Demo

In the pursuit of the low cost and very, very break the glass big, UNC signs High Point transfer Ivan Matlekovic. Kid played in 5 games and scored a total of 13 points and now he’s in Chapel Hill.

Like this kid a fair bit and it’s curious he hasn’t landed at some post-grad program or JC yet.

On campus, per Lasley. In time to sort of get up to speed before Puerto Rico.

“There was a long stretch where Wilkerson didn’t miss a shot.” Yeah

Yeah, the fact that he’s good with the idea of redshirting in the current landscape speaks pretty highly of both him and the people around him. Like it a lot.

https://www.si.com/college/indiana/basketball/indiana-basketball-landed-baby-jokic-high-ceiling-center-andrej-acimovic-01k1bp9mv0kc Pretty good read with information on his actual recruitment piece that I haven’t seen elsewhere. Also says he has a 7’2” wingspan and a 9’ standing reach which if true probably does make him legitimately 6’10”-6’11”. Side note: haven’t gotten into the kid yet but there is no such thing as a “baby Jokic.” Jokic is singular and calling any kid baby Jokic is idiotic.

Do we have any timetable on Ristic getting to town? Assumed he’d be on the Puerto Rico trip even if he didn’t play much but if anything’s come out I missed it.

Happy Birthday to Geddy Lee, who’s 72 today. Weird as this sounds I didn’t think he was that young. That means he would have been 21 or so when they did 2112. This is a pretty wildly ornate piece of music for kids to put out.

Maybe not. Final 5 of IU, PU, Maryland, Arizona and UConn.

6 visits in 6 days. Don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that.

Bravo

https://x.com/prince_a_moody/status/1949922653457834044 Prince doing Prince things. That kid cannot stop thanking people. A Senior Day speech from him might take all day. Pretty nice highlight video as well.

Ya know, I get why they want to keep some lid on this stuff. Practices, private scrimmages, sure. And you know someone like Cal would be all over a streaming charge for practices. But public games with actual tickets for sale? C'mon, it's silly not to make that stuff available.

And the winning school is Oak Cliff Faith Family Academy. Same school the Placide twins will at this year.

Need to track down his club teams. Since almost all of the Euroclubs have YouTube pages and FIBA archives pretty much everything finding actual games of his should be pretty straightforward.

Nope. That’s Lazar Gacic. Played with Ristic in the FIBA U20’s. Know nothing at all about this kid. Something to do tonight.

Transferring to Spire Academy, the school Kevin Boyle left Montverde for, for his senior year.

Have never felt for a second that this one was a thing but, hey, top 6 is top 6.

Not really sure why, but I feel pretty good against that list.

Wow, missed that hire completely. Can see the logic but, man, can’t imagine they couldn’t do better than that. He’s not Woody, but he’s not Kevin Young, either.

ESPN continuing their pursuit of being as insubstantial as possible.

I really wish ESPN wasn’t part of the formula, at least in basketball. They just don’t put the same number of eyes on these kids as the other services, particularly down board kids, and they’re gonna skew some results. Not like it matters in any substantive way but it is annoying.

KU will be a really interesting job to watch when it comes open. Pre-NIL it was 1 of the big 4 jobs. Now I kind of don’t think so. I’m not sure at this point it’s any better a job than IU, which is really good with a high ceiling but not UK/UNC/Duke. Their fans will be talking about a Oats/Golden/Hurley type and I’m willing to bet it’s gonna be closer to DDV.

Per Ryan McDivitt and a couple of other places, Allmond’s plan is to announce 10/13, which evidently is his birthday. Was hoping for sooner but there ya go.

Imagine this will be Self’s last year. Legacy is secure. NIL has mitigated some of his advantage. Has had a pretty decent array of health stuff. Has young grand kids. Would be really good on TV. Would be stupid to push the envelope and he’s not a stupid guy.