Who knows, but I don't think we did. Considering his final 3 are all OOS, I'm hoping we didn't recruit him because he may want to leave the state for college. Just out of respect for Edgerrin James, I'd like to believe Larranaga and his staff did their due diligence on Jizzle. Many pundits consider him to be the top PG prospect in Florida's 2023 class. There should be no reason whatsoever why Miami wouldn't at the very least kick the tires with James.
i do know we've watched him quite a bit but word is he's more of a scoring guard and a bit undersized for that type of guard. Was told he's not yet at the high major level but has been improving his stock. This is evidenced by the smattering of high major offers he has GTown, Providence and NC State and a couple others. He wants an offer from UNC, I suspect if we had legit interest we would take him. A lot of this is going to depend on what other guards we attract.
First off, Jizzle James is closer to 6'3 than he is 6'1". Second, any talent evaluator who says Jizzle James is not a "high major level" prospect has to be questioned. I don't think he's at the blue blood level yet. Nor do I think he's a day 1 starter on a good top 25 team. But no question he's a P5 prospect. There's a reason he has multiple offers from ACC and SEC schools. James is consensus top 50-60 player in America for a reason and it's not because he's Edgerrin James' son. Lastly, anyone who says James is more of a 2 than he is a 1, either hasn't watched him play much or doesn't know what they're talking about. Does he take the lead guard or play the combo spot for his HS/AAU teams at times? Yes, but that's done more out of necessity than anything else. In a time where the game has become position-less, it's somewhat surprising to hear Miami doesn't think highly of him because of his size. Particularly when you consider James actually does the 3 things Larranaga always talks about well, which is shoot, dribble and pass.
all fair points, my point was he's a work in progress and with a guard heavy roster we can afford to slow play him and watch him develop. Frankly the kids we've pulled from OOS not what I'd call flyers. Joseph was a top 100 4 star when he committed, Kai was also a 4 star, Wooga ranked lower but many thought he was under-rated and had nearly a dozen P5 offers. The 4 we pulled in the 22 class were all front court guys, AJ and Aire are legit 4 star kids with solid offer sheets. Watson is another under-appreciated kid, he had over 20 high major offers. Danillo is prob. the only "flyer" IMO but from what I hear he's a sleeper who will surprise people.
He is a work in progress, but so are 95% of the kids coming out of high school. I wasn't referring to the last class with my "flyer" comment. It was directed moreso towards some of the older guys like Rodney Miller, Deng Gak, Ebuka Izundu, Omar Sherman, and to an extent Sam Waardenberg. All out of state "flyers" who weren't highly rated coming out of high school and didn't do much at Miami.
I once did a personal "study" of Florida HS kids recruited to Miami under Leonard Hamilton, Perry Clark, Frank Haith and Coach L. The bottom line was they all pretty much recruited the state with the same level of success, or lack thereof (depending on how you want to view it). One coach did not really stand out from any other. This is a "problem" that has existed beyond just Coach L.
There’s a huge difference between Florida HS basketball today and in past years. Florida is producing top rated prospects at a much higher clip than when any of L’s predecessors were around. Trajectory took a big turn around 2009 and just keeps climbing. I think Ham has proven it. He has done pretty well for himself recruiting FL over the last few years with more than a handful of those in state signees going to the NBA
Good point and I'm sure you said the same when I posted my results here back when. Even adjusting for the huge difference, I think -- despite more recent success - you'd be surprised Coach Ham had not done better by in-state high school recruits at FSU. I know I was.
I probably did. Our inability or disinclination from our staff to recruit in state has taken years off my life. LOL!!!
How did we not at least try to recruit Jonathan Isaac?
In fairness to the UM staff, Isaac was a late bloomer. Not a lot of schools were on him until after he hit a ridiculous 7-8 inch growth spurt, between his 9th & 10th grade years of HS. He's originally from Naples but after growing to 6'8' - 6'9" he moved to Broward Co. After a year playing travel and HS ball with Johnny Fleming he moved over to IMG, which is where everyone took notice. He skyrocketed from an unknown and unranked prospect to the McDonald's All-American game. By that time CY (former fsu asst.) had his grip on the kid and it was only a matter of when, not if before he committed to them.