DuncanDoughnuts
New member
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2017
- Messages
- 8
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- 3
No sour grapes here, good luck to the kid, unfortunately he's gonna need it at Illinois. This decision was driven by his Dad's friendship with Coleman from the beginning unto the end we just watched (well some did, I didn't). From people in the know, barring injury or something else catastrophic, Crawford will be gone after next season and I think he will have a great year and be a late first or very early 2nd round choice. We are in good shape with Harris and a few other PG's for 2019 but we need a PG, or at least a combo guard, for 2018 and I think the staff will act accordingly. As mentioned earlier, I think we go for traction now with Herro and Lewis and perhaps others if we wait until Spring. Good effort in a predestined losing effort for Ayo, we did make it a little harder for Illinois on what most felt was a slam dunk for them from the beginning.
That's not exactly right. I'll concede this much.. We wouldn't likely have Ayo w/o Chin Coleman on the staff. He'd be Wake bound IMO.
But, to be fair, that's not really all there is about Chin Coleman. Coleman played for the CPL, later coached Whitney Young (a CPL school) and the AAU team "the fire" (later taken over by the Irvins renamed "mac irvin fire" who Ayo played for), was put in an admin role at Nebraska with Tim Miles (where he helped land a couple chicago kids), came back to Chicago to be an assistant at UIC, and last but not least was hired by Illinois.
He's a chicago guy but he's put in a good amount of footwork before he got this opportunity.. Actually a very intelligent coach and out of our assistants I think he's the best X's and O's guy and a true student of the game... But, yes, he was specifically hired to be the bridge to to land UI Chicago talent and although Illinois doesn't expect to suddenly get all mac irvin fire players it was assumed this relationship would help them navigate which guys to pursue and which would be a waste of time.. And how to pursue them.
Without him I think Ayo is indeed going to Wake but it's common practice to hire an assistant in part because of his recruiting connections and there's only so many national guys we could swing/miss on this year and we reached that number quickly this year.
Anyways best of luck to you guys. Might drop back by here before our game.