Recruiting: 2020

[JD24]

Just from the tape you can see the raw ability the coaches saw. He seems like a big body for a high school senior. I honestly have no clue. Hopefully he turns out to be a stud. I'm more curious on what this means for the roster construction. Our front will be made up of Mileek, Emil, Clay (versatile player), Krikke, Ognacevic. Some of those guys can play 3-4 hopefully.

Anyone else curious why Sheldon Edwards average 21 ppg 7 rpg 3 steals and 2 apg....and had to go to prep school out of high school?  And all this in the biggest class in FL (7A/8A) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/highschool/fl-sp-7a-8a-all-state-hoops-20190425-story.html%3foutputType=amp

I suppose that he was only getting interest from high majors and he wanted a different fit!  Just kidding of course.  I have no idea but it is a very valid question.  On the surface we got a big time stud--but why??  Could have been an academic issue or a guy with talent who wasn't as focused on academics as he needed to be or, perhaps an injury of some sort that get the other schools to back off.  Anyway, what is our connection?  How did we find this kid in the first place?

Lottich said they were looking at another kid and this kid was lighting it up.

[vu72]

Jacob off to a strong start this season!

https://www.maxpreps.com/m/athlete/jacob-ognacevic/fxynjqbOEeeT-Oz0u-e-FA/videos.htm

[wh]

Jacob off to a strong start this season!

https://www.maxpreps.com/m/athlete/jacob-ognacevic/fxynjqbOEeeT-Oz0u-e-FA/videos.htm

You have to endure about 5 long commercials sandwiched between short video clips before you get rewarded with 5 non-stop Jacob highlight minutes.  It's worth the wait!

[NativeCheesehead]

Go easy on them. They just got the internet in Wisconsin like 3 years ago.

[FieldGoodie05]

Jacob off to a strong start this season!

https://www.maxpreps.com/m/athlete/jacob-ognacevic/fxynjqbOEeeT-Oz0u-e-FA/videos.htm

You have to endure about 5 long commercials sandwiched between short video clips before you get rewarded with 5 non-stop Jacob highlight minutes.  It's worth the wait!

I must say I am excited to see we have 3 signed already as they enter their final years of high school/prep school.  But I cannot help but look over their Verbal Commits page and notice that Connor and Sheldon have no other offers "closed".  And that Jacob is the only one of the three incoming freshmen next year that had at least other D1 school recruiting him.

Might be the early nature of their signing took away a lot of offers this fall, but I dunno . . .

[VUGrad1314]

Either we have begun to accept our lot as perennial also ran in this conference or we simply got in early. I'm not confident we would beat many regional D1s in comparable conferences right now. It seems like every time we go head to head against another MVC school we lose. We need to step it up on the floor and become one of the credits to and leaders of this conference if we want to realize the full benefits of membership in the MVC. I'm still not sure or convinced that that's something this university is interested in. It feels like we got into our dream conference our forever home and then put our feet up and decided we don't need to strive for any more than what we have. I hope they prove me wrong in the future but I am not optimistic right now at all.

[NativeCheesehead]

I like following recruiting. It's a nice preview of coming attractions. But we don't have a clue how these kids will turn out. Right now a former walk on is arguably our third best player. What that portends for conference play is to be seen.

[vu72]

I like following recruiting. It's a nice preview of coming attractions. But we don't have a clue how these kids will turn out. Right now a former walk on is arguably our third best player. What that portends for conference play is to be seen.

I think we have to give our coaches credit for getting in early on kids and staying with them as their skills grow and blossom.  I think that is what happened with Jacob who will be/is a top 5 player coming out of Wisconsin.  Think of Donovan who grew a bunch late and was something like a top 125 kid in Illinois going into his senior year and finished as a 1st team all state guy.

[vok22]

It's really baffling how people could complain about our recruiting the past few years. Javon and Clay were top players out of Illinois. The freshman class clearly has a lot of potential. Sackey is a starting point guard as a sophomore, and has shown that he is deserving of that. He's not perfect, but he's only a sophomore. Jacob Ognacevic goes to the same school Sam Dekker did and is breaking his records while receiving praise from Sams dad. The guy from Florida can score against good competition. I love John Kiser and he is very important because of his consistency, rebounding, and hustling, but he's not the third best player on the team, and if he is it's because the other candidates are underclassmen that aren't consistent yet.

[wh]

It's really baffling how people could complain about our recruiting the past few years. Javon and Clay were top players out of Illinois. The freshman class clearly has a lot of potential. Sackey is a starting point guard as a sophomore, and has shown that he is deserving of that. He's not perfect, but he's only a sophomore. Jacob Ognacevic goes to the same school Sam Dekker did and is breaking his records while receiving praise from Sams dad. The guy from Florida can score against good competition. I love John Kiser and he is very important because of his consistency, rebounding, and hustling, but he's not the third best player on the team, and if he is it's because the other candidates are underclassmen that aren't consistent yet.

Good positive post. I agree with every word.

[FieldGoodie05]

It's really baffling how people could complain about our recruiting the past few years. Javon and Clay were top players out of Illinois. The freshman class clearly has a lot of potential. Sackey is a starting point guard as a sophomore, and has shown that he is deserving of that. He's not perfect, but he's only a sophomore. Jacob Ognacevic goes to the same school Sam Dekker did and is breaking his records while receiving praise from Sams dad. The guy from Florida can score against good competition. I love John Kiser and he is very important because of his consistency, rebounding, and hustling, but he's not the third best player on the team, and if he is it's because the other candidates are underclassmen that aren't consistent yet.

Good positive post. I agree with every word.

No argument here regarding the current roster and solid recruiting.  I think it's ok to bring up questions about a bunch of "unknown" players that truly never got recruited heavily on paper.  Was sort of hoping someone could contribute more buzz around these three young men.  I like Ognacevic tenacity in his high light reals and he did seem to get other mid-major interests.  I don't think any of us have much information on our two prep-school recruits in Connor Barrett and Sheldon Edwards.  I think what I like most about them is they will have had another year of maturing off the court and on before entering our program.

P.S.  It was cool seeing a good number of former player walking around the Arc today.  Even say Jason Hawkins make his way over to Bryce Drew.  Nice to see alumni keeping tight in with the university.

[vu72]

Interesting article about athletes signing Letters of Intent at Brewster Academy, among them is our Conner Barrett.  The really interesting part is who he was playing with!  Others signed to play at Kentucky, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Minnesota and Maryland!  Wow!  What a team and great that Conner got the experience of playing with and practicing against such talent!  May be a real sleeper!

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/community/announcements/record-breaking-letter-of-intent-signing-at-brewster/article_13669d2a-2102-11ea-8e58-a7954a67a304.html

[SanityLost17]

Interesting article about athletes signing Letters of Intent at Brewster Academy, among them is our Conner Barrett.  The really interesting part is who he was playing with!  Others signed to play at Kentucky, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Minnesota and Maryland!  Wow!  What a team and great that Conner got the experience of playing with and practicing against such talent!  May be a real sleeper!

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/community/announcements/record-breaking-letter-of-intent-signing-at-brewster/article_13669d2a-2102-11ea-8e58-a7954a67a304.html

This could be a reflection of what is wrong with high school basketball.  At least half of those guys are going to be complete busts, but their parents paid the money to get them into the right private schools and into the right AAU programs.  A cult up personality type situation.  You are a 3, 4, 5, star recruit because of where you play, not necessarily because you are actually any better than a lot of guys who are multi-sport public school kids.   

I hope he is really good, but it seems to me like we have better luck with under the radar kids who don't get a lot of recruiting attention.

[wh]

Interesting article about athletes signing Letters of Intent at Brewster Academy, among them is our Conner Barrett.  The really interesting part is who he was playing with!  Others signed to play at Kentucky, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Minnesota and Maryland!  Wow!  What a team and great that Conner got the experience of playing with and practicing against such talent!  May be a real sleeper!

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/community/announcements/record-breaking-letter-of-intent-signing-at-brewster/article_13669d2a-2102-11ea-8e58-a7954a67a304.html

This could be a reflection of what is wrong with high school basketball.  At least half of those guys are going to be complete busts, but their parents paid the money to get them into the right private schools and into the right AAU programs.  A cult up personality type situation.  You are a 3, 4, 5, star recruit because of where you play, not necessarily because you are actually any better than a lot of guys who are multi-sport public school kids.   

I hope he is really good, but it seems to me like we have better luck with under the radar kids who don't get a lot of recruiting attention.

As the story goes, he decided to go to Brewster exactly because he was an "under the radar kid who didn't get a lot of recruiting attention."  In fact, according to Verbal Commits he received zero D-1 offers in his senior year. That's about as under the radar as it gets.

[valpo64]

I like it , "wh"...'nuff said'!

[bbtds]

As the story goes, he decided to go to Brewster exactly because he was an "under the radar kid who didn't get a lot of recruiting attention."  In fact, according to Verbal Commits he received zero D-1 offers in his senior year. That's about as under the radar as it gets.

We could use this as the Crusaders next slogan. Kind of like "gritty."

[bbtds]

[bbtds]

And when Sonic Union and Bastards of Funk have an album/music selection by that name you know you're in cool territory.






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG_6CopW9GQ

[GoVU]

Jacob recently had the "#1 most insane dunk" via MaxPreps Wisconsin for last week.

First post for me ever by the way, been lurking for a couple years now...so I can't link video. But just type in MaxPreps Sheboygan Area Lutheran and click on the tab "Videos"

[VU2014]

Jacob recently had the "#1 most insane dunk" via MaxPreps Wisconsin for last week.

First post for me ever by the way, been lurking for a couple years now...so I can't link video. But just type in MaxPreps Sheboygan Area Lutheran and click on the tab "Videos"

GoVU, welcome!

https://www.maxpreps.com/m/high-schools/shawano-community-hawks-(shawano,wi)/basketball/videos.htm?videoid=5bcc9ffb-7753-44df-9ab6-cc9f95712004

[M]

There are 5 better dunks in the region every week. That's not meant to be a dig at our new guy...

Excited for him to show up.

[wh]

There are 5 better dunks in the region every week. That's not meant to be a dig at our new guy...

Excited for him to show up.

That may or may not be true, but it doesn't matter. Valpo has tried to recruit Region players without success for years. For openers, there is clearly an anti-Valpo bias that exists throughout Lake, Porter and LaPorte Counties. Worse, there is a mindset here that if you're decent, you're too good for Valpo. Do you think that if 1st team IL HS stars Javon and Donovan grew up in Lake County they'd have even considered Valpo?  Not a chance. Recruiting the Region is like like fishing in the middle of the lake at high noon - a complete waste of time. As a proud Valpo resident, born and raised, F the Region and their anti-Valpo attitude.

[M]

Cool...Wisconsin has wimpy dunks was the purpose of the post.

Side note: Fishing deep in the middle of the day is usually a pretty good bet for bites.

[VUBBFan]

One of our recruits for next year has been putting up insane numbers. Don't know if it's the competition he's facing or he just dominates because no one else on the other teams are as big as he is. Hopefully he can transfer at least a portion of what he's doing to our D! level where he'll face kids taller than 6'7" or 6'8".

https://twitter.com/CrusaderBasketb/status/1213658804698701829

[valpo64]

Remember that this is the same school that former Wisconsin Sam Dekker attended, in fact his Dad is the head coach.  Jacob has broken  Sam's scoring records from what I understand.  Dekker was a big time star in the Big 10, or 12 what ever it its.