BBALL: Wahoo & Vol Hoops Fans - We just Lost Elliot Williams

[RaiderWahoo0105]

Elliot (E-Mail)to the Evil Empire - In Durham, NC - LINK

[rebelron]

According to Rob Lewis Williams is going to Duke. That sucks out loud. I hate seeing instate players go somewhere else. I could understand kids leaving when Jerry Green and Buzz Peterson were here. With Bruce Pearl coaching here and the system he plays kids should be wanting to play for UT. Especially the instate kids.

[gcdevil22]

Pearl got a recruiting coup when he got Smith, Crews and Chism...with that said, all were interested in UT before Pearl got there

his second class wasn't nearly as heralded but picked up transfers J.P. Prince and Tyler Smith

while I really like Pearl as a coach and really really like the way he does different things with his D, particularly the full court trap...with all that in mind, Pearl has yet to be a big name to recruits across the nation, and that's not to say he won't get there, he is just 2 years removed from Wisconsin-Milwaukee so the name "Pearl" just doesn't resonate right now

and as far as in-state recruits, you really cannot apply principles of football recruiting to basketball, they are two entirely different processes, basketball is much much wilder and more "regional-based" whereas in football you concentrate on locking up your home state...so don't sweat on losing out on in-state kid

football does not have anything that rivals what AAU does for basketball, and what AAU does is creates many opportunities for coaches to gather in one single place and watch and/or talk to (recruit) a good number of prospects in a weekend...but in football, you gotta go to a bunch of different camps that are regional based and even then they might not be going against the best competition

so it really doesn't matter what state you are from in basketball, if you are good and you are at an AAU event, you will have all the big boys knockin on your door

anyway, back to UT recruiting, they need to pick up a big man in case Crews never makes it back to the team, and if they're serious about taking it to the next level they will need to be much deeper in the froncourt than they are, and will need to pick up some shooters for '08-'09 to replace what Lofton will be leaving behind

[TheBeast]

Only bad part is we aren't the in-staters for football either.

[CoeburnCane]

I'm happy. Guess you guys can look forward to recruiting Leslie McDonald though for the '09 class.

[pvfan]

Cane, as a Duke fan are you getting nervous? Looks to me like UNC is returning to their old ways and it's going to be UNC vs. the ACC again. It was Duke/Maryland now it's UNC then everyone else you can even make an argument that NC. St. has passed Duke/Maryland.

[SuckMyVols]

Crews is already back...he started practicing Monday. Link