So Vanderbilt just picked up a 5* Forward..

[Fsgolfdr]

OK. I agree. I'm stupid. You're a racist.

I’d be concerned if someone whose not stupid thought I was a racist !
Ps... Does that also include Caucasians , Native Americans , Asians , Hispanics or other that play bb and Fb at Vandy ?

 

[PhilipVU94]

Before moving to Nashville, Garland
was from Gary, IN, and went to Homer Drew's camp at Valparaiso. The relationship between him and Bryce dates back to years before they both moved to Nashville.

Langford (who will decide in the spring) has supposedly become close friends with Garland and was watching Garland's decision closely. Shittu, not sure (think he had become friends too), it's clear he's an impressive young man who doesn't embody the negative values of MCBB. Just watch a few seconds:



MCBB is certainly a dirty sport but there are also very understandable reasons why Garland would sign with us, and he seems to be the linchpin for the other two.

 

[PhilipVU94]

It's pretty simple. Vanderbilt now has a much better coach than they had and he knows how to recruit.

Kevin improved our recruiting quite a bit from the previous coach, who recruited OK for a while but by his last year in 2000 had just stopped bothering to recruit. KS also developed talent well. Freije, Mario Moore, Byars (xfer), Shan Foster, Jeff Taylor, and Wade Baldwin are all the type of players we weren't landing previously. (John Jenkins was local and a fan of VU, and Luke Kornet was a legacy, so let's suppose they were going to Vandy anyway.)

Kevin's anger control problem wasn't an impediment to winning championships in 1987 but now is rightly considered borderline abusive. Each year fewer kids are willing to put up with this style is dwindling, so he can't just limit recruiting to kids who respond well to Verbally Abusive Dad. But he's also too stubborn to change.

If everything falls into place--if he finds those guys and they happen to be talented and join his program--he'll have a good year. If not, he'll have a chemistry disaster. When your abrasive personality manages to piss off your bosses, the rest of the AD staff, and the donors, you'd better hope everything falls into place, every year. Even Bob Knight got away with it until he stopped winning so much.

 

[PhilipVU94]

Every day makes stallings looks like a bigger dope.

As detailed above, we had some luck with Garland which set us up for a big recruiting year. But there's no reason to think Garland would have been interested in playing for someone with Kevin's personality. Some guys are, who knows?

 

[PhilipVU94]

Anyone ever think that maybe Vanderbilt decided they couldn’t win and loosened up their recruiting ethics ?

One area where I'm pretty sure they've loosened up is one-and-dones. More generally, college admissions is weird. Coach K gets players into Duke because his administration trusts that they'll stay on course to graduate and not embarrass the institution. Kevin had that kind of trust at VU at times, but I'm not sure if it was consistent. Bryce seems to have it.

See above about consequences of acting like a jerk. Be nice to people on the way up, because you're gonna meet them again on the way down.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Vanderbilt is one of the best schools in the country. It is known as the Harvard of the South, in the sense that it was well funded as an alternative for Southern elites to have a top university in the South. You cannot underestimate its prestige.

You know what I never realized? Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt

 

[lunzhegu]

SMF, you're right that Anderson Cooper is a descendant of the Vanderbilts. Although you didn't imply so, he did not attend Vanderbilt but rather went to college at Yale.

 

[R-M-U-h-o-o-p-s-f-a-n]

Paul zeise is a complete moron. He was on the fan last night saying he could see this team winning 4-5 ACC games.

I don’t get it?

Probably basing it all off of the 6 point loss to Oklahoma St too