Post by jh on Aug 25, 2009 7:38:28 GMT -5
If we ended up landing Roseboro - here is a good article describing his rise and his strengths and weaknesses
Looking at Brett Roseboro
By Todd Rosiak of the Journal Sentinel
Oct. 27, 2008
Had a chance tonight to catch up with Brett Roseboro's coach at Quakertown High School, Kevin Keeler.
Roseboro, Keeler's first Division I recruit in 26 years at Quakertown, averaged roughly 12 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots per game as a junior, while shooting 49% from the field and 65% from the free-throw line.
Keeler estimated Roseboro knocked down about 10 three-pointers as well.
According to Keeler, it was MU's battle to lose as far as Roseboro's recruitment almost from the outset 3-4 weeks ago. Temple was prepared to offer a scholarship but was basically told by Roseboro's mother that no decisions regarding other schools would be made until after his visit to MU.
Keeler added that Villanova and West Virginia showed a great deal of interest in Roseboro, but that both schools were talking of him redshirting as a freshman because of their depth at that position in 2009-'10. "But it never got to that point because we told them all that we were waiting on Marquette," he said. "The connections, the ties were there."
Here's the rest of the interview with Keeler:
Brett's experienced a pretty quick rise over the last month or so. Can you talk a little bit about his progression as a player? I've been telling people that last year at this time when we looked at Brett, I was hoping Division II, to be honest with you, maybe low Division I because he's 6-9. But definitely I thought a Kutztown, a Westchester, some of our state schools out here. But there were signs of him, things there that if he worked at it there was potential. I just wasn't sure if it was going to come out in time. But he just blew up these last two months.
What were your impressions of his play over the last two months? I think that happened was that he got involved in some of the -- and he did this as a junior, too -- high-profile AAU tournaments. Then this last year I know he was noticed out at one of the basketball camps, the Eastern Invitational, when he played well there. That was the first one that got him (noticed by) the low-major schools and the mid-majors. Then he went out to Vegas, and I got some phone calls from coaches out there, and he played really well against some good competition. So that's where it started rolling. I think late summer. And he started feeling it, you know, 'I can play against these guys.' Then toward the end of the summer, actually my son played with him down at Temple in a game that I got to see him play. He ate 'em up. That was the best I'd seen him play. He showed me he had jumped up a couple notches. Then finally, this IS8 Tournament came out and he went out and I guess he ate up some big-time recruits from the bigger schools. He was stepping out shooting threes, posting up and running the court, jamming some tip-ins. Just this whole evolution of Brett, basically, to where these last couple weeks were crazy with Division I coaches -- Temple, West Virginia, Villanova, St. John's. You know, it was just crazy. But there wasn't one coach that left his workout scratching his head. Every single guy said he can play.
It sounds as though MU got in good with Brett very early in the process, which ultimately helped in landing him. Is that accurate? Actually Aki Collins was the first guy to come down to Quakertown to see him. He was here with a lot of other coaches, but he made a real strong connection. Marquette's got a great reputation, obviously. When you talk about Marquette basketball in this area you think Dwyane Wade, you think some major ball, but that's pretty far away for a Pennsylvania kid. They just stuck with him. They just sort of honed in on Brett. I think the quote Aki made was, 'We found a diamond in the rough.' So they were all over him and Brett sort of really connected with that whole staff.
The scouting report on Brett is that he's a hard-nosed, blue-collar kind of player. Would you agree with that? Yeah, and that's something that we've been working on with him. He was a little soft as a sophomore. He grew from his eighth- to ninth-grade year. In 15 months he went from 6-2 to 6-8, and he wasn't with us then. He moved to Florida. His dad was ill, and they thought the warm weather would be better for him. He grew down in Florida like six inches, and then he came back to Quakertown at 6-8. I never knew of him in my program as an eighth-grader. He was a 6-2 kid who shot threes in middle school. So he came back with these size 19 shoes and these big paws, and was just sort of a gangly kid. He averaged 6 and 6 as a sophomore. The biggest thing Brett has is his vision, his goal to play major-college basketball. That was always there. To be honest with you, I would have never predicted this. But his willingness to go to all these camps, the tournaments, the AAU stuff, it just made him better and better, harder and tougher and more confident. It's unbelievable. I tell the local coaches around here that saw him play early summer and they go, 'God, it's hard to believe how far he's come.'
What are his strengths and weaknesses as a player at this point? His strength obviously is his versatility. Obviously as a high-school kid, we love him on the block. He's got the left hand, which coaches love because he goes back to his left. But he uses his right hand, too. He can step out and shoot the 15-footer, and like I said, he's stepping out and knocking down some threes. He's a great passer out of the post because on our level he gets triple-teamed, and he goes to the ball. He's an aggressive kid who goes to the ball for rebounds. I would say his biggest weakness is -- he's only 17; he really could be a junior in high-school -- is handling adversity early. Dealing with a couple rough fouls or some no-calls, the typical mental stuff that young kids have to go through. The emotional things. He's getting better with that. He's realizing that he's a marked man, they're going to send some kids to rough him up and get him out of the game, that sort of thing. That's the stuff that I think he'll get better at.
What kind of competition does Brett play against in high school? We're in a very, very good conference. We're in District 1 down here, which is Kobe Bryant and John Salmons. This is District 1 Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Philly. The league we're in actually changed. We're in a big-school league with some good schools and some good kids, from what I hear. It's a new league so I'm not quite sure who we're going against, but they're some really, really good schools. It's going to be some great basketball. I know one team has a 6-8 and two 6-7 kids, another team's got a 6-9 kid, so it's going to be a great challenge. It's not going to be like he's running amok against 6-1 kids. And actually, to be honest with you, Brett plays better against kids his size. His worst games last year were the games against the 6-2 guy that ran around or took him outside. He's not going to see that in college. He is a lot more focused. He played against this 6-11 kid that's going to Temple in the summer league, and he played awesome. He plays better against the better competition, the bigger kids.
What kind of kid/student is Brett? That's what we're working on. He has gotten better. He's re-taking his boards. He's a B-C student right now. He was very immature as a sophomore. He picked it up as a junior, and he's got to finish strong as a senior with his grades. Again, his love is basketball. Aki would ask me, 'Is he going to get better? Can he handle someone who's in his face?' I'm a pretty aggressive guy, the AAU coach he played for is a real intense guys. It's not like he's been coddled. He wants that. He wants the challenge of someone making better. He was at practice (last week) and I asked him, 'Well, what do you think of Coach Williams?' He said, 'He's hands-on.' He loves that. He wants to be the best that he can possibly be. He's not a kid that thinks he's too good. He knows he has to improve at a lot of aspects of the game. He's thrilled about Marquette. Brett and Mrs. Roseboro had nothing but awesome respect for Coach Williams when they talked to him. They loved him.
Brett said he weighs about 220 pounds now. How's his strength level, and do you expect him to pick up some more weight before he arrives at MU next summer? Oh yeah. That's the thing, that's where his body is a great body. He can easily put another 15-20 pounds of muscle on when he gets into a strict lifting program. I have a strength coach that works him out, and he's gotten stronger. That's why he's getting better, too, and that's another thing -- this is the best condition he's been in, the strongest his body's been in a couple months. He's starting to run the court like they do in the Big East. He's doing the things that the big-time coaches want him to do. But on a scale from 1-10 he's about a 7.5 right now. It's not like he's peaked. He's got tons of ability in him yet to be brought out.
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Looking at Brett Roseboro
By Todd Rosiak of the Journal Sentinel
Oct. 27, 2008
Had a chance tonight to catch up with Brett Roseboro's coach at Quakertown High School, Kevin Keeler.
Roseboro, Keeler's first Division I recruit in 26 years at Quakertown, averaged roughly 12 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots per game as a junior, while shooting 49% from the field and 65% from the free-throw line.
Keeler estimated Roseboro knocked down about 10 three-pointers as well.
According to Keeler, it was MU's battle to lose as far as Roseboro's recruitment almost from the outset 3-4 weeks ago. Temple was prepared to offer a scholarship but was basically told by Roseboro's mother that no decisions regarding other schools would be made until after his visit to MU.
Keeler added that Villanova and West Virginia showed a great deal of interest in Roseboro, but that both schools were talking of him redshirting as a freshman because of their depth at that position in 2009-'10. "But it never got to that point because we told them all that we were waiting on Marquette," he said. "The connections, the ties were there."
Here's the rest of the interview with Keeler:
Brett's experienced a pretty quick rise over the last month or so. Can you talk a little bit about his progression as a player? I've been telling people that last year at this time when we looked at Brett, I was hoping Division II, to be honest with you, maybe low Division I because he's 6-9. But definitely I thought a Kutztown, a Westchester, some of our state schools out here. But there were signs of him, things there that if he worked at it there was potential. I just wasn't sure if it was going to come out in time. But he just blew up these last two months.
What were your impressions of his play over the last two months? I think that happened was that he got involved in some of the -- and he did this as a junior, too -- high-profile AAU tournaments. Then this last year I know he was noticed out at one of the basketball camps, the Eastern Invitational, when he played well there. That was the first one that got him (noticed by) the low-major schools and the mid-majors. Then he went out to Vegas, and I got some phone calls from coaches out there, and he played really well against some good competition. So that's where it started rolling. I think late summer. And he started feeling it, you know, 'I can play against these guys.' Then toward the end of the summer, actually my son played with him down at Temple in a game that I got to see him play. He ate 'em up. That was the best I'd seen him play. He showed me he had jumped up a couple notches. Then finally, this IS8 Tournament came out and he went out and I guess he ate up some big-time recruits from the bigger schools. He was stepping out shooting threes, posting up and running the court, jamming some tip-ins. Just this whole evolution of Brett, basically, to where these last couple weeks were crazy with Division I coaches -- Temple, West Virginia, Villanova, St. John's. You know, it was just crazy. But there wasn't one coach that left his workout scratching his head. Every single guy said he can play.
It sounds as though MU got in good with Brett very early in the process, which ultimately helped in landing him. Is that accurate? Actually Aki Collins was the first guy to come down to Quakertown to see him. He was here with a lot of other coaches, but he made a real strong connection. Marquette's got a great reputation, obviously. When you talk about Marquette basketball in this area you think Dwyane Wade, you think some major ball, but that's pretty far away for a Pennsylvania kid. They just stuck with him. They just sort of honed in on Brett. I think the quote Aki made was, 'We found a diamond in the rough.' So they were all over him and Brett sort of really connected with that whole staff.
The scouting report on Brett is that he's a hard-nosed, blue-collar kind of player. Would you agree with that? Yeah, and that's something that we've been working on with him. He was a little soft as a sophomore. He grew from his eighth- to ninth-grade year. In 15 months he went from 6-2 to 6-8, and he wasn't with us then. He moved to Florida. His dad was ill, and they thought the warm weather would be better for him. He grew down in Florida like six inches, and then he came back to Quakertown at 6-8. I never knew of him in my program as an eighth-grader. He was a 6-2 kid who shot threes in middle school. So he came back with these size 19 shoes and these big paws, and was just sort of a gangly kid. He averaged 6 and 6 as a sophomore. The biggest thing Brett has is his vision, his goal to play major-college basketball. That was always there. To be honest with you, I would have never predicted this. But his willingness to go to all these camps, the tournaments, the AAU stuff, it just made him better and better, harder and tougher and more confident. It's unbelievable. I tell the local coaches around here that saw him play early summer and they go, 'God, it's hard to believe how far he's come.'
What are his strengths and weaknesses as a player at this point? His strength obviously is his versatility. Obviously as a high-school kid, we love him on the block. He's got the left hand, which coaches love because he goes back to his left. But he uses his right hand, too. He can step out and shoot the 15-footer, and like I said, he's stepping out and knocking down some threes. He's a great passer out of the post because on our level he gets triple-teamed, and he goes to the ball. He's an aggressive kid who goes to the ball for rebounds. I would say his biggest weakness is -- he's only 17; he really could be a junior in high-school -- is handling adversity early. Dealing with a couple rough fouls or some no-calls, the typical mental stuff that young kids have to go through. The emotional things. He's getting better with that. He's realizing that he's a marked man, they're going to send some kids to rough him up and get him out of the game, that sort of thing. That's the stuff that I think he'll get better at.
What kind of competition does Brett play against in high school? We're in a very, very good conference. We're in District 1 down here, which is Kobe Bryant and John Salmons. This is District 1 Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Philly. The league we're in actually changed. We're in a big-school league with some good schools and some good kids, from what I hear. It's a new league so I'm not quite sure who we're going against, but they're some really, really good schools. It's going to be some great basketball. I know one team has a 6-8 and two 6-7 kids, another team's got a 6-9 kid, so it's going to be a great challenge. It's not going to be like he's running amok against 6-1 kids. And actually, to be honest with you, Brett plays better against kids his size. His worst games last year were the games against the 6-2 guy that ran around or took him outside. He's not going to see that in college. He is a lot more focused. He played against this 6-11 kid that's going to Temple in the summer league, and he played awesome. He plays better against the better competition, the bigger kids.
What kind of kid/student is Brett? That's what we're working on. He has gotten better. He's re-taking his boards. He's a B-C student right now. He was very immature as a sophomore. He picked it up as a junior, and he's got to finish strong as a senior with his grades. Again, his love is basketball. Aki would ask me, 'Is he going to get better? Can he handle someone who's in his face?' I'm a pretty aggressive guy, the AAU coach he played for is a real intense guys. It's not like he's been coddled. He wants that. He wants the challenge of someone making better. He was at practice (last week) and I asked him, 'Well, what do you think of Coach Williams?' He said, 'He's hands-on.' He loves that. He wants to be the best that he can possibly be. He's not a kid that thinks he's too good. He knows he has to improve at a lot of aspects of the game. He's thrilled about Marquette. Brett and Mrs. Roseboro had nothing but awesome respect for Coach Williams when they talked to him. They loved him.
Brett said he weighs about 220 pounds now. How's his strength level, and do you expect him to pick up some more weight before he arrives at MU next summer? Oh yeah. That's the thing, that's where his body is a great body. He can easily put another 15-20 pounds of muscle on when he gets into a strict lifting program. I have a strength coach that works him out, and he's gotten stronger. That's why he's getting better, too, and that's another thing -- this is the best condition he's been in, the strongest his body's been in a couple months. He's starting to run the court like they do in the Big East. He's doing the things that the big-time coaches want him to do. But on a scale from 1-10 he's about a 7.5 right now. It's not like he's peaked. He's got tons of ability in him yet to be brought out.
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