Butler will find out how good they are. St. Johns is in conference in Maryland/DC area with Good Counsel, Damatha, Gonzaga. Don Bosco is in NJ and their conference has Bergen Catholic, Christian Brothers... People in NC whine about recruiting, the subtlies of jumping districts and the parochials having an unfair advantage with geographic reach. These schools openly recruit, give scholarships and board students. They aren't shy about it either and all are stocked with D1 talent. Good Counsel openly has a coach on their staff for recruiting. These schools are regularly ranked in the top 25, 50 or 100 in Max Preps. Catholic played Gonzaga a few years back and beat them 35-28. They had 13 D1 commits at the start of the season. Catholic had Eligah Hood and he had a career day. Without him, they would have gotten crushed. Gonzaga flew in on a chartered plane. The next week they flew down to Florida to play a national power there. Catholic played Good Counsel a couple of years ago. Lost 7-0. They played tough but were physically overmatched. Game nowhere near as close as the score and Good Counsel had a lot of mistakes and penalties to keep CAtholic in the game. These school have resources, more than a lot of small colleges. Good luck to Butler and they get a big cajones award for taking on this challenge.
I'm hearing that the new CMS Athletic Director Ericia Turner, is not a fan of the transfer portal going on in Charlotte. Hough will probably be her 1st visit. Huskies! Get that paper work in order.
I agree. This is going to be a tough out for Butler. Having lived in Maryland, I'm very familiar with the quality of these teams. Plus playing up there, will make it tough. I'm hoping Butler can stay in it. But, I'm going with the prediction of St. John's 38 Butler 10.
Some refinement? Hough and Myers Park are squeaky clean boy scouts compared to what the Maryland and NJ schools do to attract talent. The difference is there it is accepted as normal and expected behavior and has been going on for years. Same deal at Mater Dei, IMG, De La Salle, Thomas Aquinas, Bishop Gorman, Bosco... These schools are loaded with D1 talent, are built to play a national schedule and appear on ESPN. North and South Carolina Schools occasionally get a sniff at the MaxPreps top 100, maybe occasionally at the top 50 but not much more.
No one pays attention to Hough, because they can never finish. They usually have 20 FBS guys on a squad every year. That's not a sniff of talent or squeaky clean in comparison to anywhere in the U.S.
2021 Class had 2 go to NCState, Virginia, Louisville, Ohio State, and Colorado commits. That's just the power 5 schools.That conference is always tough. It was fun watching them when I lived up there.
I’ll take Butler in a Richmond rematch. They just played an Allstar team with depth . I wouldn’t want to see them in the playoffs.
After watching the (1-2) Province game verse MC I would Take: