Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

APRIL 24TH, 2018
RECRUITING UPDATE

Losses/Losing:

C - Johnnie Ryan
What this Means: The Bears lose a massive 7'0 center with fantastic potential and a college ready game. It won't be too much of a toll, they've still got guys like Wyatt Ervin, Isaac Njoya, Torin Ndoye, and Herbie Bruff who'll man the 4 & 5.

C - Brett Malesa
What this Means: B.J. Hill losses Johnnie Ryan and now his back-up plan with Brett Malesa who'll attend Gonzaga. Malesa made a great presence on the defensive side of the ball and Coach Hill really hoped he could add on Malesa to be a future anchor for the Bears.

PG - Leslie Schiffner
What this Means: After receving interests from bigger programs, Northern Colorado dropped out the running for Leslie. Hill claimed Schiffner was his 'ideal guard', one who could shoot and at the same time pass... Only point guards remaining on the Bear's roster is Tyler Manilow.

SF - Robbie Cowen
What this Means: With just two true small forwards (both suck btw) on the Northern Colorado roster, Cowen was sought of by many scouts at NC. His game has prevailed into the power conference standards during the Dick's Sporting Good HS Nationals and for that he's no longer considering NC as much... This means that the shooting guards for the Bears will have to continue to play out of position to fill in the small forward role.

C - Cortez Little
What this Means: Cortez not so Little was yet another back-up plan just in case Johnnie Ryan or Bret Malesa didn't work out and they didn't. Now it's looking like Cortez is leaning towards other schools.



Winning:

SG - Kris Wells
What this Means: UNLV has recently made their way back into Well's college list but Northern Colorado is leading the way. It's been reported multiple times that he was just about ready to commit to the Bears but now they might have to wait a week or two before Well's can completely make up his mind. Wells will add more depth to the shooting guard position but he's capable of playing point guard as well, and he might just do that.

SF - Bennett Davis
What this Means: Davis is all the way out of the Bahamas meaning this guy is a high risk but possibly a high reward type of player. He's been one of B.J. Hill's main targets because of his very intriguing lengthy build, Hill is praying that Davis turns out to be a good shooter which would potentially create a Kevin Durant clone.

SF - Rhasheed McFarlin
What this Means: Northern Colorado hasn't invested too much time into McFarlin but the two star recruit has definitely been on their list of players. They're only hope is that this guy isn't a power forward in a small forward's body at only 6'5".

From the Looks:

B.J. Hill is slacking right now, he's put too much time into improbable recruits when he should be focusing on guys who actually want to play for his program.

Wells is great and I applaud personnel for their efforts with that recruitment but an unknown Bahamas player and a two star recruit with no other college looks shouldn't be your only leading prospects.

Hill has all four of his scholarship remaining with 2 offered [Kris Wells and Bennett Davis], let's hope he puts them to good use.

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

[Deuce2223]

Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

Nice job landing Wells. He should be a big time player for you.

Also nice to see Oregon State sign a Top-20 player and from Hawaii no less. My first 5* recruit at OSU was the Mr BB from Hawaii (R. Spears).

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

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[beast10]

Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

[beast10]

Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

[beast10]

Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

Nice job landing Wells. He should be a big time player for you.

Also nice to see Oregon State sign a Top-20 player and from Hawaii no less. My first 5* recruit at OSU was the Mr BB from Hawaii (R. Spears).

Yeah I'm actually really surpised I was able to sign Wells, espically considering how many teams wanted him. I'm really confident that he could be a very productive starter right off the bat but then at the same time I'm working minutes through Carlton Hurst, Branford Joes, Tyler Manilow, and Clement Garner lol. Definitely a loaded roster.

And yeah I just noticed that lol, what a coincidence.

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

Northern Colorado
2017-2018 Overall Rank:
Conference Rank: #1 Big Sky

Northern Colorado finally turned things around last season, they went from a 13-15 team to a 21-9 team that seemed to have everything put together for a trip to the NCAA tournament. That however wouldn’t be the case, instead (14-17) Northern Arizona shocked the Big Sky and brought home the championship honors and took the automatic bid to the Big Dance. The Bears on the other hand would instead receive a NIT invitation and would go on to beat Florida State in the first round before losing to Ohio in the second which went down at their own Butler-Hancock arena. This time around Coach Hill has some decisions to make; this new roster has a bit more options.

2017-18 Record: 21-9
2017-18 Postseason: NIT
Coach: B.J. Hill
Coach Record: 122-115 at Northern Colorado

Who’s Out:
Thankfully this list is very short for the Bears. They’ve lost just two players from last season, both due to graduation. The biggest lost is of course Jordan Wilson who wrapped up his career with second team All-Conference honors. Wilson never let his little body get in his way, the 5’7” guard started 47 games out of his 115 game career at Northern Colorado; most of those starts came in his senior year when he averaged 11.2 points, 2.7 assists, and 1.4 steals. The next graduate was Drew Bender, a 6’7” shooting guard who came over from Tempe, Arizona. Bender redshirted his freshman year before playing an unproductive sophomore season where he found himself on the bench a lot more often than the floor. His junior year would bring lots of hope with his position having very little depth, Bender would start 28 games and average 7 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists before having his starting job taken in his senior year. Bender graduates with career averages at 4.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.2 assists.

Who’s In:
B.J. Hill will have the likes of four new additions that he’ll be able to suit up on game days. The biggest incomer is no doubt Kris Wells, a Las Vegas native who attended Findlay Prep. Wells is a volume scorer who chose Northern Colorado over multiple power conference schools. He’ll be expected to either start or play big minutes off the bench. Bennet Davis is another name to put on your radar, he’s a freshman out of the Bahamas with an extremely lengthy frame that had been greatly favored by the scouts of Northern Colorado. He may not be completely ready for the college game just yet but he’ll find himself in the rotation in his freshman year. Bryce Parks tops the list of freshman and he’s most likely bound to be a redshirt to further improve his preparation for the next level. He’s an average shooter but has sketchy court vision, he’ll be a project. Herbie Bruff is the last name for the incomers, he’s actually a fifth year senior for Northern Colorado after transferring from Tennessee a year ago. Bruff is a 6’9” power forward who started his college career off at a junior college before transferring to the Vols and averaging 8.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks. His numbers would vastly reduce in the following season which led to his transfer.

Who to Watch:
Fans at Northern Colroado aren’t just looking for one player to have break-out seasons this year, there’s a couple. You’ve got Clement Garner, a previous #38 recruit out of Los Angeles and a reigning freshman All-Conference athlete. There’s Tyler Manilow, another sophomore who arrived as a four star recruit. Kris Wells, yet another four star recruit who’s seeing a lot of anticipation from fans after his direct quote stating, “You’ll see Northern Colorado in the top-25 often.” Guys like Isaac Njoya and Brad Boone have received a lot of speculation, Njoya has the reputation as “Mr. Clutch” after his big shots last season while Boone constantly claims he’s working on getting his offense as good as his defense (which would make him dominant). Then finally there’s still names like Branford Jones and Carlton Hurst, both seniors who could snap off for there last year of college eligibility. To make it easy – this entire team is one to watch.

Final Projection:
If I’m not just lollygagging and the Bears do actually turn out to have as much talent as I speak about they’ll be a force, particularly in conference. Speaking of conference basketball, the Big Sky won’t even be the same this year; teams like Weber State (who gave NC a tough time last season) basically have an entirely new roster that won’t be great competition to fellow teams. Montana is the only team on paper that seems to have a reasonably good chance at giving Northern Colorado problems this year. Otherwise the Bears may outdo their 14-2 conference record they had last season.

Projected Postseason Tournament: NCAA by automatic bid

Projected Starting Five:
Tyler Manilow, Sophomore, Guard, 7.8 points per game last season
Branford Jones, Senior, Guard, 13.3 points per game
Carlton Hurst, Senior, Guard, 11.5 points per game
Isaac Njoya, Sophomore, Forward, 5.1 points per game
Herbie Bruff, Senior, Forward, DNP last season

By the Numbers:
Scoring Offense: 75.1 (1st in conference)
Scoring Defense: 68.7 (8th in conference)
Field-Goal Percentage: 41.6 (3rd in conference)
Field-Goal Defense: 42.3 (8th in conference)
Three-Point Field Goals Per Game: 23.6 (3rd in conference)
Three-Point Field Goal Percentage: 35.4 (2nd in conference)
Free-Throw Percentage: 67.5 (3rd in conference)
Rebound Margin: 0.0
Assists Per Game: 14.4 (1st in conference)
Turnovers Per Game: 13.8 (8th in conference)

Madness 2018 Basketball Recruits
#62 Kris Wells
#735 Bryce Parks
NR Bennet Davis

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

__________________________________



N COLORADO; SEASON THREE - EPISODE ONE - THREE DAYS BEFORE MIDNIGHT MADNESS

Northern Colorado is coming off a season in which they went 21-9 and fell in the NIT's second round in a game against the Ohio Bobcats where nothing seemed to go their way.

Now, the Bears are regrouped and looking to make up for their for their hard fought emotions that were left on their own home court in that loss last season.

"This is supposed to be one of the best teams I've coached thus far," B.J. Hill said. "I think they'll easily live up to that reputation. We've got talent left and right, literally, look around! Look over there and you see potential starters then look that way then there's another set. It's going to be all about getting these guys to player together but that shouldn't be to hard, most of them were apart of last year's team."

Around me and the crew are Northern Colorado athletes that are like B.J. Hill says -- potential/already starters such as Branford Jones (second team All-Conference), Cartlon Hurst, Tyler Manilow, Clement Garner, Kris Wells, Brad Boone, Wyatt Ervin, Isaac Njoya, and Herbie Bruff who's now eligible after transferring last season. With the exceptions of the freshman Kris Wells, these are all players who started at one point of their Northern Colorado basketball career.

"I want to be the star," Wells states with a grin, yet one with a sign of seriousness. "I'm a big school kid who'll be playing at a small school now so I'll say it now; I'm clearing the conference player of the year award, freshman of the year, freshman all-american, all of that... Call me arrogant but I'm just trying to do what I know I can."

Meanwhile guys like Bennett Davis and Tyler Manilow are running an extremely high paced three man weave drill.

Bennett came a long way; the Bahamas native traveled over to Greeley after being heavily recruited by B.J. Hill, despite not being the top recruit in the signing class, Hill is extremely excited about Davis.

"He's my little project," he claimed. "The is 6'9" and his mom says the kid isn't even done growing, he's got the Kevin Durant physique yet he runs like a guard! The sky is the limit for him as long as he keeps his focus straight and works harder than the next man."

Tyler Manilow on the other hand is a great kid; he's already a conference All-Academic honoree with a GPA exceeding over the regulation scale and and by the looks of things he'll be on the All-Conference basketball team sooner or later.

"Yeah, I didn't make the All-Freshman team," Manilow recalled. "I don't really care because still at the end of the day the team did good and that's all that's important. I came off the bench and really enjoyed that role, Jordan [Wilson] was a great leader out there and I learned a lot from him. There's a lot of competition this year at guard but I'm going to continue to work and hopefully once coach announces the depth chart I'll be starting at the one."

Manilow measured in at 6'3" when he first arrived as a freshman, this year during evaluation he was remarkable recorded at 6'5" and 203 pounds, that's a size of an average shooting guard but Manilow is pure at the 1, his advantages are getting higher than higher.

"Overall we're going be an excellent team this season," Hill said. "The art of college basketball is that things change every season, this year the Big Sky isn't great, Weber State lost a lot of players but that doesn't mean a new team(s) won't step up... We're ready for it."

Seniors such as Carlton Hurst and Branford Jones will need to up their status as both vocal and team leaders for their Bears as the teams returning leading scorers and seniors.

"I'm up for it," Branford says. "Coach Hill and this team in general has all helped me grow as a person, I use to just be all for myself and maybe that's why I didn't get too run run with Long Beach State... Here at Northern Colorado I just want to win and make my teammates better. This might be my last year of basketball so I want to make it good."

Midnight Madness is coming up, fans will get their first eye for the season kickoff scrimmage, upperclassmen versus underclassmen.

Note: This is a new edition I wanted to add; just something to write about to keep things going and to give first hand insight to how team chemistry might be. Will probably do these every once in a while.

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Re: Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

OCTOBER 20TH, 2018
MIDNIGHT MADNESS



My Take

TEAM GOLD (MOSTLY UNDERCLASSMEN)

PG - Tyler Manilow – this event is supposed to be fun so I’m not sure if Manilow was messing around or if he really just gave up during the offseason because your projected point guard shouldn’t be turning the ball over 10 times… Really unlike Tyler Manilow
Stats: 8 points, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, 10 turnovers

SG/PG - Kris Wells – he’s going to be great and that was shown in tonight’s contest where Kris Wells went off for the team’s second highest point total with 22 points. He’s making it a very hard decision for B.J. Hill on who to start.
Stats: 22 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 8-15 fg, 3-6 3pt

SG/SF - Carlton Hurst – filled the statsheet and looked like he’s gotten better in multiple categories while appearing to be playing effortlessly. Safe to say he’s maintained his starting position.
Stats: 13 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals

PF - Isaac Njoya – if Njoya plays like he did in this showcase he’ll be a phenomenal player for the Bears until he graduates. He was a force to be reckoned with early in the game when he was scoring at least 75% of his team’s points
Stats: 15 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assts, 1 block, 6-8 fg

PF/C - Herbie Bruff – looked really scrappy and maybe we saw the reason he didn’t play in his final year with Tennessee. He did however notably pass the ball well and contribute to the ****load of steals each team had.
Stats: 3 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 1-6 fg

SF - Bennet Davis – and Bennet Davis is the game’s best player. B.J. Hill apparently isn’t a fool, he seemed to have spotted out a future star with Davis. The freshman looked like a stick version of an NBA player going against a bunch of amateurs.
Stats: 25 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 assist, 12-17 fg

SF - Ilian Wrenn – looked like a player who could be apart of the rotation, he rebounded well and got to the line twice.
Stats: 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 4-4 ft
Bryce Parks – this guard isn’t going to be much at least until a couple more years of development, he struggled to do really anything tonight.
Stats: 3 points, 2 steals, 1 rebound, 2 turnovers, 1-4 fg, 1-4 ft

TEAM NAVY (MOSTLY UPPERCLASSMEN)

SG/PG - Branford Jones – Jones is clearly not going to be a point guard anytime soon, he filled in at the one and committed 8 turnovers yet was a force in the scoring game as expected – he’s the returning leading scorer of this team. Luckily he won’t be needed at point guard, he’ll be just fine this season.
Stats: 19 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 1 block, 1 steal

SG - Clement Garner – showed why he was one of the nation’s top players out of high school, his quick and unexpected jump shot release is deadly and he’s not at all afraid to launch a shot at any time. He took the most field goals in this game at 20. Makes me wonder if he’ll be hanging with the NCAA scoring leaders scorers in the future.
Stats: 22 points, 2 steals, 1 rebound, 1 assists, 9-20 fg, 4-11 3pt

SG - Brad Boone – his defense was there and a never before seen aggressive offense was showcased by Brad Boone who looked to score the ball more often than not. His field goal numbers weren’t good but he was getting to the line in bunches.
Stats: 16 points, 5 steals, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 turnovers, 4-14 fg, 0-4 3pt, 8-9 ft

SF - Dee Valdez – we got the first look of Dee Valdez who’ll be sitting out this year as a transfer from North Texas. Valdez looked a bit rusty but by no means was he not a factor. He appeared as a tremendous rebounder, constantly on the offensive glass despite being a small forward.
Stats: 8 points, 10 rebounds, 2 asststs, 3 steals, 3-7 fg, 0-1 3pt, 2-3 ft

C - Wyatt Ervin – exactly why this kid is going to lose his playing time this year. He played like an idiot, fouling out, missing layups, getting out-rebounded. Maybe that’s a bit harsh but Herbie Bruff is taking his spot, no doubt if you ask me.
Stats: 0 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steals, 0-2 fg, 5 personal fouls

SF - Stefon Dearman – Dearman is a senior walk on for this program who’s never got his chance at playing time. Tonight it appeared his only weakness was his jump shot, maybe he’ll finally get some reasonable minutes.
Stats: 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steals, 1 block, 3-8 fg, 1-4 3pt

C - Torin Ndoye – a lot of people including myself wanted to see if this kid was actually good and tonight he showed us he had some potential, maybe it’s too late considering he’s a junior but he scored 7 points and grabbed 7 rebounds.
Stats: 7 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block, 3-4 fg

C - Braduinn Skeeter – I’m really persuaded into thinking than Branduinn Skeeter just has a bad relationship with his coach or something because every time I see this kid play he’s banging in the post and getting easy points and rebounds, maybe it’s because he’s 7’1” and 320 pounds – size that B.J. Hill goes chasing after when he has it at the end of his ****ing bench. Him and Torin should be playing more…
Stats: 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 assists, 5-5 fg, 1-1 ft, 17 minutes

---

Team Gold would run away and defeat the upperclassmen 95-92.