Michael Perez accepts scholarship offer [AZ Daily Star]

Michael Perez Heading To St. Johns

// July 16th, 2010 // Athletics

The Arizona Daily Star is reporting the following:

Former Pueblo High School guard/forward Michael Perez was extended an offer by St. John’s, a Big East school, while playing for the Compton Magic during a tournament in Long Beach, Calif., this week.

Perez verbally committed to play for the Red Storm this fall, a program that is now coached by former UCLA head man Steve Lavin.

“Two weeks ago I was thinking I was heading to a junior college,” said Perez, who averaged 29.9 points at Pueblo as a senior. “But I’ve been playing well, and I thought I’d wait just a little longer to decide, see if anyone else would offer.

“Now I’m in a daze. It’s always been my dream to play D-I college basketball.”

Congratulations to Michael Perez.

I guess this closes the door on Remi Barry.

The new staff deserves the benefit of the doubt when they sign a sleeper recruit. For all we know, we'll be pleasantly surprised with him.

When Omari Lawrence transferred the general comment was: "Don´t worry, we´ll get better players".

And now we get a player from the state of Arizona with no offers from Arizona or Arizona State, with no offers from Division I teams, and with no appearence on scout, rivals or espn.

I´m sorry, but I have my doubts.

Gonzalo, we got Dwayne Polee. Let's see if he isn't the best freshman we've had since Burrell.

Gonzalo - you always defended norm it seemed like.  A few months in and you criticize lavin? What gives?

He deserves benefit of the doubt until he loses that privilege.

When Omari Lawrence transferred the general comment was: "Don´t worry, we´ll get better players".

And now we get a player from the state of Arizona with no offers from Arizona or Arizona State, with no offers from Division I teams, and with no appearence on scout, rivals or espn.

I´m sorry, but I have my doubts.

Yeah lets get rid of Lavin.  Boy he sure promised us the world and hasn't delivered.  We've given him so much time too.  Hey Norm isn't doing anything.  Maybe he will come back.

C'mon Gonzalo.  Your better than this.

Does this article actually mean hes coming because its almost ten days old from the date on the top. It seems like this article came out about the same time as the original article about him coming here. It doesn't seem like anything new we haven't heard before so how do we know this article is more true than the others.

Quote from: gonzalo on July 25, 2010, 07:04:55 AM

When Omari Lawrence transferred the general comment was: "Don´t worry, we´ll get better players".

And now we get a player from the state of Arizona with no offers from Arizona or Arizona State, with no offers from Division I teams, and with no appearence on scout, rivals or espn.

I´m sorry, but I have my doubts.

Yeah lets get rid of Lavin.  Boy he sure promised us the world and hasn't delivered.  We've given him so much time too.  Hey Norm isn't doing anything.  Maybe he will come back.

C'mon Gonzalo.  Your better than this.

I don't think he's wrong to have doubts. I have doubts.

He's not calling for Lavin's head or anything but he certainly can question this move.


@Wods317 thats why in the title of this thread we include the source [AZ Daily Star] becuase this news is according to them. As far as I was told was that they were "intrigued" with Michael Perez and they would have to look at his transcripts before anything would happen.

Quote from: Moose on July 25, 2010, 12:55:18 PM

Quote from: gonzalo on July 25, 2010, 07:04:55 AM

When Omari Lawrence transferred the general comment was: "Don´t worry, we´ll get better players".

And now we get a player from the state of Arizona with no offers from Arizona or Arizona State, with no offers from Division I teams, and with no appearence on scout, rivals or espn.

I´m sorry, but I have my doubts.

Yeah lets get rid of Lavin.  Boy he sure promised us the world and hasn't delivered.  We've given him so much time too.  Hey Norm isn't doing anything.  Maybe he will come back.

C'mon Gonzalo.  Your better than this.

I don't think he's wrong to have doubts. I have doubts.

He's not calling for Lavin's head or anything but he certainly can question this move.


@Wods317 thats why in the title of this thread we include the source [AZ Daily Star] becuase this news is according to them. As far as I was told was that they were "intrigued" with Michael Perez and they would have to look at his transcripts before anything would happen.

Dave-

He has been questioning a lot Lavin has been doing lately.  Perez would be the 13th player on the team.  Under Norm he would be playing significant minutes.  Am I wondering yeah sure but this staff runs circles around the previous regime so in their 1st year they get all the benefit of the doubt.  In year 4 it would be another story.  He had the same doubts because we might lose Randall to big bad Rutgers and their aren't any other pure PF prospects.  But meanwhile we are littered with 4 star and Top 100 players considering us.  Makes no sense to doubt based on those facts and especially this early.

And like Wods pointed out this article is severely dated.  These AZ papers aren't worth the paper they are printed on also so lets hold out and see what happens.

Well we're all not going to agree all the time. I think everyone is subject to criticism and the points Gonzalo make are valid. You may or may not agree with them which is fine too. He's making his point respectfully.

As for saying he's the 13th guy on the bench well thats true. So what number does that make him next year?

Either he's #4 and we have a Geno case of a guy who's good but shouldn't be put into that role

or

He's recruited over and he's still #13 and isn't a significant scholarship player

So yes there are certainly reasons to be skeptical and doubtful. Now the positive scenario is that he's good enough to contribute next season and he was a diamond in the rough. I certainly hold out hope for that but I'm just being realistic and level headed.

Omari next year will more than likely be more of an impact player than Perez will be and thats Gonzalo's big point.

I am very confident in Coach Lavin and his staff. My question in this post is what happened to Remi Barry?
Are they afraid of the possibility of his past being tainted or do they think he may be a one and done and not worth it with this senior laden team?

I am very confident in Coach Lavin and his staff. My question in this post is what happened to Remi Barry?
Are they afraid of the possibility of his past being tainted or do they think he may be a one and done and not worth it with this senior laden team?

Everyone wants Remi to be here but there is issues with his eligibility with the clearinghouse.

I think we're in the position to play the waiting game and if all things came to be I think push came to shove if we signed Perez and Remi was eligible we'd push someone else out. However I think Remi will be here whether its 2010 or 2011

Well we're all not going to agree all the time. I think everyone is subject to criticism and the points Gonzalo make are valid. You may or may not agree with them which is fine too. He's making his point respectfully.

As for saying he's the 13th guy on the bench well thats true. So what number does that make him next year?

Either he's #4 and we have a Geno case of a guy who's good but shouldn't be put into that role

or

He's recruited over and he's still #13 and isn't a significant scholarship player

So yes there are certainly reasons to be skeptical and doubtful. Now the positive scenario is that he's good enough to contribute next season and he was a diamond in the rough. I certainly hold out hope for that but I'm just being realistic and level headed.

Omari next year will more than likely be more of an impact player than Perez will be and thats Gonzalo's big point.

Gonzalo is hung up on posters saying we will get better recruits in place of Omari (who by the way could have stayed here if he so chose).  And the staff has tried to get players of Omari's caliber and probably better in Remi or Chris Hill but academic questions remain.  Taking a shot on a kid like Perez coming from solid AAU program with other stars behind him, and maybe as CRgreen has pointed out he might walk on down the road and Lavin has a history of that.  PLUS to boot in 2011 we are after TONS of Top 100 players.  Something we haven't seen in years.  So respectfully or not I don't want to hear that we're not going after 'better' players because its so far from the truth it isn't even funny.

I'll let the Perez thing play out; this early in the staff's time at the school, I assume they wouldn't do something stupid or useless.  I'll pick at it and analyze it, but I'm not going to be that doubtful about it.

Honestly, if the conversation between Lavin and Omari was "I don't see you starting next year and we're bringing in some high major kids that fit our style," O might not have really had a lot of value to them.  I like his game.  They may not have.  And the staff will land some high-end players, and each of those players will see that there isn't likely anyone standing in the way of them and significant playing time.

Dave-

He has been questioning a lot Lavin has been doing lately. He had the same doubts because we might lose Randall to big bad Rutgers and their aren't any other pure PF prospects.  But meanwhile we are littered with 4 star and Top 100 players considering us.  Makes no sense to doubt based on those facts and especially this early.

Have I been questioning a lot Lavin has been doing lately?

I have written about two things:

I only have said that Perez has not received any offer (nobody has replied me about this) and I would like that we could get Randall (Moose, I know that the guards are primordial in college basketball, but all the teams use power forwards; thanks to Norm Roberts we are not going to have any frontcourt player with experience (perhaps Poole will play some minutes at 4 position next year) in 2012 and we need some big men.

And I am not the only one with doubts. See this thread:

http://johnnyjungle.com/forum/index.php?topic=4573.0

Its not even the beginning of lavin's first season.  Did you criticize norm even 1 tenth as much as you are doing lavin at that point, gonzalo?

I can understand some people will always be negative...but gonzalo you usually DEFEND our coach, whoever he is.  Why pick on this?

Let's let lavin do his thing. Its disturbing to come to the board in year less than 1 and see people nitpicking a JULY signing.

We have seen other coaches bring in unheraled players and coaches coach and the kids successed on the court. Lets see this dream team coaching staff earn it's money.

Gonzalo, we got Dwayne Polee. Let's see if he isn't the best freshman we've had since Burrell.

Setting the bar pretty high. Lol
It's safe to say Polee will surpass those expectations. It'll be interesting to see how much PT he earns on this senior-laden squad.

Good luck to Perez
I certainly hope he enjoys his time here and the player we get in return is worth it.

In the end, he'll likely be a bench warmer so it's probably not worth the in-house bickering. It is odd, however, that arguably the smartest coach in the business (Sendek) and one of the better recruiting staffs in the country (Sean Miller and Book Richardson) opted to stay away from a home-state player. It's not like Arizona State or Arizona has higher admissions standards for their athletes than St. John's does.

gonzalo has not said anything worth battering him for...you can not disagree that this move is puzzling on more than some levels...obviously when you have a hot shot recruiter and all star staff come in, you dont expect to go out to arizona and offer a kid with no D-1 offers, headed to juco, a scholarship on your team...none of us saw this coming...but considering the past 6 months in this program there has to be some explanation...it could be hes viewed as a project, which with this staff, could turn out to be a real gem of a player (go check the offers gordon hayward had out of hs and how many recruiting services even rated him)...this could be a favor to someone (remember the type of recruiter lavin is reputed to be) to open the doors for something bigger...this could simply be the staff saying, screw it, we have 9 scholarships to fill next year, we'll take a chance on this kid, and if he doesnt pan out, who cares, we still got 8 to use on top 100 prospects next year...bc if this kid turns out to be the worst college basketball player of all time, the only way it comes back to bite the staff in the ass, is if they dont sign who they are supposed to next year...and if they dont do that, they have bigger problems than the previous years stupid signing anyway

Quote from: Moose on July 25, 2010, 01:49:59 PM

Dave-

He has been questioning a lot Lavin has been doing lately. He had the same doubts because we might lose Randall to big bad Rutgers and their aren't any other pure PF prospects.  But meanwhile we are littered with 4 star and Top 100 players considering us.  Makes no sense to doubt based on those facts and especially this early.

Have I been questioning a lot Lavin has been doing lately?

I have written about two things:

I only have said that Perez has not received any offer (nobody has replied me about this) and I would like that we could get Randall (Moose, I know that the guards are primordial in college basketball, but all the teams use power forwards; thanks to Norm Roberts we are not going to have any frontcourt player with experience (perhaps Poole will play some minutes at 4 position next year) in 2012 and we need some big men.

And I am not the only one with doubts. See this thread:

http://johnnyjungle.com/forum/index.php?topic=4573.0

Your failing to realize the fact that he's been on the job since April and your holding him to a standard most didn't hold Norm responsible too in 6 years!

I've said my piece.  I'm not hyping him up to be a hidden gem like some on both boards are.  I am however optimistic in a proven coach and a dynamic staff in what they see in the 13th and FINAL player on our roster, who by the way still is not confirmed to even be coming.