The story made the rounds last week, just bounced from one college basketball blog to the next because that's the way things work these days, you know? Folks forward stuff and link stuff and before long everybody has seen everything there is to see.
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| Emmanuel Negedu is focused on the future after an intense recruitment. (Phil Stiles) |
And yeah, he was surprised when he read them.
"There were some things that came out about his coachability -- or his lack of coachability," the Arizona coach told the newspaper when asked about granting Negedu the release he requested from his national letter of intent. "It was a very easy release. I wanted him to have to sweat a little bit to understand that you make a commitment, you should be a person of your word. But in the end, there was no way in the world I would have had him here."
First things first: I've spent the past few weeks talking to pretty much everybody who has ever coached or recruited Negedu, and I should tell you there's not a person who has told me -- on the record or off -- that they agree with Olson's assessment. In fact, everybody I know thinks those comments were crazy and bitter and way out of line, and even the staffs who missed when Negedu committed to Tennessee on Tuesday -- specifically Memphis, Indiana and Georgia Tech -- have said nothing but kind things about the 6-foot-7 forward who will help the Vols be a preseason Top 10 team. In other words, Negedu doesn't have a "coachability" problem.
That's why Olson's comments stung Negedu.
But he declined the chance to respond and fire away.
"I don't know why Lute Olson said those things about me," Negedu said by phone as he rode through Santa Cruz, Calif., while filming a video for CBS Sports Mobile. "I don't know why he said what he said, but Lute Olson is still a great guy. He's a Hall of Fame coach, and even if he doesn't respect me I still respect him."
Negedu's comments were interesting because they sounded like the words of a man ready to move on -- ready to focus on the future and forget the past now that his whirlwind recruitment has finally closed. It was a far different tone than the tone from five Sundays ago, when Negedu asked Olson for a release in a face-to-face meeting and pleaded publicly for it to happen. Back then, Negedu sounded angry and panicky, and he stayed that way until Arizona granted the release two days later, which is when one of the more intense recruiting battles the month of June has seen in recent years really jump-started.
Again, it's June.
This is not the normal time for college basketball recruiting, in case you didn't know. By now, most high school and prep school graduates have usually long ago made their college decisions, meaning they aren't looking at schools as much as they are looking at which summer classes to take at the schools they picked at least seven months earlier. That alone made Negedu a desirable target because in a time when programs are trying to fill rosters after enduring transfers, dismissals and early leaps to the NBA, he was one of the few high-level prospects on the market.
Think of him as the last hottie in a bar just before closing time.
Supply and demand and all that.
