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Report: Recruit picks Jayhawks over OU, UT

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The magic of "Late Night at the Phog?" paid off quickly for the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday as KU received an oral commitment from Las Vegas point guard Elijah Johnson, according to a source. Johnson, a four-star recruit and the No. 27 overall player according to Rivals.com, chose the Jayhawks after seeing the 2008 national championship banner raised to the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse on Friday night. Johnson picked KU over Big 12 rivals Oklahoma and Texas.

Kansas City Star

Bill Self, Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images Bill Self, Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images
October 19, 2008  10:00 AM ET

Wouldn't you? I mean Kansas and North Carolina are the two schools I'd think most basketball players dream of going to. Duke as well, but I'd hate to be associated with Christian Laettner, quintessential prick and like Danny Ferry pretty useless in the pros.

Comment #2 has been removed
October 19, 2008  11:01 PM ET

WOW....We do keep getting stronger and stronger... Bill recruited Big time players without a national championship under his belt. This is just the start, Bill will be bigger than Roy was, and maybe already is, by the time he is done here at KU.

Rock Chalk

October 19, 2008  11:07 PM ET

oooooh that is exciting to think about! I've been gleefully watchin KU ball since I was a toddler and wandered out on the court to say hi to coach. Bill is surely more classy than Larry and already shown more talent than Roy. Suhweet. go big blue.

October 20, 2008  09:47 AM ET

Bill Self is doing a great job at Kansas. It is almost unheard of to have a team who is a National Powerhouse lose there coach and the program never skips a beat. Self picked up right where Roy left off. But to imply that Bill will have a larger legacy than Roy is way too early to talk about. Roy has coached in 220 more games than Self and has 3 less overall losses than Self does. That right there says a lot. And there records and success since Roy's been at UNC and Bill has been at KU is near identical. Roy is a HOF'r and has the highest winning percentage of any active coach, lets not forget that.

October 20, 2008  11:08 AM ET

I'm pretty sure he meant legacy at Kansas.

October 20, 2008  12:16 PM ET

who cares it's football season

October 21, 2008  05:29 PM ET
QUOTE(#7):

who cares it's football season

Nope buddy de football season is on it's way out. Can u say bye bye!

October 21, 2008  11:01 PM ET
QUOTE(#6):

I'm pretty sure he meant legacy at Kansas.

Your right.... I was/am not talking about Roy in general, but his legacy at KU. I really could care less about his legacy at UNC, he told us he was never leaving and then did, which was heartbreaking to all of KU faithful. But i understand it was his alma mater and what not. As far as KU goes, wins dont mean a whole lot if you dont win the big one.

It is kind of amazing that if KU were to have lost an early game in the tournament, most of Lawrence would be asking for his head on a platter, after what happened the couple years before this.

October 22, 2008  10:21 AM ET

Kansas, North Carolina, Duke? Please, UCLA is the school of choice for majority of basketball recruits. Who can blame them, 11 National Championships, John Wooden sitting in the stands during home games, living in Los Angeles over Lawrence, Durham, and Chapel Hill.

October 22, 2008  12:05 PM ET

When was the last time UCLA won a the National Championship?

October 23, 2008  12:57 AM ET

Don't forget John Wooden poured the concrete at Memorial Football Stadium in Lawrence. No joke, look it up. He was trying to get to know the inventor of basketball (Naismith) and Phog Allen, his best recruit ever, who had just won a couple back to back national championships (not recognized until later) with Naismith's help.

October 23, 2008  03:28 AM ET
QUOTE(#5):

Bill Self is doing a great job at Kansas. It is almost unheard of to have a team who is a National Powerhouse lose there coach and the program never skips a beat. Self picked up right where Roy left off. But to imply that Bill will have a larger legacy than Roy is way too early to talk about. Roy has coached in 220 more games than Self and has 3 less overall losses than Self does. That right there says a lot. And there records and success since Roy's been at UNC and Bill has been at KU is near identical. Roy is a HOF'r and has the highest winning percentage of any active coach, lets not forget that.

Please. I love Roy Williams. I think he was the best college basketball coach in the country...until last year, that is. He has 3 less overall losses than Self? Really? You're going to use that to say Roy's better? Roy has been a head coach at TWO programs. TWO. Kansas and UNC. I realize the original post was simply talking about each coach's legacy at KU, and Roy is the more accomplished coach overall, but to use wins and losses when Roy has coached at two national powers and Self coached at Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas. In essence, you're comparing ORU, Tulsa and Illinois to UNC. There is absolutely no comparison there. In his first two years at ORU, Self was 6-21 and 10-17. Since then, he hasn't won less than 18 games in a season, including his first year at Tulsa (19 wins) and Illinois (27 wins). Roy had an unfair advantage in this argument by starting at KU.

And if you want to go deeper into the statistics, think about this; Bill Self, in his 5 years so far at KU, has improved his winning percentage almost every year, the only dip being between 03-04 and 04-05, when he was reloading the program and they started the year 3-4, only to finish at 23-7. He is scary good as a coach, and the numbers he's producing are absolutely incredible. Bill Self is the best basketball coach in the nation (and I reiterate, I LOVE Roy), and if you disagree with me and think Roy's better, you can reference April 5th, 2008. If the way the 'Hawks came out versus the way the #1 overall seed Tar Heels did and the way a 7th-man freshman really dominated the POY doesn't prove Self is better, I don't know what does.

October 23, 2008  03:44 AM ET
QUOTE(#10):

Kansas, North Carolina, Duke? Please, UCLA is the school of choice for majority of basketball recruits. Who can blame them, 11 National Championships, John Wooden sitting in the stands during home games, living in Los Angeles over Lawrence, Durham, and Chapel Hill.

Uh...you have no basis for this argument. I looked back in the Rivals.com database, and as far as it goes back with team recruiting rankings (to 2003), UCLA has been the #1 team only once (this year-2008). Other than 2008 (KU was #2) and 2007 (KU was so loaded with talent they didn't have scholarships for new kids), KU has beaten UCLA in recruiting every single year. Other than this year, UCLA has been beaten in the rankings by at least one of those teams, and oftentimes all three. This is not to say that UCLA is not an elite team or that Ben Howland is not a brilliant coach, but he has been unable to attract recruits to Los Angeles like Self, Roy and Coach K have been able to recruit them to cities that offer less of a national stage. Yes, UCLA has a great history, but much of that history is based around one coach who was able to draw the top talent from around the country to Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s. Ben Howland has won without this high-level talent, and this year he has it. But to say that he or UCLA as a program recruits better than the others in the "Big Three" (UCLA, KU, UNC) or even Duke is in direct contradiction of the facts.

 
October 23, 2008  03:58 AM ET

And on a side note, no college basketball program has contributed more to college basketball than KU's. The inventor of basketball (Naismith) and "Father of Basketball Coaching" (Phog Allen) were both coaches at KU, the man who changed the game (Chamberlain) refined his game at KU, and numerous legendary coaches got their start at or played for (or both) KU, including the founder of the consistent tradition at UNC (Dean Smith), the man who rescued UNC's pride (Roy), and the man under whom Kentucky experienced its greatest success (Adolph Rupp), and as mentioned before, Wooden came to Lawrence to learn from Naismith and Phog Allen. Kansas, then, can be linked to the successes of three of the winningest programs in college basketball history. The only elite tradition schools that can't look to KU and thank them for their basketball tradition are Duke and Indiana, and Duke and Coach K owe a lot of their success to Bobby Knight, although, contrary to popular belief, Duke had an elite program before K.

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