A Sea Of Red

A friend asked me this today. The question is who was the highest ranked or sought after Basketball recruit that LU landed or stole ever? I gave hime my answers, but I want to see yours.

I vote Curry.

who played or signed?

Chip Richmond was a top 25 player and a mcdonald's all-american and Antonio Burks was a top 100 player. Both signed LOI's to Liberty but both never set foot on campus.

some say James Lang would've been at Liberty if it weren't for the NBA.

who played at Liberty?

maybe Curry?

OK, let's go out of HS and actually played. I don't see how Curry fits since he wasn't really prized out of HS. He fell out of the big guys radar.

Curry, based on his last name alone.

But at the time, noone else wanted him.

Monceaux. 4 or 5 stars i think.

Tim Scarborough or Eric Sorensen. Dub

R i wrote:Mornaux. 4 or 5 stars i think.

Man, the most prized recruit we ever got and people don't even know his name.

In all seriousness, I think every school on earth realized all of Monceaux's accolades were due to him playing in some rinky dink HS league with no competition.

Baird was rated fairly high with some big boy offers. Every good player we've ever had seems like they were not ranked very high, but rankings are also influenced by offers. So us offering isn't a big help. The entire "Magnificent 7" class (that should be seniors this year) were thought of as pretty decent Big South gets.

Most recently: Carter and Baird

Seth was not highly recruited at all.

I believe Marcus White was rated in the top 100 by at least one major recruiting service, which I'm pretty sure is the highest of anyone who actually played for Liberty.

Jeremy Monceaux set a lot of scoring records in HS, but everyone knew it was against extremely weak competition. I don't recall him being rated that highly.

Richmond and Burks were a part of Hanky's "top 25" class, most of which never even made it to school. Mel knew that neither was going to qualify academically, but it gave him some good pub. I don't think either was quite as highly rated as 09 said though. More like 100 for Richmond and 300 for Burks. Burks actually ended up having a brief NBA career.

LUconn wrote:

R i wrote:Mornaux. 4 or 5 stars i think.

Man, the most prized recruit we ever got and people don't even know his name.

Even you had to look it up.

Larry Blair was pretty highly recruited as well.

Yea, I was going to say Blair or Dees. What about Aluma or Nwosu, were either highly regarded?

Julius and Peter were totally off the recruiting radar screen. Meyer and RD heard about them from a connection they had and basically recruited them off the playground in Nigeria.

Rooster Cogburn wrote:Yea, I was going to say Blair or Dees. What about Aluma or Nwosu, were either highly regarded?

Blair > Dees

R i wrote:

LUconn wrote:

R i wrote:Mornaux. 4 or 5 stars i think.

Man, the most prized recruit we ever got and people don't even know his name.

Even you had to look it up.

Nah, that was my time at LU. He got really hyped up around campus. Mr. I-hold-every-record-in-alabama-high-school-basketball. And then was just completely below average, and then hurt, and then gone.

LUconn wrote:Nah, that was my time at LU. He got really hyped up around campus. Mr. I-hold-every-record-in-alabama-high-school-basketball. And then was just completely below average, and then hurt, and then gone.

Yeah but all the girls loved him!

Depends on your definition of prized. Jesse Sanders didn't turn out too bad did he, and I don't think he had many stars hooked to his name? I still chaps my behind how Scruggs dropped the ball on getting him here after his brother had a great career at GW.

LUconn wrote:
Nah, that was my time at LU. He got really hyped up around campus. Mr. I-hold-every-record-in-alabama-high-school-basketball. And then was just completely below average, and then hurt, and then gone.

among other things...over rated is the nicest way to put it

best player since I have been associated with LU is clearly Larry Blair, but I don't follow much about recruiting so I have no idea if he was recruited by any major programs or not. I think I remember hearing he was, but honestly don't remember. He was the best player while I was there and I don't think there has been anybody sense that has been better. Its just too bad there was so much turnover while he was here with key players transferring in and out on a regular basis.

I don't have an answer for out of HS recruits but big name transfers have come in:

Carl Williams - WVU
Parrish Hickman - Michigan State
Dwight Brewington - Providence
TJ Bannister - Virginia
Cordell Robinson - USC
Bailey Alston - Rutgers

It is true that Chris Weber once had Liberty on his very short list late in his recruitment.

Steve Farquhar - he did lead the nation in scoring.

g-webb1994 wrote:Depends on your definition of prized. Jesse Sanders didn't turn out too bad did he, and I don't think he had many stars hooked to his name? I still chaps my behind how Scruggs dropped the ball on getting him here after his brother had a great career at GW.

G-W had no chance of landing Jesse. He committed to Rice early and would have been an Owl had Rice not canned Willis Wilson. It was Coach Wilson who recommended to Jesse that he consider LU. Of course, Thomas was recruited out of HS by Coach Eaker when he was at UT-Pan Am.

Jesse was a 2-star prospect primarily because of his homeschool background. Most local experts had him among the best players in Houston coming out of HCYA but national services all downgrade homeschool kids.

SCAR wrote:I don't have an answer for out of HS recruits

But you say you are the Liberty Basketball expert in your sig. Come on I rely on you here. Give it a try.

I think Scar is making a subtle statement with his reply.

And for the record, up until about 10 years ago there really wasn't the focus on recruiting services. The only way you could judge a kid was by competing offers. We had quite a few kids back in the day who picked us over offers from schools that many would have considered a big step up from where we stood.