Signing day Odds and ends

I really have not done an odds and ends post in quite some time, mainly because I have not been coming across enough little pieces of info that would warrant a whole column, but here is one.

• I forgot to mention that a few other Montana high school athletes should be signing letter of intents with Division teams today, Namely Josh Huestis with the Stanford men’s program and Jordan Phau with Weber State women’s program. If I have missed someone please let me know.

• To my surprise Libby’s 6-1 forward Jackie Mee will not sign with a d-1 team this fall. In my humble (and sometime wrong) opinion she is at least as talented as some of the Montana women who will be signing today. Before I get hate mail this is not a knock on any one, but an acknowledgment that Mee is a very good player.

• There was a nice article on Bobcat recruit /Signee Casey Trujeque and two other of his Price high school teammates were featured in a LA Times article yesterday. The main thrust of the article was about how tiny Price high school will have three players signing letters of intent today with Division 1 schools. One thing to remember though, while Price has a student population of about 100, for some odd reason a lot of the better high school students in the area seem to find themselves at Price high school. Imagine that!

For the record: Price’s, Richard Solomon and Allen Crabbe will sign with California and Casey Trujeque will sign with Montana State.

Go here to read the whole article.

Odds and Ends: 10-7-09

I have been very busy the past month so sorry for the lack of attention to my Blog, but here are some more odds and ends.

• The official start of basketball practice is just around the corner. Technically the coaches and players have been able to have limited practices since September 15th, on October 17th at 7:00PM the official start of practice. I do not know at this time what each program has planned for the first practice, but typically neither Binford, Huse, Selvig nor Tinkle have been up for any theatrics for the start of the season. Usually they have been quite boring. I will have a post updating, the program’s plans before the 17th.

• Speaking of October 17th, the Griz men’s program will be hosting 6-6 guard forward Jordan Reetz from Fall Creek high school in Wisconsin on that week end. Last week end the Griz have two official visitors, but I only have bits and pieces on which they were. Look for this week end to be a very good recruiting week-end for the Griz. Homecoming is a huge week end not only for the football but also basketball. The basketball coaches have really cashed in on this week-end over the years.

• Former Griz assistant coach (under former head coach Kennedy) Ronnie Dean was named last week as head coach of Highland college in Illinois. He was the assistant there and was promoted to head coach when the former head coach left. Here is an article on the hiring. Dean was let go by the Griz after one year, despite being an outstanding recruiter for the Griz. Dean lands recruits, but seems to has burnt a lot of bridges in the state of Montana and else where. In the short term I expect Highland to become a very good team.

Griz recruit: Jordan Reetz

I have heard that the Griz basketball staff is recruiting Jordan Reetz of Fall Creek high school in Wisconsin. Reetz is listed at 6-5 on most of the recruiting services, but I am told that he is now closer to 6-6. He projected to play small forward in college, but many feel he also has the skills to play the shooting guard.

On the surface he really reminds me of current Griz, Ryan Staudacher in so much that Reetz is considered a deep and deadeye shooter from beyond the 3 point arc. He is also receiving some recruiting attention as an all state quarterback, but I am told basketball is what he wants to play in college. I am not sure if it is complete fair comparison, but in these two areas they seem to compare.  My impression, though, is that Reetz is a much better post up player, and is very comfortable taking smaller guards into the paint to use his superior height.