I had the chance to grab an exclusive interview with associate hoops head coach Mike Rohn yesterday, talking about a wide variety of things with him, such as the recruiting much of the 2020 class during a time of limited or no face-to-face contact, quarantine implications for the '21 class, recruiting in general and McKinley Wright IV's impending decision.
Rohn frankly was extremely insightful and due to the sheer volume of quotes he gave me, I think a Q+A format is most appropriate here, with accompanying notes where necessary.
Here's what Rohn had to say.
Q: What challenges did having to do the vast majority of spring recruiting in a virtual manner? How do you sign guys when they can't even get to campus and check Colorado out?
Rohn: “It’s definitely different for sure. With the guys that we did get in the spring, with the grad transfer — we recruited Jeriah (Horne) out of high school a little bit. We saw him play a lot in high school and with his AAU team and then obviously being at Nebraska and Tulsa the past few years, you know what guys ultimately end up being capable of doing and what their game is. (Recruiting him) wasn’t too hard in not being able to see him (this spring). Obviously, the challenge there was being timely and getting the virtual meetings set up. That was a real timely thing but (travel limitations) really didn’t hurt us in terms of evaluating him. He’s in a different scenario there as a grad transfer."
"(With) Jabari (Walker), we had been doing quite a bit of work with him leading up to the spring, so we’d seen him play on more than one occasion. Coach (Bill) Grier saw him play a couple time and coach AC (Anthony Coleman) saw him play, so from an evaluation standpoint, we felt pretty good about the work we’d put in (with him). Ultimately, we couldn’t get him on campus for an OV so we had to do virtual visits online and I think we just had done a good enough job prior to that with him where other than not getting him on campus, we were still in a good position before the pandemic ever came about. We knew Tyler (Bey's) situation and had more clarity on how we needed to go and get things done."
"Tristan (da Silva) was the one that was really unique because we never got to see him play other than on film and through people that we know that saw him play, (who) we have a lot of confidence in. That relationship was built through phone calls and Zoom calls. His brother being at Stanford really helped us in that regard. The kid was going to go to a really good academic school and he was going to go most likely to another school in the Pac-12 because the (da Silva) family was familiar with it and Oscar obviously, even though he had a tough deal happen at our place, he had a lot of respect for our program and (so did) the Stanford coaches, as well."
"I think we identified guys that we could get. We weren’t just chasing ghosts, so to speak...we had pretty good pinpointed guys, but it’s different without a doubt and doing face-to-face stuff. You make the most out of what you can do and luckily, it worked for us then."
Q: What did you guys see in Tristan da Silva? Is he cut of the same cloth as his brother? How did you guys hone in on him as the spring went on?
Rohn: “It started with some of the coaching staff at Stanford, talking about Tristan. They had more interactions with him because of Oscar. That helped us understand how good he probably was, as they were comparing the two of them together. They’re different players — at this stage and in their development. But when you talk about the total package of a player, in the kid and the student, you just don’t get much better than the da Silva family. (Tristan is a ) high-academic kid, unbelievably disciplined athlete who’s not just good at what he does. He’s got work ethic and personal characteristics of being a good teammate. We knew a lot of those things without ever having to see him play in person, through conversations with his coach and just knowing what Oscar is all about."
"He’s a different player than Oscar. Oscar showed up at Stanford and was a little bit more of a perimeter-oriented player who has now transitioned himself to a power forward-type player. I think that’ll happen with Tristan as he grows and gets a little stronger — he’s just not quite as big as Oscar yet — but they have a lot of similar characteristics. I would say that Tristan shoots the three a little bit better at the same stage of their careers coming out of high school, than Oscar did. But Tristan is going to grow. Same with Jabari."
"We were lucky with Tristan in a lot of ways, as well. If more people could have flown to Germany and seen him in the spring, it might have changed who the recruiting competition was. Ultimately, there was only a handful of Pac-12 schools and nobody really had a chance to see him play. Then, the pandemic all came about. Any time you’re recruiting, you’ve got to have a little bit of luck, too, and I think we had a little luck with all of those guys.”
***Rohn noted that Tristan actually getting to Colorado eventually, with respect to international travel in light of the pandemic, will be tricky. He doesn't envision da Silva being able to get to Boulder in the summer time and said his student visa and some of the red tape-type of items pertinent tio international student-athletes will be tricky.
Q: Given what Colorado loses heading into 2020-21 — Tyler Bey, Shane Gatling, Lucas Siewert, Daylen Kountz and Jakub Dombek — what is you overall evaluation of this 2020 class? Do you feel like you are bringing in some helping hands that check the boxes that needed to be checked?
Rohn: “We feel really good and especially with the spring situation and with Tyler. We weren’t necessarily planning on having as many scholarships in the spring as we did, with Daylen and Jakub. But you’re recruiting year-round all the time. You’re always recruiting and if you're doing it right, you always have guys ready to come and guys who you feel good about. This group, without a doubt, we felt great about, with Luke and Nique in the fall fitting the perfect needs and having Keesahwn Barthelemey redshirting, sitting out and is part of this class now. We did check off a lot of boxes and we needed to."
“A guy like Jeriah just gives you some experience and is someone who’s proven. Our young group is really good and check a lot of the boxes that we were looking for. There’s a lot of versatility in this class and who knows what type of impact the freshmen will have. You really never know until late October. This year could be a little different if we’re not having any opportunity to get any summer access with these young guys and we won’t know how they fit into the rotation as we would if maybe we had a few weeks in the summer. But the best thing about this class is that we’re losing a big class, but now we have another young group kind of like when we brought in McKinley, Tyler, Evan and D'Shawn...those guys proved when they were young that they could come in and sustain us at the level we knew we needed to be at. I think that this group will certainly be able to do that, as well."
"This group may even be more talented when all is said and done...we feel great about this class. In my opinion, with guys we signed late, people don’t know about them quite as much — the national people don’t know about Dominique and Luke like they probably should. But this class is opinion — it’s better than the class that Stanford signed. Stanford is getting all this hype because they got one guy (five-star forward Ziaire Williams) who might be one-and-done. But our class, in my opinion, is a Top 25 recruiting class when you look at Tristan and Jabari, Luke, Dominique and then throw Jeriah in there. Man, this is about as good a class as I think we’ve had.”
***Wow. The 2020 class might turn out to be more talented than the 2017 class? That's big praise. I think Rohn is correct though, in that the young guys CU is bringing in, at the minimum, will be expected to be able to be inserted into games and help sustain the team. I have no qualms about assuming that the likes of Clifford, O'Brien, Walker, etc. — some young guys are going to get thrown into the fire one way or another.
Q: Coach Boyle said something last fall that stuck with me with respect to how you guys recruit. He said that a lot of the time, you aren't necessarily looking to "out-recruit" guys as you are working to "out-evaluate" guys. What's your take on that? Do you share that as a philosophy when it comes to recruiting?
Rohn: “Coach (Boyle) hit the nail on the head there. A lot of recruiting is finding out and evaluating who’s a good player. Some guys just go off of ‘who’s the Top 50, who’s in the Top 100? We’re in the Pac-12 — those are the only guys that we can recruit.’ We’ve had a lot of success here, and coach was probably referring to, maybe really evaluating well and finding guys that are a little under the radar. Maybe not a Top 50 or Top 100 guy, but a Pac-12-level player. I think he was going with that a little bit. Sometimes understanding where you’re at: the University of Colorado and what that looks like in terms of recruiting and who can you get is probably where (Boyle) was going (with his remark)."
"The one thing you don’t want to do is waste time and money in recruiting. It’s easy for us to run around and say ‘hey, we’re recruiting Nico Mannion,’ or ‘I went and say Nico Mannion.’ We weren’t going to get Nico Mannion. We can say we’re recruiting but we’re wasting time and wasting money. There’s a certain blueprint of players that fit what coach Boyle is looking for, first and foremost, but then (we have to ask) ‘can we get that particular guy?’ (We don’t want to be) chasing somebody because he has five stars next to his name. That’s not the easiest thing to do on the men’s basketball side for lots of reasons."
"Top 50 guys, historically, things happen a little differently, if you know what I mean, in terms of the recruiting process. Coach Boyle has made it pretty obvious how he’s going to recruit: with integrity and doing things the right way. You get into a certain level of player and with the stakes, it’s just a different game...I firmly believe you have to out-evaluate people no matter where you’re at — it’s the most important part of recruiting and especially now, with how guys transfer, you have to find the right fit i a kid and his talent and what you can do with that in your program. You have to have talent. You can’t recruit two-star players and expect to win in the Pac-12."
Wow...probably my favorite part of the whole interview right there. Rohn and Boyle know damn well that the higher you climb in the rankings with big-time players, you eventually cross a line and poof, if you want a certain guy, you're getting your hands dirty and then some. Pretty candid stuff.
Q: How much does "protecting the borders of the state," another quote I'll steal from Boyle that has stuck with me, factor into you guys being able to "out-evaluate" other teams? How important is recruiting well in-state?
Rohn: "I think as you look at guys like Dominique Clifford and Luke O’Brien, two kids that, if they live anywhere else in the country, the stars by their name or their rankings are going to look a lot different than what they do. If you evaluate them, they’re really, really good players. That’s what you’ve got to find.
No matter where you’re at, you definitely have to start with your region and state. Those are the kids that grow up most of the time wanting to be at the flagship university. That’s what they grow up seeing, and so if there is a kid that’s good enough, those are the ones we can evaluate better because they’re closer and you can see them more while other people may not. That doesn’t mean that just because they are from Colorado we should take them. Coach (Boyle) has been really good at finding the right guys that have upside and that can keep getting better. He’s a Colorado guy, so he wants that type of player. Those guys, putting the jersey on, play with a little more pride."
"UCLA (for example) is probably the same way. If there’s a kid in their backyard, they don’t ant to lose them but the difference is that they’ve got so many of them, they’ve got to pick and choose who fits being there because there’s 30 guys who are good enough to play in the Pac-12 all in Southern California. They can’t take them all. We don’t have that luxury but we’ve also got to take the right ones.”
Q: While recruiting in 2020 virtually I'm sure was tough enough, what is at stake right now if travel restrictions are still in place for the summer, which could deprive you of a few months of evaluations in June and July?
Rohn: "Moving forward, it’ll be really interesting for us for the 2021 class. If we can’t recruit all summer in terms of seeing guys play, that’s a little bit tougher. We’ve got four more spots to fill in the 2021 class and June and July and the summer are huge eval opportunities for us there. If things don’t change, it’s going to affect that class a little more than it did the one we just finished with.”
“That’s the biggest dilemma, more so than the last class, is what things look like for 2021 and finishing that group out. Fortunately, we got one done, which was a big one, and he (Lawson Lovering) will be an impact guy. That really helps kickstart things, but not having a plethora of guys in our region in 2021 doesn’t really help us in that class. There’s a few (in-state) guys we’re targeting and looking at a little bit, but it’s not like there’s a Dominique or Luke or Josh Scott or Wesley Gordon running around in our state in the Class of 2021. There’s a few good ones, but regionally, everyone’s hoping their own region will be good, because everybody feels like that’s the way that people will tend to recruit a bit more. But we can’t help where we’re at. It is going to be a challenge."
"We had a few 2021s on some OVs last year, who were juniors, that we are in really good shape in, so that’s a good thing. We have been able to see a lot of other guys in 2021 that we like and we would be more than happy to get and take even if we didn’t see them any more. The leg work we’ve put in to this point, and recruiting underclassmen is always a huge priority for us and evaluating them, but I think we’re in a pretty good spot (for 2021). We’re not in a different spot than anyone else. It is going to affect that class and how much we’ll get to see (players). The worst-case scenario, if we don’t get to recruit at all in the summer, normally our list is a lot bigger from seeing guys. Our list won’t be as big if we don’t get to start recruiting until the fall. We may not sign as many guys in the early period as we do late."
Rohn on the impending rule change for one-time transfers and immediate eligibility: "Quite frankly, the transfer portal is going to be huge part of recruiting when the rule changes. Everybody in the industry thinks it was going to go into place right now, but with the pandemic, it may be tabled a little longer until January. We’ll know that a little later in May. But if guys can transfer and play immediately, that’s going to open up a whole different set of recruiting than it has been in the past because now you’ll be able to go into the portal and recruit a guy anywhere in the country."
"You’re going to know what kind of player he is and he’ll have produced in whatever league he was playing in...everybody’s looking at that pool of players more so than they are guys in the Class of 2021 to be honest with you. I don’t like it and that’s not to say that we won’t take high school guys, but that rule, when it changes, is going to really change everybody’s recruiting without a doubt. I don’t think people will sign as many guys in the fall period as they used to."
I certainly don't want to ask questions you'd rather not answer, so feel free to pass on this one, but with the NBA moving back its Draft Lottery and thus giving college underclassmen more time to consider their options, what has communication between you, coach Boyle and McKinley been like and what might his time frame look like in terms of making a decision?
Rohn: “I think the things that coach and McKinley could control in putting his name in and getting feedback — that’s already happened. I think (McKinley) has a good understanding, no matter where the process goes for the NBA now, he has a very clear feel for where (teams) see him fitting in. That’s a good thing and the most important thing, knowing that. The rest is to be determined. There’s a lot of underclassmen that still have their names in, but I still think the June 3rd take-your-name-out (deadline) isn’t going to change. It might, but to this point it hasn’t. I think McKinley has a good feel for where he’s at and has probably been fortunate to do some NBA virtual meetings this month, which would be good for feedback."
"But in terms of him being able to go workout, (COVID-19) didn’t help his situation. A guy like him, getting a chance to be in a workout and use the opportunity that’s been provided to underclassmen, that would have probably helped him, getting in some workouts where guys could get to know him and see him. This is a very strong and deep draft, especially for point guards, and he’s well aware of that...I can’t speak for him but I think he’s already gotten a lot of what he was expecting to get out of it. We'll see. We sure hope he comes back."
FIN
I thought Rohn was a great interviewee. Honest, insightful and thoughtful in his answers. Boyle recently had an interview with Mark Johnson where he eluded to kind of the same stuff Rohn did about Wright IV....point being, I would not keep sweating over his prospective return as a senior. I for one have seen and heard enough to feel like I'm on the same wavelength with the coaches in that they expect him back.
Good stuff overall from Rohn. I look forward to talking with him more this season.
Rohn frankly was extremely insightful and due to the sheer volume of quotes he gave me, I think a Q+A format is most appropriate here, with accompanying notes where necessary.
Here's what Rohn had to say.
Q: What challenges did having to do the vast majority of spring recruiting in a virtual manner? How do you sign guys when they can't even get to campus and check Colorado out?
Rohn: “It’s definitely different for sure. With the guys that we did get in the spring, with the grad transfer — we recruited Jeriah (Horne) out of high school a little bit. We saw him play a lot in high school and with his AAU team and then obviously being at Nebraska and Tulsa the past few years, you know what guys ultimately end up being capable of doing and what their game is. (Recruiting him) wasn’t too hard in not being able to see him (this spring). Obviously, the challenge there was being timely and getting the virtual meetings set up. That was a real timely thing but (travel limitations) really didn’t hurt us in terms of evaluating him. He’s in a different scenario there as a grad transfer."
"(With) Jabari (Walker), we had been doing quite a bit of work with him leading up to the spring, so we’d seen him play on more than one occasion. Coach (Bill) Grier saw him play a couple time and coach AC (Anthony Coleman) saw him play, so from an evaluation standpoint, we felt pretty good about the work we’d put in (with him). Ultimately, we couldn’t get him on campus for an OV so we had to do virtual visits online and I think we just had done a good enough job prior to that with him where other than not getting him on campus, we were still in a good position before the pandemic ever came about. We knew Tyler (Bey's) situation and had more clarity on how we needed to go and get things done."
"Tristan (da Silva) was the one that was really unique because we never got to see him play other than on film and through people that we know that saw him play, (who) we have a lot of confidence in. That relationship was built through phone calls and Zoom calls. His brother being at Stanford really helped us in that regard. The kid was going to go to a really good academic school and he was going to go most likely to another school in the Pac-12 because the (da Silva) family was familiar with it and Oscar obviously, even though he had a tough deal happen at our place, he had a lot of respect for our program and (so did) the Stanford coaches, as well."
"I think we identified guys that we could get. We weren’t just chasing ghosts, so to speak...we had pretty good pinpointed guys, but it’s different without a doubt and doing face-to-face stuff. You make the most out of what you can do and luckily, it worked for us then."
Q: What did you guys see in Tristan da Silva? Is he cut of the same cloth as his brother? How did you guys hone in on him as the spring went on?
Rohn: “It started with some of the coaching staff at Stanford, talking about Tristan. They had more interactions with him because of Oscar. That helped us understand how good he probably was, as they were comparing the two of them together. They’re different players — at this stage and in their development. But when you talk about the total package of a player, in the kid and the student, you just don’t get much better than the da Silva family. (Tristan is a ) high-academic kid, unbelievably disciplined athlete who’s not just good at what he does. He’s got work ethic and personal characteristics of being a good teammate. We knew a lot of those things without ever having to see him play in person, through conversations with his coach and just knowing what Oscar is all about."
"He’s a different player than Oscar. Oscar showed up at Stanford and was a little bit more of a perimeter-oriented player who has now transitioned himself to a power forward-type player. I think that’ll happen with Tristan as he grows and gets a little stronger — he’s just not quite as big as Oscar yet — but they have a lot of similar characteristics. I would say that Tristan shoots the three a little bit better at the same stage of their careers coming out of high school, than Oscar did. But Tristan is going to grow. Same with Jabari."
"We were lucky with Tristan in a lot of ways, as well. If more people could have flown to Germany and seen him in the spring, it might have changed who the recruiting competition was. Ultimately, there was only a handful of Pac-12 schools and nobody really had a chance to see him play. Then, the pandemic all came about. Any time you’re recruiting, you’ve got to have a little bit of luck, too, and I think we had a little luck with all of those guys.”
***Rohn noted that Tristan actually getting to Colorado eventually, with respect to international travel in light of the pandemic, will be tricky. He doesn't envision da Silva being able to get to Boulder in the summer time and said his student visa and some of the red tape-type of items pertinent tio international student-athletes will be tricky.
Q: Given what Colorado loses heading into 2020-21 — Tyler Bey, Shane Gatling, Lucas Siewert, Daylen Kountz and Jakub Dombek — what is you overall evaluation of this 2020 class? Do you feel like you are bringing in some helping hands that check the boxes that needed to be checked?
Rohn: “We feel really good and especially with the spring situation and with Tyler. We weren’t necessarily planning on having as many scholarships in the spring as we did, with Daylen and Jakub. But you’re recruiting year-round all the time. You’re always recruiting and if you're doing it right, you always have guys ready to come and guys who you feel good about. This group, without a doubt, we felt great about, with Luke and Nique in the fall fitting the perfect needs and having Keesahwn Barthelemey redshirting, sitting out and is part of this class now. We did check off a lot of boxes and we needed to."
“A guy like Jeriah just gives you some experience and is someone who’s proven. Our young group is really good and check a lot of the boxes that we were looking for. There’s a lot of versatility in this class and who knows what type of impact the freshmen will have. You really never know until late October. This year could be a little different if we’re not having any opportunity to get any summer access with these young guys and we won’t know how they fit into the rotation as we would if maybe we had a few weeks in the summer. But the best thing about this class is that we’re losing a big class, but now we have another young group kind of like when we brought in McKinley, Tyler, Evan and D'Shawn...those guys proved when they were young that they could come in and sustain us at the level we knew we needed to be at. I think that this group will certainly be able to do that, as well."
"This group may even be more talented when all is said and done...we feel great about this class. In my opinion, with guys we signed late, people don’t know about them quite as much — the national people don’t know about Dominique and Luke like they probably should. But this class is opinion — it’s better than the class that Stanford signed. Stanford is getting all this hype because they got one guy (five-star forward Ziaire Williams) who might be one-and-done. But our class, in my opinion, is a Top 25 recruiting class when you look at Tristan and Jabari, Luke, Dominique and then throw Jeriah in there. Man, this is about as good a class as I think we’ve had.”
***Wow. The 2020 class might turn out to be more talented than the 2017 class? That's big praise. I think Rohn is correct though, in that the young guys CU is bringing in, at the minimum, will be expected to be able to be inserted into games and help sustain the team. I have no qualms about assuming that the likes of Clifford, O'Brien, Walker, etc. — some young guys are going to get thrown into the fire one way or another.
Q: Coach Boyle said something last fall that stuck with me with respect to how you guys recruit. He said that a lot of the time, you aren't necessarily looking to "out-recruit" guys as you are working to "out-evaluate" guys. What's your take on that? Do you share that as a philosophy when it comes to recruiting?
Rohn: “Coach (Boyle) hit the nail on the head there. A lot of recruiting is finding out and evaluating who’s a good player. Some guys just go off of ‘who’s the Top 50, who’s in the Top 100? We’re in the Pac-12 — those are the only guys that we can recruit.’ We’ve had a lot of success here, and coach was probably referring to, maybe really evaluating well and finding guys that are a little under the radar. Maybe not a Top 50 or Top 100 guy, but a Pac-12-level player. I think he was going with that a little bit. Sometimes understanding where you’re at: the University of Colorado and what that looks like in terms of recruiting and who can you get is probably where (Boyle) was going (with his remark)."
"The one thing you don’t want to do is waste time and money in recruiting. It’s easy for us to run around and say ‘hey, we’re recruiting Nico Mannion,’ or ‘I went and say Nico Mannion.’ We weren’t going to get Nico Mannion. We can say we’re recruiting but we’re wasting time and wasting money. There’s a certain blueprint of players that fit what coach Boyle is looking for, first and foremost, but then (we have to ask) ‘can we get that particular guy?’ (We don’t want to be) chasing somebody because he has five stars next to his name. That’s not the easiest thing to do on the men’s basketball side for lots of reasons."
"Top 50 guys, historically, things happen a little differently, if you know what I mean, in terms of the recruiting process. Coach Boyle has made it pretty obvious how he’s going to recruit: with integrity and doing things the right way. You get into a certain level of player and with the stakes, it’s just a different game...I firmly believe you have to out-evaluate people no matter where you’re at — it’s the most important part of recruiting and especially now, with how guys transfer, you have to find the right fit i a kid and his talent and what you can do with that in your program. You have to have talent. You can’t recruit two-star players and expect to win in the Pac-12."
Wow...probably my favorite part of the whole interview right there. Rohn and Boyle know damn well that the higher you climb in the rankings with big-time players, you eventually cross a line and poof, if you want a certain guy, you're getting your hands dirty and then some. Pretty candid stuff.
Q: How much does "protecting the borders of the state," another quote I'll steal from Boyle that has stuck with me, factor into you guys being able to "out-evaluate" other teams? How important is recruiting well in-state?
Rohn: "I think as you look at guys like Dominique Clifford and Luke O’Brien, two kids that, if they live anywhere else in the country, the stars by their name or their rankings are going to look a lot different than what they do. If you evaluate them, they’re really, really good players. That’s what you’ve got to find.
No matter where you’re at, you definitely have to start with your region and state. Those are the kids that grow up most of the time wanting to be at the flagship university. That’s what they grow up seeing, and so if there is a kid that’s good enough, those are the ones we can evaluate better because they’re closer and you can see them more while other people may not. That doesn’t mean that just because they are from Colorado we should take them. Coach (Boyle) has been really good at finding the right guys that have upside and that can keep getting better. He’s a Colorado guy, so he wants that type of player. Those guys, putting the jersey on, play with a little more pride."
"UCLA (for example) is probably the same way. If there’s a kid in their backyard, they don’t ant to lose them but the difference is that they’ve got so many of them, they’ve got to pick and choose who fits being there because there’s 30 guys who are good enough to play in the Pac-12 all in Southern California. They can’t take them all. We don’t have that luxury but we’ve also got to take the right ones.”
Q: While recruiting in 2020 virtually I'm sure was tough enough, what is at stake right now if travel restrictions are still in place for the summer, which could deprive you of a few months of evaluations in June and July?
Rohn: "Moving forward, it’ll be really interesting for us for the 2021 class. If we can’t recruit all summer in terms of seeing guys play, that’s a little bit tougher. We’ve got four more spots to fill in the 2021 class and June and July and the summer are huge eval opportunities for us there. If things don’t change, it’s going to affect that class a little more than it did the one we just finished with.”
“That’s the biggest dilemma, more so than the last class, is what things look like for 2021 and finishing that group out. Fortunately, we got one done, which was a big one, and he (Lawson Lovering) will be an impact guy. That really helps kickstart things, but not having a plethora of guys in our region in 2021 doesn’t really help us in that class. There’s a few (in-state) guys we’re targeting and looking at a little bit, but it’s not like there’s a Dominique or Luke or Josh Scott or Wesley Gordon running around in our state in the Class of 2021. There’s a few good ones, but regionally, everyone’s hoping their own region will be good, because everybody feels like that’s the way that people will tend to recruit a bit more. But we can’t help where we’re at. It is going to be a challenge."
"We had a few 2021s on some OVs last year, who were juniors, that we are in really good shape in, so that’s a good thing. We have been able to see a lot of other guys in 2021 that we like and we would be more than happy to get and take even if we didn’t see them any more. The leg work we’ve put in to this point, and recruiting underclassmen is always a huge priority for us and evaluating them, but I think we’re in a pretty good spot (for 2021). We’re not in a different spot than anyone else. It is going to affect that class and how much we’ll get to see (players). The worst-case scenario, if we don’t get to recruit at all in the summer, normally our list is a lot bigger from seeing guys. Our list won’t be as big if we don’t get to start recruiting until the fall. We may not sign as many guys in the early period as we do late."
Rohn on the impending rule change for one-time transfers and immediate eligibility: "Quite frankly, the transfer portal is going to be huge part of recruiting when the rule changes. Everybody in the industry thinks it was going to go into place right now, but with the pandemic, it may be tabled a little longer until January. We’ll know that a little later in May. But if guys can transfer and play immediately, that’s going to open up a whole different set of recruiting than it has been in the past because now you’ll be able to go into the portal and recruit a guy anywhere in the country."
"You’re going to know what kind of player he is and he’ll have produced in whatever league he was playing in...everybody’s looking at that pool of players more so than they are guys in the Class of 2021 to be honest with you. I don’t like it and that’s not to say that we won’t take high school guys, but that rule, when it changes, is going to really change everybody’s recruiting without a doubt. I don’t think people will sign as many guys in the fall period as they used to."
I certainly don't want to ask questions you'd rather not answer, so feel free to pass on this one, but with the NBA moving back its Draft Lottery and thus giving college underclassmen more time to consider their options, what has communication between you, coach Boyle and McKinley been like and what might his time frame look like in terms of making a decision?
Rohn: “I think the things that coach and McKinley could control in putting his name in and getting feedback — that’s already happened. I think (McKinley) has a good understanding, no matter where the process goes for the NBA now, he has a very clear feel for where (teams) see him fitting in. That’s a good thing and the most important thing, knowing that. The rest is to be determined. There’s a lot of underclassmen that still have their names in, but I still think the June 3rd take-your-name-out (deadline) isn’t going to change. It might, but to this point it hasn’t. I think McKinley has a good feel for where he’s at and has probably been fortunate to do some NBA virtual meetings this month, which would be good for feedback."
"But in terms of him being able to go workout, (COVID-19) didn’t help his situation. A guy like him, getting a chance to be in a workout and use the opportunity that’s been provided to underclassmen, that would have probably helped him, getting in some workouts where guys could get to know him and see him. This is a very strong and deep draft, especially for point guards, and he’s well aware of that...I can’t speak for him but I think he’s already gotten a lot of what he was expecting to get out of it. We'll see. We sure hope he comes back."
FIN
I thought Rohn was a great interviewee. Honest, insightful and thoughtful in his answers. Boyle recently had an interview with Mark Johnson where he eluded to kind of the same stuff Rohn did about Wright IV....point being, I would not keep sweating over his prospective return as a senior. I for one have seen and heard enough to feel like I'm on the same wavelength with the coaches in that they expect him back.
Good stuff overall from Rohn. I look forward to talking with him more this season.
