Playing Scared, Plus Recruiting Quandaries
We know all it's been a rotten month on the hard court for MSU. I'm hoping there's a well-informed hoops mind out there -- Scott Skiles come to mind -- who can shed some light on what's going on below the surface. Plus there are a couple of recruiting issues whose pieces don't quite fit together in my mind. Looking for informed input:
1. Basketball -- confusion and timidness have been all over the Spartans' faces since the early February. Beginning with that painful game in Madison, I have been watching a Spartan team that looks freaked by the aggression of its better opponents. MSU's confidence evaporates over and over when challenged by the best Big Ten competition, and sometimes not really the best as now illustrated outside the Big Ten by ho-hum Florida, UNC, and a recently declining Texas.
We've all seen Green, Summers, Lucas, Luscious, Roe and Allen when they're really "on" as in last March. Remember how until the NCAA final -- against a massively aggressive and talented UNC team -- they were lighting up the court with speed, confidence, and awesome rebounding? And, I don't buy that NBA dreams are the major reason for the downfall.
So, given that most of that obvious talent returned this year, what's got these guys looking freaked, weak, and frozen every time an aggressive OSU, PU, UW or even Illinois gets in their faces? I can't think of any other richly talented team this year that looks so emotionally weak -- ready to back off whenever seriously challenged -- and who among us isn't still trying to get a grip on this?
2. Recruiting tidbits: First, why was Baquer Sayed, a promising Dearborn Fordson receiver who had MSU as a priority target, left out to dry? It seems like we needed a quality receiver to finish off the 2010 class. Is there a walk-on arrangement for his first year that we missed in the media? He's got a 3.7 GPA, three stars and a solid enough 5.5 rating from Rivals, and on the surface looks like a steal. What's up with bypassing this solid and very interested recruit?
http://rivals.yahoo.com/michiganstate/football/recruiting/player-Baquer-Sayed-93702
Likewise, I don't see any substance on the web about Trey Zeigler, a four-star shooting guard who would put the class nearly even with OSU's. Does his dad (CMU coach) have a dinner-table agreement that he won't commit until the NCAA has certified that CMU cannot and will not make the NCAA tournament within 10 years? (And, with many CMU friends I'm a bit of a fan for them, but they've just got no tradition, conference appeal, or recruiting power to launch the hoops program.) Maybe it's complicated at home, but it seems to me the kid's got to want to play for a major winning program. Furthermore, MSU is far and away the best hoops program on his list of schools:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/michiganstate/basketball/recruiting/player-Trey-Zeigler-54919
Again, what gives?
