Dana gone crazy , Bears get James Graham III

[BEARZ77]

Bears pick up their biggest transfer to date getting a commit from Maryland transfer 6'8 Jame's Graham III. A top 100 recruit[ #78 @ 247 sports] he is a big time shot maker, who came out of HS a year early at 17, and had offers from Maryland, Auburn, Memphis and Wisc, among others. He played little in his 1 year at Maryland. Bears now 1 over again at 14 . I'm a little concerned that the guy that will lose out is freshman Jonathan Dunn; we had heard that one of the freshmen was having academic issues and I had hoped turn out to be Hampton when he decommitted, but I'm afraid it's Dunn. Shame if so, but why you keep recruiting.

Graham though 6'8 , his game is similar to Isiaih Mosely's. He said he chose MSU because of the relationship with CDF and assistant Sheldon Everett who both recruited him from the minute he entered the portal. Said they showed him tons of film on how Mosley was utilized in the Bears offense and how that correlated to his game.

Graham told NL Wyatt Wheeler he believes he'll have 4 years still; of course that means 1-2 years here and then look for that bigger stage and NIL payout.

[tribecalledquest]

Bears pick up their biggest transfer to date getting a commit from Maryland transfer 6'8 Jame's Graham III. A top 100 recruit[ #78 @ 247 sports] he is a big time shot maker, who came out of HS a year early at 17, and had offers from Maryland, Auburn, Memphis and Wisc, among others. He played little in his 1 year at Maryland. Bears now 1 over again at 14 . I'm a little concerned that the guy that will lose out is freshman Jonathan Dunn; we had heard that one of the freshmen was having academic issues and I had hoped turn out to be Hampton when he decommitted, but I'm afraid it's Dunn. Shame if so, but why you keep recruiting.

Graham though 6'8 , his game is similar to Isiaih Mosely's. He said he chose MSU because of the relationship with CDF and assistant Sheldon Everett who both recruited him from the minute he entered the portal. Said they showed him tons of film on how Mosley was utilized in the Bears offense and how that correlated to his game.

Graham told NL Wyatt Wheeler he believes he'll have 4 years still; of course that means 1-2 years here and then look for that bigger stage and NIL payout.

Graham is a nice player. I was hoping Bradley would go after him.

That said, he was always a bit overrated. That whole group was who played together for a bit in the Milwaukee area. But he should be a good player in the MVC.

[BEARZ77]

He was 6'6 and about 230 as a 17 yr old in HS, now goes 6'8 and 205 and according to him, in the best shape he's ever been. Watched a lot of tape of him the last few days and he's just very Mosley like , but has much better shot mechanics and is 3 inches taller. You don't expect Mosley production, but he's a definite shot maker. Lot of moving parts for the Bears , so Ford has the challenge again of getting enough of them on the same page consistently to challenge.

People can say what they want, and I'm sure I'll cuss Dana several times by the end of December, but I appreciate the aggressive way he's attacked this new era . He knew Prim was gone and Mosley likely, looked at his cast of returning complimentary guys and knew he couldn't challenge with that group. Don't think he intended to turn over 80% of the team, but once he started signing guys, others started questioning their role , and some had an easy out with Gibson going to NWSU , and bang, one thing led to another.

He recruits well, but I never buy into that thinking that we have so much more talent than everyone else. Dana gets pigeon holed as a recruiter only, but what people overlook is he develops talent also. Most of our guys weren't big time recruits . But now he has added a couple that kinda were , so we'll see how that goes. I read most other Valley school fan boards, never comment out of respect , but I do have to laugh sometimes . Was reading this morning how we've lost so much more than we have signed and that none were impact 4 star type guys and most were average MM types. Well actually 2[ Graham & C. Moore] are 4 star, K.Moore was a 4 year starter on very good Colorado State teams, Mogbo is 6'9 a top 25 juco and very versatile, and Benson was only offered and coveted by virtually every Illinois team in the Valley. Again I'm not saying we are out recruiting anyone, I'm just noting Dana gets guys he thinks can play, and he's been able to do that from day 1. He's got his flaws, but I think the portal era isn't scary to him , he just does what he does. We may not win a title with him, but he will put a competitive roster on the court .

[Drakey]

I think he is out-recruiting everybody in the Valley and I think MSU does have more talent than anybody else.

[BEARZ77]

I think he is out-recruiting everybody in the Valley and I think MSU does have more talent than anybody else.

I think he's recruiting differently than some other Valley schools. It's interesting with recruiting being so wide open and varied these days[ HS, Prep, juco, portal, NIL] you see such differing approaches even within a league, let alone nationally at the various levels[ P-5, HM,MM,LM] . Look at how P-5's, starting just last year, now have made recruiting the top talent out of the other levels a prime strategy. In our league , teams like Indiana State have followed that strategy with top D-2 talent. In both cases , coaches are taking proven production over potential and hoping the production levels remain decent. Of course the P-5 have the advantage of also signing varying amounts of top 100 HS kids . One thing I noticed this year is a lot of teams seem to have forgot the jucos, and there was [is] a lot of top talent unsigned much later than usual. Hell Mizzou was able to slide in late and sign the top 2 .

I think what Dana does is he really spreads it around well and we aren't too pigeon holed in where we get recruits from. He's always done well getting high level jucos who then contributed pretty quickly . We have the advantage of two top level Prep schools in our backyard and that seems to be paying recent dividends. And he's gone after both proven and potential in his use of the portal , getting proven[ MM's] and potential [P-5 ]
Schools like Bradley do well with jucos as well, so it's not a private/public thing there , and Bradley does well with international recruits . Obviously Drake went juco big time to build thier recent roster and then added a few transfers with a few home grown including a certified star in Devries. UNI has always been the best at recruiting to their system .

I get what people are saying both ways. Some think we have a lot of talent; others think much of it is unproven in guys like Chance Moore, James Graham, Alston Mason, and say if they were good how come they played so little where they were at. We'll just have to wait and see .

[Bearvision]

Graham is a nice player. I was hoping Bradley would go after him.

That said, he was always a bit overrated. That whole group was who played together for a bit in the Milwaukee area. But he should be a good player in the MVC.

Always tough when you have a 5-star Duke commit on your team to really understand how good you are or are not. His twin brother was a different type, but he also soaked up a lot of shots and glory. Left Graham to sort of be a PF, rim runner type who did a lot of dirty work and defensive stuff.

Graham is really young and is sort of finding his way. In high school, he was a 6-6, 230 pound player who was put into a spot his team needed. Came off a bit immature in my view and didn't learn to work until later.

Has reshaped his body and is really a wing/stretch 4. Do I think he's an instant All-Valley player at 18 years old? No, I do not see that quite yet. I do think he's an ultra-talented shot maker for the Valley. Probably the most talented shot maker left in the Valley with Green, Mosley, Roberts moving on. You can see from those three how highly valued a shot maker/creator is in the world of college basketball. One is going to Kentucky, the other two are either NBA draft or high P5 players.

He seems to have been humbled by his Maryland experience and his recent videos with Ascension Training certainly shows a new physique and explosion. The shot maker is still there.

[tribecalledquest]

Graham is a nice player. I was hoping Bradley would go after him.

That said, he was always a bit overrated. That whole group was who played together for a bit in the Milwaukee area. But he should be a good player in the MVC.

Always tough when you have a 5-star Duke commit on your team to really understand how good you are or are not. His twin brother was a different type, but he also soaked up a lot of shots and glory. Left Graham to sort of be a PF, rim runner type who did a lot of dirty work and defensive stuff.

Graham is really young and is sort of finding his way. In high school, he was a 6-6, 230 pound player who was put into a spot his team needed. Came off a bit immature in my view and didn't learn to work until later.

Has reshaped his body and is really a wing/stretch 4. Do I think he's an instant All-Valley player at 18 years old? No, I do not see that quite yet. I do think he's an ultra-talented shot maker for the Valley. Probably the most talented shot maker left in the Valley with Green, Mosley, Roberts moving on. You can see from those three how highly valued a shot maker/creator is in the world of college basketball. One is going to Kentucky, the other two are either NBA draft or high P5 players.

He seems to have been humbled by his Maryland experience and his recent videos with Ascension Training certainly shows a new physique and explosion. The shot maker is still there.

I think that's fair. As I said - I really wanted Bradley to go after him again. I'm not sure why they didn't.

FWIW - I can see Graham's old HS outside of my office window.