roster 🥲. Norchad, doesn’t even really count. But we need to recruit our own players Here.
 
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