(2023) - C Xavier Booker to Michigan State

[Demo]

Best of luck to the young man when he’s not playing IU. We’ll see if Izzo can find the kid’s on switch. 

[Hovadipo]

That’s a shame. Anyway,,,,,

[Stuhoo]

No knock on Booker; but what he loves about MSU’s style of play? “Michigan State’s playing style, I can really see myself fitting into it. They let their bigs rock out, handle the ball and shoot. They don’t limit them to certain things and they just let them play off their strengths… They won’t limit me.“

Have you ever seen a big guy commit and say:

“I LOOOVE Leaping Penguin University’s playing style, I can really see myself fitting into it. They tell their bigs to rock out by getting their collective ***** down to the low block so that they can hip check someone in the nuts. Never gonna have to handle the ball and shoot. They will damn sure limit me to certain things and they just let me play off my strengths. My strengths are most certainly NOT shooting, dribbling the ball, creating for myself and creating for my teammates. They will limit me. I fully understand why.”

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

Wish him well but this wasn’t any crippling recruiting loss for our program.

[Brass Cannon]

Wish him well but something was off about this. Reminded me a lot of landers recruitment.  
 

To go from a Top 10 list to a decision in a week just makes me think that teams we dropping out of the recruitment.  And the fact that none of the top players were involved makes me really skeptical.  
 

As a person I wish him well. But I despise MSU so I hope nothing good for his basketball career going forward. 
 

Hopefully we get the guys that Woodson is wanting.  Although getting one soon would feel better 

[Trish]

Dane Fife’s Last Gift to Indiana 
 

[ebridges24]

Kinda doubt we'll ever se how good he can be as a college player

[WayneFleekHoosier]

To me that’s clearly a shot at Indiana. Whatever happened here, there seems to be some bad blood. Whatever, I guess. 2023 recruiting doesn’t have me too impressed for Indiana but Booker probably wasn’t the fit we were looking for, I guess.

To me, Booker played a back seat role at his HS to win. He flourished with the ball in his hands in AAU. Maybe his HS will need him more this year and he’ll be unstoppable. Probably will be. Always a bummer missing this type of talent but something was off. Dane Fife was a double agent? Lol.


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[WayneFleekHoosier]

Dane Fife’s Last Gift to Indiana 
 

Woof. Odd to say the least. Double agent Fife to the rescue.


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[cthomas]

2 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Woof. Odd to say the least. Double agent Fife to the rescue.


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Fife and IU didn't part on the best of terms, so I kind of expected that kind of reaction from him. I don't know why it didn't work here for Fife, other than the allegations I saw on the internet, but I clearly didn't and it didn't pretty quick. I never really got the feeling that we were in a great position with Booker and wasn't thinking he would be part of this class. I hope he finds the success he wants, as I do for all kids, and he gets to live his dream. I have great faith in CMW and staff and believe we will be just fine.

[Uspshoosier]

Wasn’t hard to follow where this recruitment was going.   Bread crumbs where there from the beginning.    Clearly woody was hesitant from the start.   Interviews early on talked about his relationship with the head coaches but when mentioning IU he mentioned the assistant coaches.     Some people questioned early on if IU would push hard and that would come down to the head coaches involvement.  They were right. Just follow where the coaches go first during the recruiting periods.  Multiple other recruits where higher on the priority list and it showed.   Give credit to Sparty for sticking with him through the good and bad( 0 points against Tech).   Ton of talent but also ton of unanswered questions moving forward.    Wish him the best moving forward.   This is one of those situations where the fan bases will probably view this as a bigger loss then the programs that actually recruited him.  I’m glad this recruitment is over 

[Stuhoo]

Glad that Booker committed relatively early.

Saves us time, attention and effort that can now be directed toward others.

[Hoosierfan2017]

5 hours ago, Trish said:

Dane Fife’s Last Gift to Indiana 
 

Such a tool. I never understood why people liked him so much. Very glad Woody fired him. 

[lillurk]

Just remembering Ben Carter playing 22 minutes and Jaren Jackson 15, perhaps relevant to this decision https://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/2018/03/syracuse_basketballs_masterful_game_plan_leads_to_improbable_upset_over_michigan.html

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401025873

[JerryYeagley23]

I had it at 5% chance with him realistically a few months back, and that was only because crazy things happen. But this wasn’t a fit from the beginning. Surprised he even had us in his top ten. 

[lillurk]

The “happy trails” section at the end of this roundup is interesting: https://mgoblog.com/content/hoops-recruiting-centers-attention-4

[go iu bb]

2 hours ago, lillurk said:

The “happy trails” section at the end of this roundup is interesting: https://mgoblog.com/content/hoops-recruiting-centers-attention-4

That pretty well sums up how I feel about him. He has the potential to be a really great player but it says a lot when a player his size with his skillset doesn't attract much interest from schools like Duke, UNC, UK, KU. He had offers from 2 of those but they didn't recruit him hard. I see his recruitment as similar to Lander - highly ranked but ignored by those blue bloods.

I'm not upset about missing on him, I don't think he'll come close to realizing his potential. Even when he exploded, it was in AAU ball and not high school. Not as much defense being played, less (or no?) scouting, teams aren't as cohesive, etc.

[rayl456]

5 hours ago, lillurk said:

The “happy trails” section at the end of this roundup is interesting: https://mgoblog.com/content/hoops-recruiting-centers-attention-4

Let Izzo deal with this headache.