Come on Shyatt get Kavell Williams

[wyo 1]

It seems to me Shyatt goes after kids that are off the radar. Kavell originally committed to Montana State, but could not qualify. Now he will have a lot of options if he gets his academics in order. I wish Shyatt would forge some relationships with the Wyoming JUCO coaches. UW could really use some immediate help inside. Shyatt could have had him and Boucher if he would have been on them earlier.

The failure of Shyatt to recruit Wyoming JUCO's and establish some ties to AAU programs won't allow the program to get to the next level.

Love Shyatt as a game coach and is a tremendous representative of the university and state, but these short comings cannot compete every year in the MWC for titles. Although a much better coach, I would compare Shyatt to Joe Glenn. Joe just couldn't get the better athletes to Laramie, but everyone loved him.

Williams has ties to Chris Haslam, so one would think that we would have an "in" on the kid. But I am not sure Shy has even made contact with him.

Haslam is on staff at the school that stashed him there so I'm guessing we don't have a "in" on this kid.

On another note, I don't understand why people assume that because these players from out of the country that play JC in Wyoming have such a tie to the state and we should be able to just go sign them. If they produce and get offers from the big 5 leagues it's hard to compete with that.

 

[Wyolie Coyote]

It seems to me Shyatt goes after kids that are off the radar. Kavell originally committed to Montana State, but could not qualify. Now he will have a lot of options if he gets his academics in order. I wish Shyatt would forge some relationships with the Wyoming JUCO coaches. UW could really use some immediate help inside. Shyatt could have had him and Boucher if he would have been on them earlier.

The failure of Shyatt to recruit Wyoming JUCO's and establish some ties to AAU programs won't allow the program to get to the next level.

Love Shyatt as a game coach and is a tremendous representative of the university and state, but these short comings cannot compete every year in the MWC for titles. Although a much better coach, I would compare Shyatt to Joe Glenn. Joe just couldn't get the better athletes to Laramie, but everyone loved him.

Williams has ties to Chris Haslam, so one would think that we would have an "in" on the kid. But I am not sure Shy has even made contact with him.

Haslam is on staff at the school that stashed him there so I'm guessing we don't have a "in" on this kid.

On another note, I don't understand why people assume that because these players from out of the country that play JC in Wyoming have such a tie to the state and we should be able to just go sign them. If they produce and get offers from the big 5 leagues it's hard to compete with that.

The point is that they are in the State and it should be easy to attend many of his games. Recruiting a Wyo JC kid should be an easier thing that UW recruiting a Florida JC kid. When there is a talent like him in the State I would hope we throw everything we can at him to have take a look at UW. We all know there is no allegiance to UW but proximity should aid in recruiting efforts.

 

[ItSucksToBeACSURam]

Chris Haslam is at Montana State? We may lose this kid to Montana State? Are you friggin' kidding me? Thats a complete embarrassment. Have we fallen so low Montana State is more appealing that UW? WTH?

 

[CowboyNV]

Chris Haslam is at Montana State? We may lose this kid to Montana State? Are you friggin' kidding me? Thats a complete embarrassment. Have we fallen so low Montana State is more appealing that UW? WTH?

Haslam has been at MSU since 2013.

 

[NowherePoke]

Chris Haslam is at Montana State? We may lose this kid to Montana State? Are you friggin' kidding me? Thats a complete embarrassment. Have we fallen so low Montana State is more appealing that UW? WTH?

???

He is not going to Montana St. He committed to Montana St. as an international prospect from England (recruited by Chris Haslam, a former Poke big man from England who is currently an assistant with MSU), but didn't qualify (not unusual for international students, usually due to core credits or some other NCAA requirements). Since he didn't qualify, MSU stashed him at Gillette. Unfortunately for them, his recruitment has blown up and he will sign high major this spring.

 

[seattlecowboy]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

 

[NowherePoke]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

While I agree with your basic premise (and also would point out that even if you are on top of a kids recruitment it doesn't mean you are going to land them when they are a high level recruit, ask Montana St.), there are a couple of items that should be noted:

1. While nothing was publicly announced, Tyrell Williams was no longer sitting on the sidelines or actively involved with the team from what we could tell after about the Christmas break. I would guess the coaching staff knew very well that he would be gone by January of 2015. I am not necessarily saying they should have been expected to land Boucher. USU was on him before then and it did them exactly zero good when Oregon and other high majors got involved. However, they did have the opportunity to get involved with JC big men in general and they didn't do it, resulting in signing Hayden Dalton. While Dalton works hard, it's not an exaggeration to say that if we had filled the PF spot this year with an average level MWC player (say Cullen Russo, who signed with Fresno, or Grandy Glaze who signed with GCU) we would be a top half MWC team. We were very competitive, but got destroyed on the glass and in the paint.

2. In terms of Kavell Bigby-Williams, he was known as an impact recruit really from the moment he started at Gillette. While maybe it wasn't known that he would end up a Texas level recruit, he was obviously at least a MWC caliber prospect from the very beginning. We did have a scholarship open for the Class of 2016 and used it on Austin Mueller. We also attempted to sign a big man, Irshad Hunte, who was not able to sign. IOW, I don't buy the argument that we didn't have a scholarship available.


Of course, it's possible we tried to recruit Bigby-Williams and were basically told not to bother. I don't know.

 

[seattlecowboy]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

While I agree with your basic premise (and also would point out that even if you are on top of a kids recruitment it doesn't mean you are going to land them when they are a high level recruit, ask Montana St.), there are a couple of items that should be noted:

1. While nothing was publicly announced, Tyrell Williams was no longer sitting on the sidelines or actively involved with the team from what we could tell after about the Christmas break. I would guess the coaching staff knew very well that he would be gone by January of 2015. I am not necessarily saying they should have been expected to land Boucher. USU was on him before then and it did them exactly zero good when Oregon and other high majors got involved. However, they did have the opportunity to get involved with JC big men in general and they didn't do it, resulting in signing Hayden Dalton. While Dalton works hard, it's not an exaggeration to say that if we had filled the PF spot this year with an average level MWC player (say Cullen Russo, who signed with Fresno, or Grandy Glaze who signed with GCU) we would be a top half MWC team. We were very competitive, but got destroyed on the glass and in the paint.

2. In terms of Kavell Bigby-Williams, he was known as an impact recruit really from the moment he started at Gillette. While maybe it wasn't known that he would end up a Texas level recruit, he was obviously at least a MWC caliber prospect from the very beginning. We did have a scholarship open for the Class of 2016 and used it on Austin Mueller. We also attempted to sign a big man, Irshad Hunte, who was not able to sign. IOW, I don't buy the argument that we didn't have a scholarship available.


Of course, it's possible we tried to recruit Bigby-Williams and were basically told not to bother. I don't know.

I totally agree with you on point number 1.

On point 2 I know Williams was a known commodity and thought maybe in his case i could see us getting him more so than in Boucher's case but do we think at that point in time he was anymore sought after than Irshad Hunte? I know Williams would have already played one year of college so he has the advantage there but Irshad's numbers looked pretty good as well. Not disagreeing with you at all. Just not sure the staff would have thought so much more of Williams at that point in time that they would have assumed he would be a slam dunk recruit over Irshad for instance. (Not that it came down to just those two , just an example)

You would think that the staff would already have some good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state and maybe they looked into Williams and like you said they were told he wasn't interested.

 

[NowherePoke]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

While I agree with your basic premise (and also would point out that even if you are on top of a kids recruitment it doesn't mean you are going to land them when they are a high level recruit, ask Montana St.), there are a couple of items that should be noted:

1. While nothing was publicly announced, Tyrell Williams was no longer sitting on the sidelines or actively involved with the team from what we could tell after about the Christmas break. I would guess the coaching staff knew very well that he would be gone by January of 2015. I am not necessarily saying they should have been expected to land Boucher. USU was on him before then and it did them exactly zero good when Oregon and other high majors got involved. However, they did have the opportunity to get involved with JC big men in general and they didn't do it, resulting in signing Hayden Dalton. While Dalton works hard, it's not an exaggeration to say that if we had filled the PF spot this year with an average level MWC player (say Cullen Russo, who signed with Fresno, or Grandy Glaze who signed with GCU) we would be a top half MWC team. We were very competitive, but got destroyed on the glass and in the paint.

2. In terms of Kavell Bigby-Williams, he was known as an impact recruit really from the moment he started at Gillette. While maybe it wasn't known that he would end up a Texas level recruit, he was obviously at least a MWC caliber prospect from the very beginning. We did have a scholarship open for the Class of 2016 and used it on Austin Mueller. We also attempted to sign a big man, Irshad Hunte, who was not able to sign. IOW, I don't buy the argument that we didn't have a scholarship available.


Of course, it's possible we tried to recruit Bigby-Williams and were basically told not to bother. I don't know.

I totally agree with you on point number 1.

On point 2 I know Williams was a known commodity and thought maybe in his case i could see us getting him more so than in Boucher's case but do we think at that point in time he was anymore sought after than Irshad Hunte? I know Williams would have already played one year of college so he has the advantage there but Irshad's numbers looked pretty good as well. Not disagreeing with you at all. Just not sure the staff would have thought so much more of Williams at that point in time that they would have assumed he would be a slam dunk recruit over Irshad for instance. (Not that it came down to just those two , just an example)

You would think that the staff would already have some good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state and maybe they looked into Williams and like you said they were told he wasn't interested.

That's a good point, and I think Hunte would have been a good signing. Too bad that didn't work out.

 

[Wyolie Coyote]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

Shyatt has said he believes that we have to oversign due to attrition. The Hunte commitment was an example of that. If that is the case, then Boucher and Williams could have been pursued without having an open scholarship at the time. I agree with oversigning as we always have someone leave and then relegated to signing someone during the spring which does not lead to an impact player.

 

[seattlecowboy]

Some of you guys need to look at this more from a realistic perspective.

In Bouchers case he grew up in Canada and then went to New Mexico for one year. His stats were okay but they weren't eye popping enough while at the New Mexico JC that would have made you just automatically want to recruit him over Justin James, Conway, Naughton or Moemeka at the time. Then he comes to a Wyoming JC for one year and that is when he blows up. By the time he blows up Wyoming didn't have any scholarships open and people started to notice him halfway through the season.

First off he doesn't have a connection to Wyoming other then the one year here. Secondly what is Shyatt and staff supposed to do at that point? Recruit him hard and secretly hope someone leaves the team? The fact someone left the team the last month of the year wasn't something that was expected and by that time it was too late to try and hope to get Boucher when he had multiple offers starting to come in from the big 5 conference schools.

Then same goes with this Williams kid at Gillette. I would say since he had been in Wyoming two years instead of one he would be more of someone that you might have looked at. He had decent stats as well after his freshman year. Again though were his stats eye popping enough for us to go after him more than another player at the time with the one scholarship we had open? Williams blew up again his 2nd year after we had filled the scholarship and now we are thinking we are going to get him because someone left our team the last month of the year to open another scholarship up and this kid is from London and is getting big time offers now?

It would be one thing if we had scholarships available to recruit these guys but at the time we didn't have any open. Shyatt seems to be a class act and tries to take care of the kids he recruits. I don't really see him going behind someone's back and trying to recruit these other kids hard and secretly hoping someone on the team quits.

I agree we need to have good connections with all of the JC coaches in the state of Wyoming and if they see something from a kid early on then we need to be looking at them before all of the scholarships are filled but I can't fault the staff in either of these situations the way they played out. Just my opinion.

Shyatt has said he believes that we have to oversign due to attrition. The Hunte commitment was an example of that. If that is the case, then Boucher and Williams could have been pursued without having an open scholarship at the time. I agree with oversigning as we always have someone leave and then relegated to signing someone during the spring which does not lead to an impact player.

Yeah I know that is what Shyatt does. Not sure that can be done with guys like Boucher or Williams. They are bigger impact guys but I guess it could. When they over sign each year someone on the team I guess has to know they are not going to be on scholarship the following year I assume when you stop and think about it. Not sure the coaches over sign and then sit there and think" I wonder/hope which recruit is going to quit the team this year so we can make sure to have a scholarship for the over signing we did. "

My guess is that some guys know at the beginning of the year that unless the improve to a certain level they won't have their scholarship anymore. Not sure how else you could do it and be honest about it unless we just happen to get "lucky" each year with a guy quitting the team.