re: Alabama Basketball Recruiting and Offseason Talk

I wish we were getting the URI game out of the way this year because I expect our 2019 team to be better. It's possible we'll get out of playing it entirely.

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I wish we were getting the URI game out of the way this year because I expect our 2019 team to be better. It's possible we'll get out of playing it entirely.

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Whats wrong with it ?

Kira is all the way into the top 50 in 247s rankings.

We have 5 CB picks for him and Watford and two for Walton.

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Kira is all the way into the top 50 in 247s rankings.

We have 5 CB picks for him and Watford and two for Walton

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Also Walton moved into their top 100 at 88, while Kobe Brown dropped way down to 132. It's amazing how on top of the recruiting game our staff is. A while back everyone was wondering why we weren't going after Brown when he was a borderline top 50 prospect and the clear #2 prospect in Alabama and instead were going after a player like Walton who was pretty much an unknown. They've shown a knack of seeing the players trend upward before it actually happens.

I mentioned Walton on here last year, so you're right that he wasn't an unknown prospect. We still offered before most other teams, and to offer Walton and not Kobe Brown was definitely going against the national trend.

We also have 3 CB picks already for Austin Harvell. Really early for that.

Certainly appears that we’re focused on instate talent the next few classes.

I wouldn’t just brush off Kentucky like you’re doing. I’ve heard from 2 different good sources that he’s always wanted to play there, and they both said we better hope they don’t offer him. That doesn’t mean 100% that he’ll go to Kentucky, but they’ll definitely be a legit threat if they start recruiting him hard and if they offer him soon

Getting Watford and Lewis, or at least one, is a must. TBH, if we can't build a fence around the state, there is no realistic way that we can build a consistently successful program. Grant and Gottfried couldn't keep enough of the in-state talent at home, and that was a major reason for their downfalls.

Failure to sign in state talent had literally nothing to do with Grant failing to build a consistent program. Mostly because there was very little of it while he was here. He could have maybe gotten one or both of Cousins and Bledsoe if he had a year or two to recruit them, but he had no such opportunity. Otherwise who could he have maybe signed that he didn't? William Lee? Isaac Haas? It would have been nice to have those guys, but they wouldn't have changed the direction of the program. Avery has gotten pretty lucky. Last year had a really good crop of in state players, and so does next year. Both are as good or better than any Grant ever got.