Golden State to Hire Stanford Coach

Well, it is common knowledge now, but Golden State fired HC Eric Musselman and are hiring Mike Montgomery from Stanford. How is this GT relavent? Well, GT competes with Stanford for a lot of the same recruits - the academically capable / skilled hoops set. This story from ESPN says it best at the bottom -

"The Stanford job likely would attract some of the top names in the business who have a history of working with academically rich, highly skilled basketball players. The Cardinal's recruiting pool is consistently considered one of the smallest in the country for a high-major program."

That's Stanford and that's GT also. So will Montgomery leaving help our recruiting efforts? My guess is that it will cause a blip in the radar in our favor. Bobby Frasor, one our top targets, decided to still take an official visit to Stanford even with this news, but my guess is that it hurts their efforts to land him. For now he has no idea who the coach is going to be and what will happen to any of the assistants he has been in contact with. Whether or not it helps for the next 3-5 years all depends on the quality of the HC they bring in. But my guess is that any advantage we might have will be short-lived after this recruiting season.

In other recruiting news, former UNC recruit JR Smith has not only entered the draft, but has now signed with an agent - meaning he will officially never be a Tarheel. I guess there IS something "fina' than to be in Carolina".

Kansas is expected today at 4:00 to hear that they have landed the services of one of the bewt PG's in the 2005 - Mario Chalmers. GT was also after him. Story from KU.......... Here's more on the top recruiting class at Kansas, inlcuding a lot of guys we were interested in like Galindo / Giles, etc........... Here's more on Chalmers and his ability.