Pollard signed with Bama... Fire Cohen Now...

[fishwater99]

Sorry if already posted, but with all the Baseball crap on the board I did not see it discussed here.
Bama will get him qualified and in school. Even with our old coach still here, Bama was always his frontrunner.
It sucks that the best players keep leaving MS, especially when they go to Bama and LSU
Got to get paid....

God gave me the name "Alabama"

"I prayed about it and God gave me the name 'Alabama' and I went ahead and rolled with it," he said.

Pollard hopes to enter the NBA draft as early as 2014.

"I
would love to stay at Alabama no more than two years," said Pollard. "My
first year I want to come in, put on some weight and get a whole lot
better. By the second year, I want my career to be at its highest point
and stay there so I can be an NBA lottery pick."</p>

 

[RobbieRandolph]

Riiiggghhhttt

 

[Coach34]

they now have a sponsor

 

[drunkernhelldawg]

I don't know what the reason is, but I do know that this is terrible news for our program. Our top recruit has signed with our biggest rival. This hurts us for four years or more. It will be a miracle if Coach Ray gets us back to competitiveness in our league within two years. He has my full support, but I am still sad for what we have lost.

 

[KurtRambis4]

God told an athlete to not go to State, it didn't end up well.

 

[DerHntr]

I understand that he is a Mississippian but it really isn't that surprising to me when a person from the east side of the state, anywhere north of Meridian decides to go to Bama. Then you add in that Pollard only wants to be in college for 2 years and consider where we are as a program, and it actually makes sense that he would go elsewhere (and not just Bama).

 

[kimmer]

Being a sparsely populated county (stuck at about 10K since the 1860s) I believe there has only been two big time BB recruits come out of there in my lifetime, and both chose to sign out of state (Charles Jones & now Pollard). Before my time there was Charles Hull who did play for State in the 50's.

Tuscaloosa is about the same distance geographically but it is much farther away from a cultural perspective as overwhelmingly the people of the area grew up there and like either mississippi or State but are united in loathing bama. I guess we did steal Mario Austin from them just over the state line back a few years ago.

 

[Irondawg]

The issue is that to get top flight talented players you have to play the AAU game.

The side effect is that you end up in bed with idiot AAU types so you have to keep taking their players even if you don't really want some of the guys - which leads to always having a few headcases which leads to always having to manage headcases. Which leads to constant drama.

The flip side is trying to pinpoint kids who aren't prima donnas but can stil ball. However that's really hard to find in the south. Kids are usually really, really good or play football or baseball instead down here. There aren't a ton of Jalen Steele's running around out there and as much as I like Jalen - you can't win big with a team full of jalens. You need some impact guys........but all those guys play AAU.

Calipari is the exception b/c he gets to choose who he wants and they listen to him b/c he can point to a gillion 1st round picks.

But there is a reason no program in the south has had continued success. There just isn't the same overall player pool as the Midwest and NE. Florida is the closest thing to an exception.

 

[Wizard.sixpack]

nm

 

[maroonmania]

"playing the AAU game" and we were getting some pretty talented players but with the coaching change our administration purposely wanted to move away from that so now I guess we will just get what we can get. At least maybe until Ray is able to establish some new relationships around. I personally don't think there is anything in college athletics that is more distasteful than the recruiting of high profile HS basketball recruits that are intertwined with the AAU circuit. Even if I was a basketball coach and loved coaching the game I don't know if I could stomach that to stay in the profession.

 

[Irondawg]

but playing the AAU game also led to getting all the players with piss poor attitudes - the trick is to be able to get some AAU guys but have a coach with enough Alpha Dog in him that the players listen and respect him. But even then it's tough.

That SI article about UCLA showed that even a hard *** has problems controlling those types of kids.