With James Daniel on UT's campus as I write this, today seemed like a great time to grab Jerry Meyer of 247sports.com to discuss this young man and the rest of UT's incoming hoops recruiting class. Daniel has already been to Ohio State besides Tennessee. Plus Michigan was involved with Daniel at one point until they acquired a grad transfer point guard out of the MAC.
Plus, what if UT has another opening in a couple of weeks? Who are some other short term answers UT could seek? We'll go inside with Jerry on this.
Also, I want to ask Jerry about Cuonzo's sizzling start at Missouri on the recruiting trail. It's amazing to put the words sizzling recruiting and Cuonzo in the same sentence.
Another thing we'll discuss with Jerry today are the results of last night's NBA Draft Lottery and how things are going to shake out.
We'll also target some potential 2018 UT targets with Jerry.
I also plan to discuss the exodus of 3 players from LSU over the past month. Will Wade is making some of the Jones guys say uncle.
We'll also get into parallels between Rick Barnes and Tubby Smith.
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Great job by the callers and Twittiots discussing Butch Jones and his alleged hot seat. I asked listeners if Butch Jones was on their personal hot seat. I put it this way....If Butch Jones leads UT to an 8-4 season in 2017, is he on your hot seat? This is only a question that you as a fan can answer. We all see this differently. My mentality is that I have such little trust in our $$$ people that 8-4 looks OK compared to what I'm afraid they will find in the open market. Those people scare me. I'm not really crazy about Butch Jones. It isn't like I'm calling him coach for life but I don't want those goofs that hired Dr. D anywhere near hiring a football coach in the near future. Besides, the way Jones and staff are recruiting right now means that they will set up his successor with momentum.
The tricky thing about this Butch Jones deal in 2017 is that it's more than winning and losing. It's not cut and dried like Dumbass Dooley. What makes this that much more complicated is the way Butch Jones can both frustrate me and earn my respect simultaneously.
Butch Jones & Reasons He's Easy To Cheer For: Son of cop
Upright Person
Family Man
Works Extremely Hard
Super Great To Support Folks
Tireless Recruiter
Doesn't Have An Entitlement Complex
Reasons Butch Jones Is Hard To Cheer For: Silly Talker
Mystifying Game Day Coach
Highly Insecure
Very Stubborn
On the whole, I like Butch Jones and I'm rooting for the guy to get it done here.
Ron Slay joined the program yesterday as I popped for him going back to college in his mid 30's and getting his degree over the weekend.
Quoting Ron Slay:
'My tread on my tires is so worn all I can do is rotate them. In class everything was so foreign to me. I was gonna take notes. And teacher said everything was going to be on blackboard. It was like the Jetsons met the Flintstones.
I went from lacking 15 credits to 39 credits.
Statistics was toughest class. I took it in the summer. GA of Asian decent taught it and I didn't understand it at all. Biology was tough. I got B+ in Statistics and a B in biology.
I was down 45 before my classes started.
Walking the aisle was an incredible feeling. I had the longest strut across that stage. I knew there were people waiting behind me.
I put that right up there being an All-American.
I would LOVE to coach. I want to reach kids. Even women's hoops. I wrote a letter last night to send off to college coaches.
Coach Peterson reached out. Coach Ferguson and Coach Conroy and Coach Smith and Oak Hill.'
Ron Slay...You sir are a treat and a treasure. Thanks for the time on the air yesterday and the inspiration.
I guess you could say it's recruiting week in the blog as tomorrow 'X' returns to Tonybasilio.com. Plus, I've got to now address something I brought up on Monday. That's this Tennessee's Baseball class under Dave Serrano heading into what was always going to be his final season at UT. I was wondering aloud how Serrano was able to pull this off. I've since done some research and this is what I've learned.
Unlike football and basketball, college baseball is a sport where recruiting classes are compiled in many cases two years in advance. So, this year's Tennessee recruiting class is one that was actually pieced together a few springs back. The bottom line is that if you're a baseball player and you aim to play in a major college, in most cases you're committing as a rising sophomore or at the least a rising junior. Therefore what appeared like an 11th hour miracle by Dave Serrano and staff was actually just a good solid class put together a few years back. Great for the next coach at UT. He will have some pieces to work with.
Bullet Points on UT's Freshman Class & College Baseball Recruiting:
UT's freshmen class was mostly compiled back in 2015.
Tennessee has 11.7 scholarships to split over 27 players.
Scholarship money is dispersed so soon in recruiting that the prospects' only choice was UT or junior college. Most other major colleges fill up that quickly.
Of Tennessee's current freshmen class perhaps only Lingenfelter and Stallings would've been guys programs would've made room for.
Unlike college football and basketball, college baseball programs don't recruit guys once they commit.
A very good player might get between 60 to 80% of a scholarship.
The next hire from UT will have to live on diamonds in the rough and Juco players until he can get up to speed. Needless to say, the next head coach at UT will have his hands more than full.
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