MU Somehow Gets Less White, Adds Mysterious 7th Player to 2009 Recuiting Class
His name is Youssoupha Mbao and he is from Dakar, Senegal like former MU center Ouse Barro. Unlike Barro, Mbao is listed at 7'2".
No idea who is leaving MU, but Hazel already left and there are no scholarships available. Also, no idea where this commitment came from. Of the 7 commitments to the 2009 class, all but 1 of them seemingly came out of nowhere. There doesn't appear to be much reason to ever subscribe to scout.com or rivals.com because Buzz B! Williams is just going to sign players no one is expecting.
Wikipedia says Mbao played professional ball in Spain. Somehow he is playing prep ball in California. Now, he is coming to Marquette. Not sure how that works. Something tells me Mbao is extremely raw, but reports on him I've seen are pretty positive. He got 3 stars from Scout and is rated as the 30th best center in the class by ESPN.
Mbao is obviously a high ceiling recruit because 7'2" guys who aren't white stiffs don't grow on trees. Analysts clearly have a hard time ranking these hit and miss guys. Hasheem Thabeet had a very similar ranking. He needs two things: (1) a Milwaukee diet to add 40 more pounds (currently listed at 215lbs) and (2) to learn how to swarm.
Labels: Dark Skinned MU Recruit, MU Basketball, Swarming
posted by Condescendy @ 10:38 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
This is definitely not out of nowhere; Buzz went to Cali a day or 2 after the Mizzou loss to meet with this guy. His name was out there back in March but when I looked at it back then I figured a) he would never be elligible at MU; b) he would land at one of the other high majors that was interested and had room to take a flier (UConn, UK, USC, UCLA)and c) we couldn't clear a spot to bring him in. Interesting that it seems to have worked out.
Talk about rail thin. This guy is 7' freaking 2'' and weighs about as much as Cadougan, who is maybe 6'1''. I have no insider info but the logical conclusion to draw is that McMorrow's health will preclude him from playing basketball, so that's the spot he'll take. What's even crazier is that I don't think Buzz is done for this year. I still think there's a 40-50% chance that Acker or Cubillan will not be back.
Just one year into his coaching career, Buzz is definitely going all in. We'll see how many of these question marks pan out, but with a very solid trio of freshman, the next couple years could be very exciting.
Thanks for trying, Cubillan. Have a nice life.
Post a Comment
<< Home