Jermaine Lawrence leaving Cincinati

[GumbyDamnit!]

All well and good but what is the use of looking at how a player is rated coming out of HS when you can see what kind of player he is at the college level, today. Case in point, if DMcBuckets was still around he would not have made your list BillM. Does that make any sense? Of course not.

In Nova's case, you missed Pinkston. McD's AA but I think he was a 4*, not a 5. Also Hilliard may be our best player next year yet he was not highly touted by anyone coming out of HS, except Jay Wright.

[Amase2]

Oh, my. Well, this is HUGE! Suddenly if we land Lawrence we now have the top JUCO rebounder, a 7 foot center project, and a former 5 star forward. It looks like the stars are aligning. Losing Lawrence to Cincy hurt really bad. He's a Queens kid born and bred. It was down to us and Cincy. Word is he wants to be closer to home and play small forward. Well guess what? St. John's of Queens needs a small forward like a 300 lb man in 100 degree heat needs water! We simply have to land this kid. If it's true he wants to be closer to home and wants more playing time and freedom then he should easily be ours. If he signs elsewhere it would be disastrous. This is a home run. All logic and sense points to him returning to Queens, but you just never know...sometimes kids make terrible decisions. We better get him.

Harrison will be a well-seasoned senior, Jordan coming off a ROY caliber season will improve as a soph, I believe Branch will be a junior, and Greene will be a senior. Obekpa will be a junior, we get 23 year old rebounding machine Thomas, a 7 foot project center, and now possibly a former 5 star forward aka the 6'9 Lawrence.

If we land this kid which by all accounts we should, this team will go from middle of the pack to being a failure finishing any worse than 3rd. The only teams with more talent would be G'Town and Nova. I think losing Sampson and Sanchez may actually help us...their shot selections were terrible and they played submissive in the paint. They were finesse players, not meat and potatoes role players. They took a lot of points away from our guards. If we let our guards be our scorers, let the big guys rebound, and let Lawrence clean up inside, this team could be very good. I won't hold my breath because we usually underachieve, but the potential is definitely there.

GET LAWRENCE!

Interesting question. IF St. John's lands Lawrence and IF he gets a hardship to play right away, would St. John's have the most talent in the league. I'll use the rating coming out of high school to measure pure talent and I'll focus on 4 and 5 star players as elite talents because everyone in this league has 3 star players. In the case of St. John's, that means I'll be ignoring Branch, Greene, and Thomas even though they are valuable assets. I'm sure I'll miss someone, so help me out where that happens.

ST. JOHN'S

5* Jordan
5* Lawrence
4* Harrison
4* Obepka

CREIGHTON

4* Harrell

VILLANOVA

4* Arcidiacono
4* Ochefu
4* Hart
4* Jenkins
4* Booth
4* Bridges

PROVIDENCE

5* Dunn
4* Desrosiers
4* Bentil
4* Lindsey
4* Chukwu

XAVIER

4* Martin
4* Davis
4* Reynolds
4* Randolph
4* Bluett
4* London
4* Sumner
4* Macura

MARQUETTE

4* Anderson
4* Taylor
4* Johnson
4* Wilson
4* Burton
4* Cohen

GEORGETOWN

4* Adams
4* Hopkins
4* Smith-Rivera
4* Cameron
4* Copeland
4* White
4* Peak
4* Campbell

SETON HALL

5* Whitehead
4* Delgado

BUTLER

4* Dunham

DEPAUL

4* Garrett

Only ones I can tell you off the top of my head you missed are the st johns guys. Branch was 4* top 60 out of high school and pointer was rated as high as 25th in the country and unanimous 4* (crazy right??)

[Bill Marsh]

Thanks for the input guys. Greatly appreciated. I didn't have time to give the list a whole lot of thought. How could I have missed Austin, for example. Don't we have a thread here exclusively about him? Duh!

Pretty impressive list when you step back and look at it. A lot of elite talent in this league when you think of it. 4* or better pretty much means a top 50 player or close to it. Not a whole lot of 5* players!but I think most coaches not named Calipari would prefer to have players for 3-4 years rather than one-and-done. If that means dropping a notch for MCDonald's All Americans in talent level, I think most coaches can live with that.

I have revised the list to reflect your input. Again greatly appreciate the help.

[Bill Marsh]

All well and good but what is the use of looking at how a player is rated coming out of HS when you can see what kind of player he is at the college level, today. Case in point, if DMcBuckets was still around he would not have made your list BillM. Does that make any sense? Of course not.

In Nova's case, you missed Pinkston. McD's AA but I think he was a 4*, not a 5. Also Hilliard may be our best player next year yet he was not highly touted by anyone coming out of HS, except Jay Wright.

Thanks for Pinkston. I forgot that he has one more year.

The point of using high school ratings is that I believe they reflect an assessment of pure talent. How that talent is later developed both by coaches and the player himself is a whole other matter. I may be wrong in taking this approach, but for better or worse that's how I did it.

[SJHooper]

I realize rankings aren't everything but let's be honest…most of the time the biggest stars in college hoops are the 4 and 5 star guys. So I'd rather roll the dice on a 5 than a 2 and pray he plays like a 5. Lawrence can almost certainly get a hardship waiver…his father has cancer and he wants to be close to him. How would they not grant that? This means he can play immediately. SJ makes by far the most sense…but something almost tells me it's too good to be true. It's too perfect…the kind of thing that doesn't break for us even though it's a perfect fit. We will see.

[hoyahooligan]

I realize rankings aren't everything but let's be honest…most of the time the biggest stars in college hoops are the 4 and 5 star guys. So I'd rather roll the dice on a 5 than a 2 and pray he plays like a 5. Lawrence can almost certainly get a hardship waiver…his father has cancer and he wants to be close to him. How would they not grant that? This means he can play immediately. SJ makes by far the most sense…but something almost tells me it's too good to be true. It's too perfect…the kind of thing that doesn't break for us even though it's a perfect fit. We will see.

I mean there is talk about doing away with waivers altogether( not sure when they are planning on initiating this) but it sounds like he has a strong case if they still grant waivers as they have in the past.

I frankly do not like the hardship waiver. I'm fully in support of the Graduate Transfer Waiver, but I think if you're moving close to home to be with a sick parent you'd embrace having to sit a year because it would give you more time to actually spend with that sick relative.

[Bearcat_Bounce]

Lawrence is a good kid but I believe he has been feeling home sick since the end of the season. There is also some conflicts with his "handlers" demanding that he plays the 3 spot when he is really more of a stretch 4 that cannot shoot three pointers. I wish him the best of luck but he's going to need to try to become his own man.

[SJHooper]

Lawrence is a good kid but I believe he has been feeling home sick since the end of the season. There is also some conflicts with his "handlers" demanding that he plays the 3 spot when he is really more of a stretch 4 that cannot shoot three pointers. I wish him the best of luck but he's going to need to try to become his own man.

How is his jump shooting? Can he box out?

[hoops22]

It's official, he's asked for and been given his release from Cincinnati. May have to still sit out a year though. Be great if he winds up at St. Johns.

[Bearcat_Bounce]

It's official, he's asked for and been given his release from Cincinnati. May have to still sit out a year though. Be great if he winds up at St. Johns.

His father is apparently ill, so he may be able to get a hardship and is definitely looking at schools in the NY area. I wish him the best.