I truly think Izzo can win this battle. With him we will win a National Championship. I do wonder who we bring in aside from him since James Young seems to be cooling off.

I’m pretty sure I heard Comparoni say that he had been to a couple of football games at MSU. This was news to me since I know that would’ve created a stir but I never heard anything about it.
As with any Chicago prospect, you can’t discount Illinois. I hear that he went to their game at NW and chatted with coaches afterward. I assume that was legal.
I also know Slick, er, Calipari was in Chicago recently and created a buzz. You just know this thing won’t end without Kentucky making a run at the #1 recruit. I think Slick has landed 3 or 4 of the last 5.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the summer AAU/NBA camp circuit and daily gossip on who’s stalking Jabari. I get the feeling the Izzo kids will be able to give detailed scouting reports of Jabari’s game after this summer.

I think it’s interesting about the Chicago dynamic – specifically, which B1G team really rules this market?

NW markets itself as “Chicago’s Big Ten University,” but c’mon, we all know that isn’t the case. It may be the closest school, but nobody in Chicago really cares about NW athletics. Their best local guys have been players from the north and/or western suburbs (Shurna, Crawford, Sobolewski, for example), which is a different kind of ball than is played in the city.

Wisconsin is the next closest school physcially, and has probably the biggest alum base here besides Illinois, but from what I understand, they haven’t had much success recruiting here. Looking at their past several years of commits on Rivals, none of any note are from the city or surrounding suburbs. In fact, most of their best players are from the upper midwest, most notably states of Wisconsin & Minnesota.

Illinois is of course the home state school, and has had some success with Chicago kids – but they haven’t had national level success since Dee Brown, et al, a number of years ago, and seem to not have a lot of momentum. Though I do notice on Rivals that they signed four city kids in this year’s class.

I know Notre Dame isn’t in the B1G, but it seems to be the school most people here care about. But like NW, being a private school with the highest academic standards in the conference doesn’t always bode well.

OSU has had some success, especially with Evan Turner, but they recruit nationally (as opposed to regionally like Izzo emphasizes).

Purdue has had some success here, they have a highly rated 2 guard coming out of Whitney Young next season, also, Hummel is from Valpo area & E’Twaun Moore from E. Chicago, IN, which are both closer to Chicago than any major city in Indiana.

U-M seems to have NW Indiana & specifically, Chesterton (btw, Chesterton’s exit off 94, #26a, is a good stop before getting on the tri-state tollway if you are driving to Chicago, they have a Dunkin Donuts, the last reasonably priced gas before the tollway, and a bunch of fast food if you’re into that). Novak & McGary are the two bigges names to come out of Chesterton in a long time, and Beilein nabbed them both. But again, Chesterton is suburban hoops (as opposed to Gary, IN), and not closely aligned with Chicago.

Finally, MSU. Shannon Brown, one of Izzo’s best “gets” in the past 10 years, was a Chicago stud & legend. I know Purdue thinks it owns Gary, IN, but Dawson is from there, and Gary is more aligned with Chicago than any place in Indiana. Obviously these are only a couple of names from there, but Izzo has stated often that he is making Chicago a priority, and when he does get an area commit, it’s the best player in the region.

I guess what I’m getting at is, for as much hoops talent as there is in this city, and also given that B1G headquarters are here, there are numerous speaking events in the city every year with B1G coaches & ADs, and the conference tourney was held here for years, how come Chicago hoops hasn’t been “claimed” by at least one conference school? The local schools all really suck at hoops – DePaul is the worst team in the Big East, Chicago State just snapped it’s 26 game losing streak by beating a D-III catholic school, and Loyola hasn’t been relevant in twenty five years.