The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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66 THE WOLVERINE AUGUST 2017 F or years now, Michigan head basketball coach John Beilein has been fighting the perception that he can't land the biggest of the big fish on the recruiting trail. He received the latest verification of his ability to bring in top talent to Michigan June 22, when forward D.J. Wilson, once a four-star prospect ranked No. 86 nationally by Rivals. com, went to the Milwaukee Bucks No. 17 overall in the NBA Draft. "You see that?" Beilein asked at his College Practice Camp a day later, beaming with pride. "No. 17!" Beilein then noted again what he's said many times before — rate kids after their careers have ended if you want to find out who the real five stars are. With six first-round picks now in five years, and another on the way next year or the following when Ger- man rising-junior big man Moritz Wagner enters the draft, U-M has become one of the top schools in the country at putting talent in the league. "John Beilein sends another pros- pect to the first round," ESPN's Myron Medcalf tweeted after the Bucks took Wilson. "Greatest talent- developer in college basketball. One day he'll get credit." Development is a huge part of a player's success. But doing the home- work to identify kids who have the work ethic and desire to improve is every bit as important. Head football coach Jim Harbaugh uses a similar vetting process, talking to coaches, parents and teachers to help determine whether a player is cut out to be a 'Michigan Man.' They're also not all five-star pros- pects in the rankings. Stanford writers told us one of the players Harbaugh wanted as much as any in his 2009 class was none other than Cincinnati St. Xavier linebacker Luke Kuechly. He was the No. 37 player in Ohio and No. 44 outside linebacker nation- ally according to Rivals.com, and he ended up at Boston College and be- came a perennial NFL All-Pro. Former Michigan head football coach Brady Hoke recruited the 11 players who went in this year's NFL Draft, a fact not lost on Beilein. Four of them were three-star prospects, while only one — safety Jabrill Pep- pers — was a five star. "Has anyone written an article about that?" Beilein said. "That's amazing!" It works both ways, of course. There are plenty of programs that hoard five-star talents and send them on to the NBA or NFL, and to be a high-level program in college sports, coaches must recruit top talent. The best predictor of recruiting success, by far, is recruiting ratings. However, as one of our astute sub- scribers wrote in recently, every rule has exceptions, and Beilein appears to be one of them. Yes, he wants to land five-star pros- pects if they're the right fit — same as Harbaugh — but like the football coach, he has a unique, and arguably unparalleled, ability to identify and develop players others might pass on. Butler's Gordon Hayward, now an NBA star, was his Kuechly — a guy he wanted badly during his first few years at Michigan. "Our thing is, are they five-star players when they come out of here?" Beilein said last fall. "Caris LeVert [a two star when he pledged, now with the Brooklyn Nets], Trey Burke [a three star, also a former first-round NBA Draft pick] — were they five-star players when they walked out of here? Yes. "There may be some situations where the rankings say they're not five stars. We say, 'Just give them time.'" The numbers back him up. As our subscriber noted, Beilein has recruited and signed 37 players directly out of high school during his tenure at Michigan. Not counting those whose careers ended due to medical prob- lems, or those in the last two classes still developing, that leaves 27 players who can be fairly judged. Of those 27, six went in the first round of the NBA Draft, and two more were drafted in round two. That means almost 30 percent of the recruited players were NBA-level talents. Of the remaining 18 (counting Wagner in the NBA group), another six were, or will be, three or four-year starters on teams that have won either a Big Ten regular-season or tourna- ment championship. So keep watching those recruit- ing lists — we certainly will. Keep in mind, though, that the next "disap- pointing" commitment might just be a five star in the making. The guys deciding to sign them have pretty good track records. ❏ Chris Balas has been with The Wolver- ine since 1997, working part time for five years before joining the staff full time in 2002. Contact him at cbalas@ thewolverine.com and follow him on Twitter @Balas_Wolverine. INSIDE MICHIGAN CHRIS BALAS The Real Five Stars Trey Burke arrived in Ann Arbor as a three-star prospect, but after two years of being devel- oped by head coach John Beilein he left for the NBA playing like a five-star talent. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL