Green impressions

The biggest news Thursday might have been the fact that the MSU coaching staff can spend the rest of the summer working on a 2009 class that has the potential to be the best in school history -- while most other schools are battling it out over 2008 prospects.

That's one of the major benefits of Saginaw's Draymond Green deciding on MSU. Make no mistake, though, Green can have significant value to the Spartans on the court. I just think it will take some time.

I saw Green in the Class A title game this year, and he wowed everyone with his variety of skills. He's a nice player, a 6-6 'tweener with great hands and instincts. His game has some flavor, some flash, and he has a personality to match. The fans will like him. Some day, if he gets his body toned and gains some explosion, he can be a very good Big Ten forward.

But don't be unrealistic. Green is joining a team that will be loaded with players in 2008. The frontcourt will have Roe, Gray, Suton, Herzog, Ibok and Raymar Morgan, assuming (and I do) that he's still around. Green could probably redshirt if he wanted to, but if that luxury doesn't sound enticing, he'll have to scrap for minutes.

Green's coach, Lou Dawkins, addressed that today and said (paraphrasing) that he had never seen Delvon Roe play, but that there was no reason Green should have to take a backseat to anyone, and that he'll have an immediate impact.

He should probably watch Roe play.

But hey, he's sticking up for his player, who scored 22.5 a game last season and led his team to a championship. That winning experience is always a nice asset for a player. And Green has a great chance to be Mr. Basketball in '08, with Flint guard Noopy Crater (Ohio State) the main competition.

And let's not forget how good the Saginaw-Flint area has been to MSU. It's never a bad thing to land another player from that region, to keep the pipeline fresh. And one more thing: MSU kept Green from Michigan, where he would have helped the Wolverines. This recruitment apparently got a bit snippy at the end, with future battles (DaShonte Riley) between these staffs directly ahead.

All in all, today was a productive day for MSU basketball. If Green puts in the work, I expect he'll have an important role for the 2009-10 Spartans.

NOTE: Dray day knocks out trivia, so I'l flip flop and bring a question Friday. This is going to be a tough one, I promise, after it only took two responses for the correct answer last week.

Comments

[Herb Riedel]

Can we smell some Final Fours in the near future?

[Michael Motta]

I'm glad Izzo landed Green. But I noticed something mildly alarming when I read Joe's main (non blog) write-up on this story: http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070629/GW0201/706290344/1023

National services have Green ranked 72nd and 78th nationally, while Sam Posey Jr. ranks Green #1 in the state of Michigan. What?! Isn't Michigan, despite our other troubles, supposed to be one of the better states in terms of basketball talent? Even if we weren't, by population alone, our best player should rank in the Top 15 nationally. To me it seems like rather than having our best player ranked in the 70s nationally, we should have about 5 inside of the Top 80!

Is this just because of the subjectivity of ratings, or is it just an off year, or is this a trend?

[TDP]

Motta,

If you want to call it that, you could call it an "off-year" but if you've read the reviews on Green, he seems very hard to put into a box.

His skills make him very unique as a player and I think that makes it harder for analysts to assign him a national number.

There is some talent in-state in 08 (Green, Crater, Paul Williams, etc) but not to the level of 07 or to what's coming in 09.

That being said, I love the 07 and 08 classes. We are absolutely LOADED for the forseeable future and if Izzo can bring in Howell (we're the favorites) and Riley in 09, we should definitely be hanging more banners in the Breslin.

[Joe Rexrode]

Good observation, Michael, and yes, I'd say 2008 is absolutely an aberration. The 2009 and 2010 in-state classes should have multiple top-75 players in them, including some (Riley) who may be top 15.

[righthrough4msu]

Howell is the last of my worries. We have Royce White the #18 prospect interseted in us, Dexter Strickland the #11prospect, and Ari Stewart the #19 prospect looking at us and gerogia. I believe we have 4scholarships open for 09 so that means we could have a class consisting of all top 20 players.

[GreenMiles]

Noopy? I hope that's a nickname.

[Michael Motta]

GreenMiles,

Yeah, Noopy ranks right up there with Mookie (Wilson) and Scoonie (Penn).

Joe and TDP,

Thanks for your responses. I'm a big fan of MSU sports across the board but I'm not anything approaching a prep basketball talent expert. I think basketball recruiting has become an even bigger deal than football recruiting now. Maybe this is because it seems easier to extrapolate from prep performance to collegiate performance in basketball than it is in football.