Notebook: Recruiting philosophy, staff moves, Trey Burke ‘job interview’, more

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Mike Rothstein goes in-depth on Michigan’s recruiting approach. There’s some great stuff here, including quotes from the various Michigan assistants.

Bacari Alexander and LaVall Jordan hit on the obvious snag in Beilein’s philosophy:

“I wouldn’t say resistance,” Alexander said of the reaction on the recruiting trail. “But I would say a curiosity to why haven’t you offered my son yet or why haven’t you guys offered my player yet.”

“Especially when they have a list of [offers],” Jordan said. “That curiosity, when they have lists.”

However, the bottom line is that it’s worth waiting for a Michigan offer now. It’s a lot easier to wait to extend a scholarship offer when you can demand attention without one. A Big Ten Championship and a trip to the National Championship game seem to be doing the trick.

The talk of the magnification of parent evaluation and off the court character is also interesting. Beilein has stressed what a great teammate Mitch McGary is for a long time but the idea that parents need to be evaluated because they are ambassadors of the school is definitely a new media idea. Over the last two seasons, Michigan parents have featured heavily in The Journey and just about every other program.  The one element I won’t buy is that Beilein has discovered some sort of loophole in early and late birthdays.

The value of a prospect’s birth date is another. The latter is a topic Beilein often brings up in discussing his young players. Asked about it, the three assistants all laughed.
“No comment,” Alexander said. “That, we can’t tell you.”

Michigan’s assistants said Beilein brought birth dates into the evaluation process, but that’s all they’ll say. Consider this: In past interviews, Beilein has mentioned the late birthdays or relatively young starting ages of 2013 commit Mark Donnal and current players Max Bielfeldt, Caris LeVert and Jordan Morgan.

While it’s true that Michigan has recruited a lot of kids that are young for their grade, the Wolverines have also landed their fair share of kids that are old for their grade. Mitch McGary, Spike Albrecht and Nik Stauskas are all prep school kids that are a year older while Zak Irvin is also old for his grade, just a few days younger than Caris LeVert and actually older than Michigan State sophomore Gary Harris.

Burke, Rose and Simmons

Trey Burke was interviewed by Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose in the Full NBA Job Interview for Grantland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G6srs0KDxU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Staff shuffle

Michigan announced that Pete Kahler would be taking over Travis Conlan’s vacated Direct of Basketball Operations position while C.J. Lee is moving to a Director of Player Personnel role. Beilein spoke on the internal promotions

“We have great continuity with our staff and we are happy to elevate both Pete and C.J. into new positions as a result of this restructuring process,” said Beilein. “Pete has done a fantastic job shaping our video department into one of the most comprehensive in the country. C.J. has proven to be a valuable ambassador for Michigan Basketball since his playing days as a co-captain through his last three seasons as a staff member. I am confident Pete and C.J. both have the experience and work habits to assist us as we strive to advance Michigan Basketball every day.”

For those unfamiliar with Kahler, this story on his family in the Cleveland Plain Dealer is well worth 30 minutes of your time.

Zimmerman, Coleman add offers

Jalen Coleman was offered by Michigan on Monday but he also added an offer from Arizona before the night was over. Another 2015 recruit, top ten big man Stephen Zimmerman added a marquee offer from Kentucky. Here are some spring highlights of Zimmerman in action:

Michigan is reportedly one of the schools recruiting Zimmerman the hardest.

Just got off the phone with Stephen Zimmerman. The five-star 2015 big mentioned Kentucky & Michigan as most aggressive schools so far. #BBN

— Corey Albertson (@Corey_Albertson) June 18, 2013

Other Notes

• John Beilein is staying busy. He spoke at a Big Brothers Big Sisters fundraiser in Kalamazoo on Monday, will throw out the first pitch for the Tigers game tonight, and will be off to Colorado next to serve as an assistant coach for the USA Basketball World University Games team before traveling with that group to Russia in early July. After that he’ll be on the road recruiting during the July evaluation period.
• The Boneyard reports that UConn is no longer recruiting Kameron Chatman.
• Former Penn State guard Jermaine Marshall isn’t going to play professionally in Europe after all, he’s going to transfer for his fifth season.
• ESPN runs down the top 25 Big Ten players in the NBA since 1989, Michigan leads the way with five. ESPN also ranked Michigan 8th in terms of producing the best pros in the modern era.