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Question on Tyler Ulis recruitment

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Hans81

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I also asked this in the Lounge...I seem to recall that at one point in the Ulis recruitment that either he (or his camp) indicated that he would be a Hawkeye even over MSU (this was before Kentucky got involved late). Or, maybe I'm just getting old and have a poor memory. :) Anyway, if anyone can point me to a source (if Ulis did in deed make such a comment), I would appreciate it as I have a "wager" with someone on this topic - thanks.
 
I think it was all speculation. Someone saying something that they heard from his coach or uncle or something weird. I do not think Ulis ever came out and said, "Iowa is my favorite."
 
You can find info of him saying Iowa was his choice if not Kentucky on or shortly after signing day, but you can find info of him saying it would have been MSU if not Kentucky. Everyone argues over it. Bottom line is he didn't come here and Fran recruited him for a long time before Kentucky came in at the last minute and there's nothing Fran could of done to change what happened. Had there been an early signing period, who knows what would have happened. In the end, it's not Fran's fault Ulis isn't at Iowa.
 
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MepoDawg# said:
You can find info of him saying Iowa was his choice if not Kentucky on or shortly after signing day, but you can find info of him saying it would have been MSU if not Kentucky. Everyone argues over it. Bottom line is he didn't come here and Fran recruited him for a long time before Kentucky came in at the last minute and there's nothing Fran could of done to change what happened. Had there been an early signing period, who knows what would have happened. In the end, it's not Fran's fault Ulis isn't at Iowa.
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Asked about a year ago, Ulis said he "Guessed he'd have chosen Michigan State." He has never been exactly clear, so I support your point and I think that no one, including Ulis, knows what his choice would have been if Kentucky hadn't shown up late to the party.
 
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Purdue was also heavily involved in recruiting TU and may have been the fav if not for Kentucky, at least according to Boers/Bernstein on WSCR. They were dong some SEC tourney recap when they mentioned this.

I don't really follow recruiting so I have no idea how the 5 W's played out, but do know that he had an Iowa offer.
 
I created a thread last week and someone posted a video of Ulis after he committed. He mentioned Iowa being a possibility. Black heart gold pants has an interesting article in Ulis saying if it wasn't Kentucky, it would've been MSU. At least we were in the mix.
 
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So it was between a team that lost in the 1st round, a team that lost in the 1st round, a team that lost in the 2nd round, & a team that lost in the 2nd round. Got it.
 
Fran was in on Ulis early and went after him hard. MSU came in late after they missed on their top PG recruit and Kentucky came in about 2 weeks before signing day and ended up winning his services. General consensus was that he was Iowa's to lose until MSU got involved. He was down to Iowa/MSU and it felt 50/50 that he could go either way then Kentucky swooped in and stole him. That is all from memory but I feel pretty good that is the way it went down.
 
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
 
“Everything changed when Kentucky offered,” Ulis said. “That’s just where my heart was. If they hadn’t have come into the picture I might have ended up at Iowa.”

via
 
sadiehawkins said:
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
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This is nauseating...
 
sadiehawkins said:
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
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If you don't believe Tyler Ulis would have started for Iowa there's nothing more to say here. Pretty sure Mike would have likely started at the 2 and backed up the point, but there is no way Ulis is sitting on the bench because Mike is older.
 
adsfarm said:
Geez who cares! He didn't come to Iowa, what like 3 years ago. You guys have beat the horse into the ground!
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I agree with this sentiment. Iowa fans should have stopped caring the day he signed with Kentucky. Fran gave him everything and more but he saw the lights and history and chose UK over us. Who cares. With the Cook recruitment, it shows that we are back on the radar of big time recruits.
 
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sadiehawkins said:
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
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Weird somehow Mike and Marcus Paige both started on the same AAU team.
 
The OP asked a question about his recruitment. Posters have tried to fill him in on how said recruitment played out. Frankly the discussion of his recruitment, and Fran recruiting in general, has been very good.

To the losers that respond with 'who cares he didn't come to Iowa,' why did you open the Tyler Ulis thread if you don't care? You obviously cared enough to open the thread. Way to undermine your own 'who cares' posts.
 
CuttyDoesIt said:
Weird somehow Mike and Marcus Paige both started on the same AAU team.
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Your point is? Because he started with paige he is paige's equal. I got it. Lets see i started with a all state player in 1970 that makes me his equal. Man I feel better now. Paige will be in the NBA. Gesell will be playing ball at the YMCA. That was just plain dumb logic.
 
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK said:
So it was between a team that lost in the 1st round, a team that lost in the 1st round, a team that lost in the 2nd round, & a team that lost in the 2nd round. Got it.
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Of course, you forgot to mention that he was on a then undefeated team that reached the Final Four last season.

Tyler Ulis is a great player and will play in the NBA, but if he could not lead Kentucky any further in the tournament than the Round of 32 then what makes anyone think he could have taken Iowa any further? Iowa's roster is not as talented as Kentucky's.
 
I think it's pretty simple.

Fran was in on him early, and he appreciated that. He really liked Fran and all the attention and effort Fran put in. If he didn't blow up, he would have been a Hawkeye.

But him, and more importantly, his father WERE hoping and waiting for him to blow up.

As soon as that happened, they were going to pick the highest blue blood program they could.

That is why Kentucky got him, after putting in ZERO effort and just put in an offer late. Hell, Cal told him he might even be wasting his time coming to Kentucky.

At the end of the day tho, it was all about picking the most prestigious name on the front of the jersey.

That become even more apparent when he stated in that interview later that he would have picked Michigan St if not Kentucky.

That one I think was frustrating to Fran, and has to be for coaches in general. A reminder that most times, with these kids, the relationships you build with them don't mean jack squat.

It's all about the name, and the $.
 
MTHawkeyes43 said:
Of course, you forgot to mention that he was on a then undefeated team that reached the Final Four last season.

Tyler Ulis is a great player and will play in the NBA, but if he could not lead Kentucky any further in the tournament than the Round of 32 then what makes anyone think he could have taken Iowa any further? Iowa's roster is not as talented as Kentucky's.
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Kentucky's team is talented, but inexperienced. Most years their talent makes up for their inexperience, but not this one. Iowa desperately needed a third scoring option, and Ulis would have provided that and more as a defender and distributor. Heck, Dale Jones would have provided much needed scoring. Not that we would have beaten Nova with it, but it may have been enough to beat Penn St. and Illinois and not get as high of a seed in the tourney.
 
sadiehawkins said:
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
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In Fran's time at Iowa, what makes you believe this....when has he had better options that didn't play do to seniority?
 
It sounds like there are some different versions of what he's said re: where he would've ended up not for Kentucky. I've written this a couple of times over the past 6 weeks... He was on Chicago Tribune Live (I think that's what it was called then - now it's Sportstalk Live) a few years ago.

Every year someone puts together a Chicago Classic (or something like that) with the best teams in the city going head-to-head. Every year some of the players and some of the coaches are on this Sportstalk Live. Ulis was one of the players. David Kaplan asked them all something like, "What's the best thing you've ever done?" / "What's the hardest thing you've ever done?" Ulis said that telling Fran he wasn't coming to Iowa was the hardest thing he ever had to do (he was high on Fran, high on the program).
 
"....That one I think was frustrating to Fran, and has to be for coaches in general. A reminder that most times, with these kids, the relationships you build with them don't mean jack squat.
It's all about the name, and the $. "

Sad but true in a majority of cases for the clean, quality programs in the B1G.
 
sadiehawkins said:
gesell or clemons min could have easily been replaced by baer , williams or uhl
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So let me get this straight...you thought the best lineup Iowa could have put on the floor would be Williams, Baer, Jok, Uthoff and Woody? Honestly, that is absurd. MG had his issues, there is no doubt about that, but to think that we had better options is crazy. I think Williams will end up being very good, but when he played this year, he played mostly at the 2. He was not ready this year to play significant minutes at the 1 this year.
 
RSCookie222 said:
So let me get this straight...you thought the best lineup Iowa could have put on the floor would be Williams, Baer, Jok, Uthoff and Woody? Honestly, that is absurd. MG had his issues, there is no doubt about that, but to think that we had better options is crazy. I think Williams will end up being very good, but when he played this year, he played mostly at the 2. He was not ready this year to play significant minutes at the 1 this year.
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Didn't you know that playing 4 SF's and a C is the key to winning?
 
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sadiehawkins said:
Wouldn't of mattered we had Gesell. He had seniority. We all know fran would do whats right for the player instead of the team. A human trait is to be loyal to the players that put in the work the longest. Tho this is misguided. I believe the great coaches can remove there personal feelings for players to what is good for the team. We fans at Iowa know stanzi beathard and banks should of been playing long before there time.
Click to expand...
Hardly ever watch Kentucky, but for some reason my most lasting memory of Ulis is losing the ball out of bounds against Kansas this year near the end of the game. But that's not who he was, naturally. This reminds me of people on here who base their opinions of players' talents by watching one game or one video..
 
sadiehawkins said:
Your point is? Because he started with paige he is paige's equal. I got it. Lets see i started with a all state player in 1970 that makes me his equal. Man I feel better now. Paige will be in the NBA. Gesell will be playing ball at the YMCA. That was just plain dumb logic.
Click to expand...

and you probably think that Fran would start Gessell over Paige because of 'seniority'
 
sadiehawkins said:
Your point is? Because he started with paige he is paige's equal. I got it. Lets see i started with a all state player in 1970 that makes me his equal. Man I feel better now. Paige will be in the NBA. Gesell will be playing ball at the YMCA. That was just plain dumb logic.
Click to expand...

i think you are being deliberately obtuse. you may have started on the same team with an all state player, but i bet you weren't competing for your spot with the likes of MG. his point was that MG and MP played at the same time on their AAU team. if TU had come to iowa, MG more than likely would still have started at the 2, just like in AAU. Sapp would most likely have been the odd man out in the starting rotation.
 
RSCookie222 said:
So let me get this straight...you thought the best lineup Iowa could have put on the floor would be Williams, Baer, Jok, Uthoff and Woody? Honestly, that is absurd. MG had his issues, there is no doubt about that, but to think that we had better options is crazy. I think Williams will end up being very good, but when he played this year, he played mostly at the 2. He was not ready this year to play significant minutes at the 1 this year.
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Did i say replace both of them. I said "or " not both and yes the team at the end of the year would have been better with one of the three playing. Rather than two guards that can't score or play defense. When you aren't getting it done with these players you try to tweek your lineup. Its funny how 90% of the post on here was how bad are guard play was at the end of yr. At the end of yr we had three guys that couldn't hit water if they were sitting in a boat and that my friend is a fact. You aren't going to win many games like that.
 
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