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Evaluation is key in TU recruiting -- Cain Atkinson column

Chris Harmon

ITS Publisher
Staff
Aug 15, 2002
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Tulsa, OK
tulsa.rivals.com
Tulsa basketball has a great tradition. Most of today's fans remember the days of deep tournament runs, Sweet 16s, and of course they always talked about the Elite 8 team. The foundation of those teams was no doubt due to the excellent recruiting and evaluation by the coaches that graced the TU sideline. But early in the Frank Haith era of TU basketball, there is more scrutiny on recruiting than ever before.
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I get it, I need to let Haith, "Show Me", the results of his Tulsa recruiting after say, three years.

Fair enough. Expecting and hoping for the best.

You made some very good points in your story.
 
Takes a good evaluator......Self and Gillispie were really good knowing who would fit and sign with Tulsa.
 
Takes a good evaluator......Self and Gillispie were really good knowing who would fit and sign with Tulsa.

Self and billy G were good because they could both land the big names (McDaniel, Parker), and saw talent in those no one offered (Swanson).

But is Tulsa area high school basketball up to what it once was? Or are we just not landing them? I mean at one time we had Pooh, Swanson, Hill, Reed, Coley, and Jason Parker all in a pretty short time span, and all from the area. When was the last Tulsa area kid we had that did really well? Been a decade, I think...

I know we've lost parker's brother, and shake, and the kid from verdigris. But we haven't gotten hardly anyone from around Tulsa.
 
Self and billy G were good because they could both land the big names (McDaniel, Parker), and saw talent in those no one offered (Swanson).

But is Tulsa area high school basketball up to what it once was? Or are we just not landing them? I mean at one time we had Pooh, Swanson, Hill, Reed, Coley, and Jason Parker all in a pretty short time span, and all from the area. When was the last Tulsa area kid we had that did really well? Been a decade, I think...

I know we've lost parker's brother, and shake, and the kid from verdigris. But we haven't gotten hardly anyone from around Tulsa.

I think the last Eastern Oklahoma area player we had was Bryson Pope out of Jenks. Nothing to write home about.
 
The last high-quality Oklahoma kids Tulsa signed were James Woodard (Edmond) and D'Andre Wright (Lawton).

Oklahoma continues to put out quality talent each year. Some years are better than others.
 
Oklahoma 3* or higher kids:

2013
Stevie Clark
Juwan Parker
Jordan Woodard
Jakob Hartsock
Shaquille Morris

2014
Mitch Solomon
Jake Hammond
Omega Harris

2015
Shake Milton

2016
Tyson Jolly
Kristian Doolittle
Jakolby Long
Deshawn McDowell
Tre Evans
Austin Meyer

2017
Trae Young
Brady Manek
Ethan Chargois
Elijah Landrum
Qyema Gibson

*kids are ranked in order for each class
 
The basketball power in the state has definitely moved to Oklahoma City though... Not a whole lot of Tulsa area guys on that list... Maybe 5 or 6
 
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