http://sports.yahoo.com/video/stephen-curry-sucked-not-getting-110000931.html
This is the most in-depth, on-the-record account of Stephen Curry's recruitment I've heard.
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This makes me sick
Damnit Seth
With basketball season over (for us, anyway) I hadn't had a reason to get pissed about Greenberg in a while. Thanks, Joe. Thanks a lot :)
Ouch.
I couldn't even watch the whole video
While I am ususally a huge advocate of just blaming Seth Greenberg for everything, including having to wake up early this morning to go to work on a Monday he really wasn't that far out there not offering a scholarship.
http://sports.yahoo.com/purdue/basketball/recruiting/player-Stephen-Curr...
Looking at his recruiting profile there was very little interest from anyone at the ACC level (not sure why Rivals lists us with an offer, I guess recruited walkon merits an offer).
My point is not only did we not offer him, neither did really anyone worth noting. I remember getting all kinds of shit in college from WVU fans because we didn't offer him. Well, WVU douche, neither did you.
Seems he was just one of those diamonds in the rough, that hindsight being 20/20, hurts. Hell, Greenberg probably would have screwed him up. Bob Mckillop is a better coach anyways.
The fact that his dad was a VT legend is the problem
But some of the same people are complaining about Griffin Hite getting a scholarship, and there are WAY less basketball scholarships available.
I'm not saying we definitely should have. But comparing us to WVU is off
Well I didn't have friends from other schools give me crap.
Wake Forest? UVA? George Mason?
I bet all those schools wish they offered him too. My point is, it appeared in high school to many (not just SG) that he was not an ACC caliber player. SG atleast offered him a recruited walkon spot. More than any other ACC school could say.
Comparing Griffin Hite as a prospect and Stephen Curry as a prospect doesn't quite seem apples to apples. Two different sports in so many regards at the college level and two very different kinds of family ties to the respective sports. Billy Hite was also a University Employee during Griffin's tenure, not sure what that meant as far as tuition and board costs for Griffin or any of his other kids who also attended VT.
Have you seen how many players sit on a College hoops bench, he should have been given a scholarship. Bottom line is Seth dropped the ball big time, but hey Hank Thorns I guess was tall enough and good enough to earn a scholarship since Seth went and "found" him.
The scholarship limit for basketball is 13.
It basically came down to Greenberg thinking Nigel Munson was a better prospect, and so did plenty of others. Rivals had him as the 109th best prospect in the country.
Looks like the Hokies got munsoned
Comment of the year.
Billy Hite != Dell Curry. No disrespect to the man, but his contribution to the program was from the sideline. Curry was a stud on the court. Very different circumstances IMO.
How many other top programs have legends and don't recruit their kids. Sometimes offspring just aren't as good.
It's a little easier for UNC to not recruit Jordan's kids than it is for VT to not go after Dell Curry's kid.
Exactly....hindsight is 20/20.
How many folks would have taken Curry over Delaney at the time? Or better yet, imagine the outcry if Greenberg had given the one scholarship available to a lightly recruited legacy over a Rivals top 100, Maryland state player of the year, etc., etc.
If this was happening in 2015, with transfers so common these days, it's possible Greenberg would have been more aggressive in making the numbers work. But that just wasn't the way things worked 10 years ago.
It's not as though Delaney ended up a bench warmer or marginal contributor. He's was 2-time ACC first team, 1 time 3rd team, and averaged 16.6 pts/4.0 assts for his career. Yeah he's not the NBA Steph Curry we know now, but I'm not sure VT's fortunes would have been appreciably different with Curry rather than Delaney.
I believe Curry's spot went to Nigel Munson, not Delaney. Or at least, Munson was a Freshman point guard during the 2006-07 season, which was Curry's freshman year at Davidson. Delaney was a freshman in 2007-08.
My mistake. Could have sworn it was Delaney...that certainly changes things however I still think the reaction at the time would have been similar.
Wasn't Munson a top recruit?
"Jim Weaver told Seth not to recruit him. Beamer is lazy."- SWVADon
That being said, I learned to not take his comments to heart. He's cool with me but thats hilarious, French
I didn't mind his obvious trolling. But, when it reached the point of hammering a coach who got you to the national title game and made your program relevant while excusing a guy who couldn't make the dance and whose teams under-performed and rarely expanded their games, well that is just ridiculous.
Wait a second.... did swvadon get banhammered?
He did not. Seems like he hasn't been around the block since he and French got into it.
Yep. If Joe banned everyone who disagreed with my hooting and hollarin, it wouldn't be much of a community. I absolutely respect the right of everyone here to offer an opinion. But, when it is obvious that a poster is trolling or is just plain misinformed, I am more than happy to share my opinion that the poster is wrong and why they are wrong.
Thoughts on this French?
That summarizes all that is evil, soulless, and corrupt in this world.
ahem, joe if I could borrow that hammer of yours for a moment
#extracheeseplease
Edited to reflect Joe's answer
Man, Billy Joel is looking rough these days
wow, good call. That's definitely looks like Billy Joel with a skullet.
Ok. I'm bored. It's the offseason. Where on here do I go to peruse french's glorious p*wnge of swvadon please?
Haaaa, I was wondering the same thing. Try this LINK
It's disappointing we didn't end up offering him a scholarship especially since his dad is arguably the best player in VT history.
Hindsight is 20/20 and you've got to consider how many kids they accurately evaluate and turn away each year. A missed evaluation of talent is bound to happen every once in a while, though.
Also, would Curry have thrived playing under Greenberg? I don't see why not. Maybe VT snubbing him drove him to be the player he is today? I don't know the answers to these but just random thoughts about his career...
Who knows right? If Seth Curry went to Tech maybe big ole mean Greenberg would have yelled at him so much his feelings would have been hurt and quit the team to pursue a career as a state farm agent. Things probably worked out for the best for Seth Curry even though not so much for us.
Good on Bensinger to note that Dell and his wife have been nowhere to be seen around Tech hoops since Steph's recruiting process, yet they still go to football games regularly. This is really too bad in hindsight.
Actually they were spotted several VT games when Dook was playing in the Cassell...
Oh yeah...they were watching Seth.
Seeing one of your best players in program history wearing the other team's colors, since the alma mater didn't recruit any of his kids....sigh.
I dont have the pic but Dell wore O&M shoes with his Duke shirt to at least one of the games. But yeah, it sucked.
That was tough to listen to. I always try to remind myself that everybody missed on him, but it still stings really badly.
idk what it is about this meme but I lose it every time I see it
The Fairy Oddparents
Or was it it the The Fairly Oddparents?
Either way it was a kids show in the 90s that I spent more than my fair amout of time watching.
Oh I know all about the fairly oddparents. I too spent many a day of my youth watching it. What I'm saying is by now that meme shouldn't make me laugh, but I crack up every time
My bad. You wrote "I don't know what it is about this meme..." I read "I don't know what this meme is about..." Studying for a block final, it'll get after ya.
tl;dr. I might be dyslexic.
That damn lysdexia. It'll get after ya
And yet again, good old Greenberg "man who knows everything about nothing" makes me want to chew nails and spit bullets. When's the glare from his dome going to leave our program!!
Its easy to look back and say what a blunder that was, but it wasnt like everybody but us gave him an offer. The part that sucks is how good our team was when he would have been here. It was times during that stretch that all we really needed was a 3 point shooter. We really could have made a run had he been here but I guess that's obvious, but VT basketball was on a whole different level then than now. Curry took Davidson pretty far in the tournament, I think we would have gone farther. I wonder what goes through Seth's head everytime he sees a Curry highlight.
that was the most painful, gut wrenching interview I can recall watching...I don't know where this guy Bensinger comes from but man, talk about opening up a wound and picking at it...that was awful, just awful...and I'm sorry, but this just pisses me off (and probably every other Hokie fan) even more - wow, what a HUGE missed opportunity for VT hoops - hindsight hell, Seth G would probably still be our bball coach if had offered Stephen...wow, what could have been for our past VT hoops teams having both Curry's as Hokies...I definitely recall watching NCAA tournament when Stephen was willing Davidson high into the tourney that VT screwed up big time, but watching that interview just brings it all back - I can't believe we screwed this up - it sure would have been nice to have TV highlight Dell and his wife at every game we played on TV while his two sons wore Hokie uniforms - what a major bummer...ok, rant done....I'll try to forget about this now if I can...
Go Hokies!! Please Buzz help us to forget this missed opportunity...
I've been saying this all along. Steph leads us however deep into the Tourney how ever many straight years, recruiting improves, attendance at Cassel stays strong, etc. I know it's all hindsight, and I'm aware of his recruiting rankings, but it's a massive what if for the entire history of the program.
Now he's got a prime time gig on ESPN. Go figure.
The same could be said of Matt Millen.
I'm tired of this story.
No one had a clue he'd be this good, essentially everyone missed on him.
It sucks, it would have been great if Seth had seen what Bob McKillop did...but he didn't.
You don't just offer guy a scholarship because of who his dad is, that's a terrible way to run a program.
Let's move on.
Exactly, if SG offers him and Curry comes here and poops where he sleeps then we are all blaming SG for giving out a scholarship to a kid just because of who his dad is. Steph Curry was a diamond in the rough and what happened worked out well for him. Right now he is one of the best players in the league, and the path he went down led him to that.
Yeah, this is a total non-issue. I wish we had data on legacy players but right in front of our nose we have to consider Alston Smith.
Alston Smith was also a 3 star DT in high school. Steph was basically a nobody.
It sucks. It would have been amazing to have a VT grad be in contention for NBA MVP, not to mention I had 3 good friends who went to Davidson with him and will tell you he's a really awesome person as well.
Let's look to the future. There's SO many ugly things about VT hoops just from the last few years we could rehash but lets just not.
Buzz has this program going in the right direction, lets hope that he keeps that going.
Nope, nope and nope. You offer Steph, you offer Seth, you offer those guys' first born sons before they're conceived. Big mistake, no amount of mitigation with the "nobody else offered" excuse works for me. WE blew it, regardless of who was to blame, it was a tremendous blunder. Hindsight will always be 20/20, no doubt, but foresight is what we are paying our coaches and ADs for...big whiff here.
I hope you never end up coaching at VT, because you will not get far with that philosophy.
Your hope will certainly come true, but I would have had the Curry's on my team, and their family in my corner. It's not a "philosophy" so much as an exercise in what seemed to me to be common sense. I thought Seth was wrong at the time, and time has not proven him right. I am waaayyy to old to be trading my fishing rod for a whistle, but I am not too old to have an opinion on this subject. It's what fans do...cheer and opine.
Maybe this isn't your point, but prevailing throughout this thread is "do what it takes to keep the family happy." I can't stand the idea of quid pro quo. I don't care who the kid's dad is. Is he good enough to play on our team and fit in our strategy and philosophy? If Seth whiffed, so too did every other ACC coach and most P5 coaches. If our goal is to recruit kids to put their families in the stands and money in our pockets, I fear for what the result will be. We joke about the Fuller family and whatnot, but each of the kids was a good player in his own right. Dell Curry may be a VT hoops legend, but that reputation alone should not be enough to just warrant a perpetual offer to any offspring.
^^This post
I wonder what an updated version of this game would look like. I played it for hours on end doing nothing but crazy ass dunks.
Purchase the app on Amazon
Well, it sorta was, but maybe with tongue in cheek about the perpetual offspring offer and not so strongly as you put it,. But I, as a fan, do care who the kid's dad was and it is precisely because of who these kids dad was that I personally would have liked to see them on our team. Yep, butts in the stands and money in the program's pocket wouldn't hurt either, but I am not suggesting we abandon all goals and strategery here, I merely said and feel that in this particular case, it was a mistake not to do more. I am not a Seth basher, I lived nearby when he was coach and enjoyed going to the games. I liked him and thought the circumstances of his firing were indefensible. Way too much has been said about the pros and cons by folks who know their basketball for me to keep saying the same thing, so I'll quit here.
Seth and his staff evaluated him, and felt that he was good enough to offer him a spot on the team as a walk on.
That decision, in a vacuum, is an admirable one. Ignore the kids heritage, is he good enough to offer a scholarship? The answer was no, and not just in Blacksburg but everywhere but Davidson.
Frankly, its kind of unfair to criticize Seth for that decision.
I respect your right to your opinion.
And I respect yours.
Would have been great to have him, but life goes on.
Totally agree. Here's to Peace, Love, and better times ahead!!!
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS
I blame Nigel Munson for wanting to be part of Seth's plan - and then changing his mind.
Let's not lose sight here of the obvious here. It's not Seth's fault, bless his heart. It's not Nigel's fault. It's not Weaver's fault.
It's Stephen Curry's fault. If he didn't want to play basketball, we wouldn't be second guessing the past. Blame him. Hell, it could even be his father's fault for being such a good player at VT.
[this post has been covered in sarcasm for your protection]
Oh, the annual "Why didn't we offer Stephen Curry" thread... Must be round time for the Final Four.
I'm sure it sucked for him to not get an offer by VT, but the fact of the matter is, out of high school, he wasn't that good a prospect. In their haste to say we dropped the ball on it, people neglect to mention that he didn't even get a walk on offer from any other ACC program, something he did get from us, and his scholarship offers were so few that Davidson was the best offer he had. Nobody saw his greatness coming. Nobody. And I don't blame Seth for what happened when he had Nigel Munson, a 4-star PG out of DeMatha coming in, and had April 16th, 2007 not happened, would have likely ended up being a very good 4 year player at Tech, as well as 3-star SG Ty Appleton, who himself went on to have a pretty good career at Kansas after being run off by Seth's abrasiveness. At the end of the day, we had our guys, and unfortunately, Curry didn't fit that mold. We did offer him a walk-on spot, something nobody else was willing to do, but apparently that wasn't good enough, and the bridge between us and that family seemingly burned to the ground. C'est la vie.
So let's say Seth offered Curry, and VT went far (or did a lot better) than we have done without him.
Chances are Greenburg is still our coach and that ... unhealthy ... locker room / coach-to-coach interaction would still be there.
Would you still want Greenburg around as a coach still?
People also forget, and I know its not as relevant because they were seniors, but we had a 1st Team and 3rd Team All-ACC guards Curry's freshmen year and were a #5 seed in the tourny. Things were clicking at that point.
Makes me want to cry but yeah 20/20 blah blah blah. Sports are littered with guys like Steph Curry. Antonio Brown went to Western Michigan and Ben Roethlisberger went to Miami of Ohio and now they anchor the Steelers offense (plus Super Bowls, all-Pros w/e). Mike Trout was drafted 25th overall after 21 teams passed on him, the Nats could have an outfield w/ Bryce Harper and Trout today but they passed on him twice. College basketball has just this year guys like Kaminsky, Stainbrook, RJ Hunter, Ndiaye, Van Vleet, Tuttle, Sabonis, and D'Angelo Russell (top prospect but not expected to be one-and-done top 5 pick coming out of high school). None of them are likely to be as good as Curry and it hurts more because of the family connection but we're not the only fan base crying ourselves to sleep at night. And if Jalen Hudson can become Tyrone every game next year, how many other fan bases will we be able to laugh at for over-looking him?
It sucked for us too, Steph
Can't believe this hasn't been posted yet:
I love Steph Curry and he seems like a great guy off the court as well. But a lot of the NBA (IMHO) is getting in the right system. People doubted Curry coming out of Davidson because 6'3 SGs that just chuck 3s are a dime a dozen at the next level. Heck, look at Seth Curry. The guy can't even land a spot in the League and he played at Dook!! Fact of the matter is that Golden State was God awful when SC30 arrived there, and they were begging for a superstar. Things lined up through lots of hard work, and now we're up to date. It's unfortunate that the guy didn't get a chance with his dad's alma mater, but the past is the past ya know? The ratio of players who play the exact same style of game as SC30 that haven't made it in the NBA compared to those who have is probably 50:1. Without hindsight, if you keep the same player profile and replace the name Stephen Curry with anything else, I bet VT and every other ACC school would pass on the player again.
It sucked for me to not get a scholarship offer to Virginia Tech, too. Out of state tuition is brutal. But, at the end of the day, you choose the college you want to go to. He didn't choose us. Time to move on.
This^. If he really wanted to come to Blacksburg as much he said he did in the video, he could have. Like I would get if his family came from nothing so you take the school that offered you the best scholarship. But we're talking about Dell Curry's kid here. The man played in the NBA for 15+ years; I'm willing to bet they were doing alright financially at the time of his recruitment. The fact that we were the only ACC team to even offer him a walk on position should say something about how well-recognized he was as a player at the time.
Hindsight is always 20/20. Stephen didn't have many offers on the table from VT-caliber type schools (which, in basketball, isn't that high), so I can understand why he wasn't offered by Tech.
2 things do bug me though. The first is that his dad is a legend in Blacksburg. I'm no advocate for nepotism, but I'm sure they had to see Steph shoot a couple times, realize who is father is, and really think about the whole thing.
The second is that we saw how good Steph ended up being at Davidson, yet we didn't offer his brother Seth, who, despite his performance in Blacksburg when Tech knocked off #1 Duke, was a pretty good player, and would have really helped the team out. You'd think the coaches would have learned from the first go-round.
But, like I said, hindsight is always 20/20, and who knows? Maybe Blacksburg wouldn't have worked out for Steph. We've seen how well 99.9% of the transfers perform in a place not called Blacksburg, Virginia.
My understanding is that after the older brother wasn't offered, the family wasn't as open to offers from Tech. This is from what I remember from reading other posts on TKP, so I could easily be wrong/relying on #sources.
Much like Steph, Seth wasn't a good prospect of of high school. He just wasn't, and Liberty, lowly Liberty was his best offer. Once he proved himself at Liberty we recruited him hard but Mrs Curry wouldn't allow him to entertain the thought.
That bridge was burnt after Steph. Gonna be a while before that family truly warms back up to us.
Maybe they were just upset with Seth Greenberg. Maybe they'll get involved with the program again since Buzz is the head coach.
Dell and Frank have golfed together. They may be cold toward Basketball, not VT on the whole.
I'm not a basketball expert, but Seth was a good fit for Duke but not necessarily a good fit for other schools. He was a one-dimensional shooter and wasn't that great at it (career 39.4% from 3). Duke's offense tends to be heavier on 3 pointers. Whereas you could build your offense around Steph you couldn't do that around Seth. Not going after Seth was a little defensible.
In the OP's linked interview, Steph directly states that he had regular contact with Greenberg and that assistant coach Stacey Palmore came to his high school on recruiting trips and watched him play. The interview takes the angle that it was even harder for Steph not to get a scholarship offer since VT coaches had formed a relationship with him and watched him play. However, Steph's account actually makes me feel better about the situation knowing essentially the staff stayed in contact with him, evaluated him, and did their due diligence before ultimately deciding not to extend an offer.
And its not like the Virginia Tech coaches were the only ones to pass him up. Being in NC, you know coaches for UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake, etc were following him as well, and they all passed. But because his dad played for us and has his name on the wall, we're the ones singled out as dropping the ball on it. I just don't get it. Everyone missed out on him.
I know next to nothing about his recruiting situation, but could it be that other schools didn't pursue him as hard was because they thought he was a lock for VT and didn't want to waste the time and effort?
No it's because he wasn't that highly thought of in high school.
Video made me tear up a little
I'll ask this of some of the more die hard VT basketball fans, in Stephen Curry's recruit year what player should have not gotten a scholarship to give to Curry? Based on needs of that year and perceived recruits ability?
Some people above said Nigel Munson, but also Hank Thorns was briefly mentioned as well. Thorns was only there for a few years, but I actually loved watching him play during his brief stint at Tech. Not to mention, he got tossed around in the NBA for a little while after graduating from TCU and fizzling out eventually in the D League. I'll never forget the Carolina game in Chapel Hill when we beat them and CBS or whoever did the game, showed a slow-mo of Deron Washington rubbing Thorns' head after an and-1 layup. It really was a shame he transferred because he wasn't the biggest guy (5'9 to be exact), wasn't the quickest or the strongest, but he never took a game off. Like if JC Coleman played basketball, it would have been Hank Thorns. Nonetheless though, it seems unfortunate that that spot was used on a guy who left the program eventually (surprise surprise).
Apparently you did forget...we got demolished by UNC in Chapel Hill by 40 that year. Thorns enrolled in 07 the year after making tournament and victory @ UNC.
My bad. I thought I might have gotten the years mixed up after posting this, but didn't feel like looking it up. Leg for the correction.
Munson was a top recruit. He also did well his year at VT.
Right, but you asked the question and I was trying to answer it. I didn't do a great job apparently, but I wasn't trying to deny that Munson was a quality talent.
Time heals all wounds.
Steph's Ok.
Dell's Ok.
VT basketball is getting there.
Let. It. Go.
But...but then what would we have to bicker about? Football season is still a long way off.
Hip hip hooray. Thanks for the reminder Darren...
But in all seriousness, congrats to Steph. Much deserved 2014-15 NBA MVP.
Darren Rovell is a professional penis
This fact is well documented
Yeah but is that necessarily a bad thing? It could be very popular with the ladies. Just sayin
John Feinstein on 106.7 this morning: "I always give Seth Greenberg a hard time because I remind him that had he offered a scholarship to Steph Curry, he'd still be a coach instead of talking for a living."
The same John Feinstein who thinks Kendall Marshall is better than John Wall?
Or the one who thinks John Wall is the 4th best player on the Zards?
Do yourself a favor, don't listen to that idiot.
Update:
No regerts.
Dude.... Don't be an asshole to Greenberg. We're better than that
yikes we're not laughing about this yet? tough room.
Laughing about a decision our former coach made that just about any high-major program would have made at the time? Yeah, I don't see what that achieves.
...
levity?
as a non-VT alum, I am not better than that. Hence, I will continue to openly mock Greenberg. He is a bad guy.
I couldn't believe it when I saw this thread became active again; we have enough to be depressed about.
But on the flip side, I hadn't seen that highlight yet, so I'm glad I clicked to read your comment.
I like Seth alright, a bit surprised by his response to you. Do the two of you have a twitter history?
Why the down votes? Have a leg.
No, no history. I thought it was an amazing video and made a flippant comment. I didn't expect a reaction from SG because it's so far in the past. Likewise, didn't expect the Internet white knights to take it quite this seriously, either. Sorry, guys.
Yeah, what exactly was the point of that? Telling a coach who no longer works for us that he should have taken a chance on some 2-star kid years ago who happened to work his tail off and find success later? Yeah, you really showed him. That never happens in sports.
I'm glad you don't have any regerts. Because those sound pretty gross.