I spent $500 on Vedder and *really* liked him. He was within 100 miles of me but his proximity was set to Far Away From Home, so I shyed away at first, then you were on him and didn't want to battle you. He should turn out to be a very nice player for you.

My best recruit is another SF Austin who I took away from sim New Mexico - took about $18,000 to do so. 

Still trying to figure out D1 recruiting - you definitely have to spend the cash on the recruits you want. I take too much of the shotgun approach. 

We had some pretty good improvement this year, too.  The best improvement came from our frosh SF Vedder, who improved 99 points.  He should have pretty big improvement next year, too.

Future SF/PF combo guy Christopher Painter also had a good improvement this year, improving a total of 84 points.


For the second straight year we had great success with an international big man.  He improved a total of 79 points.



Here are are our final ratings and improvements:

My one and only recruit this year was an average big from Nevada.  He should be a decent role-player down the line, but I'm not expecting big things from him.

Recruit #1: Mark Walker
Needing a 4th guard for this year's run, we sunk most of our money into Drexel-bound PG Michael Kelley.  He'll be beast, just couldn't beat the $ the simmy had.  We ended up getting Mark Walker, who will never be at the level of my other Nevada guards.  My prediction for Walker is that he will never start a game for Nevada. (He didn't)
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Recruit #2: Richard Baugher



Although Baugher may be unranked, he is one of the best recruits I've ever pulled at Nevada.  We scouted Indiana for a PG that ended up sucking, but we got lucky with Baugher.  He has high-high potential in LP and PER, he should be 90+ in REB, he'll have great ATH, he already knows my O/D, and he accepted a RS.  It really doesn't get better than this guy.  He might be a reason to stick around at Nevada.

Both Lyall and Romano made the 2nd Team Pre-Season All-American Teams.  I would have been happy with some guys just getting honorable mention, but to have two guys who are 2nd in the country at a school like Nevada is pretty damn cool.

After getting our RPI to 7 after the 9th game, we fell down to 13 after beating Arizona State.  We finished our out of conference schedule 9-1, including 7 wins over what are now top 100 RPI teams, 3 of those against top 50 teams.  Our only loss came to Washington State (9-1, RPI 7, Ranked #8) who will be excellent this year.  Currently we are ranked #25.  We've been playing very well and our scoring has been very balanced between our four scorers.  Rembert has been excellent dishing out assists to these guys and Vedder has been a force rebounding from the SF spot.
Team Stats:

We went 28-1 this regular season, our only loss coming to PAC-10 champion Washington State.  We earned a 4 seed in the NT.  Unfortunately, we lost in the 2nd round today to 12 seed Wisconsin.  I was happy that I was able to get Nevada to the tournament and thrilled that we were able to win a game in the tournament.  I'm not sure that I'll be back at Nevada next season, although we do have a very solid returning cast.  However we do lose two-time WCC POY Gilberto Romano, #12 on the all-time scoring list Johnny Lyall, and nation-assist leading and #22 on the all-time assist list Michael Rembert.  

Vedder declared early and ended up being drafted 17th. Romano was drafted one spot ahead of him at 16th. Rembert got drafted 56th overall. Very satisfying to get two guys drafted in the first round and three overall, buy we will certainly miss Vedder. With him we're a threat to go to the sweet 16, but with just Glenn and abdeldayden, we'll probably be out early if we even make the tourney.

After Nevada's best season ever, we improved our prestige to C+ and then got three players drafted (the first ever drafted out of Nevada).  We had 4 seniors leave, but we also had a junior leave early and a sophomore transfer, leaving us with only 6 players coming back.  We do return Nuru Abdeldayden, an elite big man, and Larry Glenn, a very good guard.  We also get back seniors Travis Veilleux (SF) and Christopher Painter (PF), sophomore guard Mark Walker (he sucks), and RS Freshman Richard Baugher (PF/C).  Baugher will be an absolute stud and should be able to contribute this year with B IQs at both O/D.  Because Baugher RS'd last year, we had to sign at least one JUCO this year.  The first five are guys from H.S., but our 6th guy, yet to sign, is a JUCO Center who has a good shot to be all-WCC this year.  He has yet to sign, but he's not considering only us, so he should sign at this 5:00 cycle.

Recruit #1: Larry Wittig

I was surprised no one else went after Wittig.  Wittig will hopefully follow in the footsteps of past Nevada guards and end up being a stud, despite his low ranking.  Wittig will see a good amount of playing time this year.  WE-62

Recruit #2: Murray Whiting
I'd be surprised if Whiting ends up actually going to Nevada.  He was signed for a grand total of $110, and since it's generally accepted that the amount of $$ you spend impacts whether a player goes to school or not, I'd say he's not expected to come to Nevada.  If he does end up coming here, I think he'll end up being a great SG who will be able to score, despite his low speed.  WE-84

Recruit #3: Juan Robles
I'm just hoping on Robles.  He's better than Wittig right now and he knows zone, so he'll start at SG this season.  Hopefully he has some nice potential.

Recruit #4: Chad O'Rouke

I think O'Rouke will end up being a pretty damn good player.  He'll probably play a combo of SG and SF, but he'll need more seasoning to be good at either.  His REB is too low to play SF right now and his SPD and BH isn't good enough to play SG right now.  He's a good RS candidate.  WE-56