Ben Michaels

[Bill]

From the UK but looks to have played in Long Island this past year I think?

[DooleyBull06]

Pulling in recruits on the down low lol. What’s the buzz on him?

[UBinMD]

15 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Pulling in recruits on the down low lol. What’s the buzz on him?

Looks like he played on the UK U18 team, 5.9 ppg, 5.9 rpg. He also played at Long Island Lutheran, they were 2023 Champions, couldn't find much by way of stats. One of his former teammates plays for UConn (Jayden Ross - Freshman). Comes from a solid, winning program so that's nice. International experience should be a plus.

[Dabulls]

30 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Pulling in recruits on the down low lol. What’s the buzz on him?

From the videos on his twitter he puts up decent numbers on a stacked team. I believe Long Island Lutheran was ranked as the second best team in prep basketball this season. He is one of the starters. Two of his teammates are top 100 in the country 

[Chet]

Appears to be unranked by all recruiting services. Can someone share other offers that he has?

[UBinMD]

38 minutes ago, Chet said:

Appears to be unranked by all recruiting services. Can someone share other offers that he has?

I do not see any. He retweeted a bunch for his teammates. Lots of P5 offers, especially the kid that ended up at UConn.

[Tee4three]

Sticks with the foreign theme of this recruiting class, great Britain and Canadian

Also looks like another under the radar recruit, hopefully four year kind of player 

[DocCas86]

It will be interesting to see how recruiting the under the radar international players translates onto the court.  I for one, am hoping the staff found some talented players.

Edited March 29 by DocCas86

[DocCas86]

Trying to get some perspective on latest commit.  Here is a breakdown of LI Lutheran roster sorted by PPG.

You can see that this roster is loaded and full of P5 caliber players.  Michaels' stats are most similar to Tajae Jones (RPS on verbalcommits of 3.04) who has offers from Quinnipiac and NIU.  The potential seems to be there to play in the MAC - time will tell how he contributes.

[MuchMany]

Long Island Lutheran is the clear top program in NYS at the moment with an embarrassment of riches on the roster. The fact that Michaels started for them is a hopefully a strong indicator to offset his lack of rankings. I don't hate grabbing a glue guy with size from a program of that quality.

VJ Edgecombe, the #5 player in 2024 heading to Baylor, was the top dog. Villanova and GH3 were after him hard when he was a mere top-50 recruit before he blew up. Their 2025 group has five guys in the national top 100, including Carmelo Anthony's son Kiyan. I was banging the drum for GH3 to go hard after LuHi 2023 point guard Jayden Reid as an available sleeper last spring (had a great freshman year at USF.) Our staff should know LuHi well. 

Re: Michaels, it's hard to get a handle on his game from the little info online. He seems like a big wing that will play the stretch 4 in the system that GH3 is pursuing. Likes to shoot the three. Speaking of that system, he certainly has a type of player that he prefers. I'm just wondering if we're ever going to add players that can dribble.

Re: the Canadians and Brits, I think someone may have mentioned it already but their limited access to NIL income likely factors into our focus on them. Hopefully the staff finds some gems.

What's the lineup look like right now?

Fulcher/Sabol

Boldin/Akot

Batchelor/Wilson/Jackson

Zaakir/Michaels/McVeigh

Oboh

A lot of unknowns and some intriguing potential, but it's hard to say that's a better roster than this year's.

[DocCas86]

37 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Long Island Lutheran is the clear top program in NYS at the moment with an embarrassment of riches on the roster. The fact that Michaels started for them is a hopefully a strong indicator to offset his lack of rankings. I don't hate grabbing a glue guy with size from a program of that quality.

VJ Edgecombe, the #5 player in 2024 heading to Baylor, was the top dog. Villanova and GH3 were after him hard when he was a mere top-50 recruit before he blew up. Their 2025 group has five guys in the national top 100, including Carmelo Anthony's son Kiyan. I was banging the drum for GH3 to go hard after LuHi 2023 point guard Jayden Reid as an available sleeper last spring (had a great freshman year at USF.) Our staff should know LuHi well. 

Re: Michaels, it's hard to get a handle on his game from the little info online. He seems like a big wing that will play the stretch 4 in the system that GH3 is pursuing. Likes to shoot the three. Speaking of that system, he certainly has a type of player that he prefers. I'm just wondering if we're ever going to add players that can dribble.

Re: the Canadians and Brits, I think someone may have mentioned it already but their limited access to NIL income likely factors into our focus on them. Hopefully the staff finds some gems.

What's the lineup look like right now?

Fulcher/Sabol

Boldin/Akot

Batchelor/Wilson/Jackson

Zaakir/Michaels/McVeigh

Oboh

A lot of unknowns and some intriguing potential, but it's hard to say that's a better roster than this year's.

Still a couple of pieces to add.  Hopefully one of them is the ball handler - that grad transfer from Bentley is an intriguing option.  I realize he won't put up 20 ppg - but he could produce at a level similar to Foster.

[UBinMD]

1 hour ago, MuchMany said:

Long Island Lutheran is the clear top program in NYS at the moment with an embarrassment of riches on the roster. The fact that Michaels started for them is a hopefully a strong indicator to offset his lack of rankings. I don't hate grabbing a glue guy with size from a program of that quality.

VJ Edgecombe, the #5 player in 2024 heading to Baylor, was the top dog. Villanova and GH3 were after him hard when he was a mere top-50 recruit before he blew up. Their 2025 group has five guys in the national top 100, including Carmelo Anthony's son Kiyan. I was banging the drum for GH3 to go hard after LuHi 2023 point guard Jayden Reid as an available sleeper last spring (had a great freshman year at USF.) Our staff should know LuHi well. 

Re: Michaels, it's hard to get a handle on his game from the little info online. He seems like a big wing that will play the stretch 4 in the system that GH3 is pursuing. Likes to shoot the three. Speaking of that system, he certainly has a type of player that he prefers. I'm just wondering if we're ever going to add players that can dribble.

Re: the Canadians and Brits, I think someone may have mentioned it already but their limited access to NIL income likely factors into our focus on them. Hopefully the staff finds some gems.

What's the lineup look like right now?

Fulcher/Sabol

Boldin/Akot

Batchelor/Wilson/Jackson

Zaakir/Michaels/McVeigh

Oboh

A lot of unknowns and some intriguing potential, but it's hard to say that's a better roster than this year's.

If they play together and run some sort of system that gets good looks and not just a group of chuckers, that play with defensive intensity, I will be happy.

[MuchMany]

11 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

If they play together and run some sort of system that gets good looks and not just a group of chuckers, that play with defensive intensity, I will be happy.

Sorry, but that's not the standard from my perspective. There are teams that do what you describe and win 7 games. "Try hard, play together, and have fun" is the standard for a middle school team. We need a lot more than that.

Edited March 29 by MuchMany

[UBinMD]

15 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Sorry, but that's not the standard from my perspective. There are teams that do what you describe and win 7 games. "Try hard, play together, and have fun" is the standard for a middle school team. We need a lot more than that.

Not next year. We need a group of culture fit guys or fire this coach and hire a coach focusing on Mercenary basketball. That is not what GH3 is building. I also think teams like Oakland, what Princeton used to be, etc. can still be done, but it is harder in the current environment. I would like to get to a point of paying guys to be retained that earned it versus throwing money at guys to come in and leave the guys that busted their ass with nothing.

The other option would be going the GCU route, they have guys from Louisville, Oregon, Arizona St. Depaul, Georgia St., UNLV, etc. They have a coach with a bit of a name if anyone remembers the 90's and I'm assuming they have a sack of money that UB does not currently have.

Realistically, I would consider a .500 record in MAC play and a berth in the MAC Tournament a success for 2024-25.

Edited March 29 by UBinMD

[Ubbullsfan09]

Looks like a solid player, but how many wings do we really need? I feel like we need some guards that can ball handle (big issue last year) and more big man depth 

[MuchMany]

3 hours ago, Ubbullsfan09 said:

Looks like a solid player, but how many wings do we really need? I feel like we need some guards that can ball handle (big issue last year) and more big man depth 

My read is that Michaels is a modern stretch 4 man at what looks like a lean and long 6'8. His highlights are mostly shooting from distance. He'd be a big in GH3's scheme in the mold of Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. Somewhere between Jo and Lloyd on this year's team, different from the glut of true wings we have.

[Chet]

The recruiting by this staff is underwhelming. As incredible as it is, I actually feel worse about our chances next year than I did at the end of the season.

[Tee4three]

5 hours ago, Chet said:

The recruiting by this staff is underwhelming. As incredible as it is, I actually feel worse about our chances next year than I did at the end of the season.

I actually like this recruiting, I like this build

This past season I didn't really see a path forward but I'm at least seeing a path

Granted I think overall talent is down currently but the team might be up

[Chet]

20 hours ago, Tee4three said:

I actually like this recruiting, I like this build

This past season I didn't really see a path forward but I'm at least seeing a path

Granted I think overall talent is down currently but the team might be up

What’s the path forward? 

[skrabukes]

11 minutes ago, Chet said:

What’s the path forward? 

More than 3 wins and getting blown out by double digits in less than half of the games. I have no idea how this roster is more talented than the previous one, but then again this past year's roster had far more talent than their final W-L record. Maybe this roster will play as a unit and double their win total and cut down on the double digit losses, but at least on paper, it appears to be very young and not filled with much high end talent (at least according to recruiting services, whatever they are worth). The good teams in the league have men on their team, much as we used to. Who does this roster have that can remotely compare to being a "man" like a Dontay, Davonte, Nick? Not a single one, as far as I can tell. Heck, where's an Armoni Foster/Jerrod Oldham? Even a Zid? Heck, from what I can tell, the much destroyed on this board Gabe Grant would be a star in comparison to what this group appears to have. I hope these guys are good players, but it's a super young roster and based on recent history, by the time they are ready to be at a strong productive level (if they get there), they'll be at their 2nd or 3rd school. 

[MuchMany]

2 hours ago, Chet said:

What’s the path forward? 

Young players improve. Following the development of players is one of the most enjoyable things about following college basketball with as young as the athletes are. Will they develop well? Only time will tell, but to me there's more optimism in trying to build young players up than randomly piecing transfers together each year. Of course there's the risk of players transferring out eventually, but that's just life now and the frequency is overstated imo. Our current freshman class seems to be pretty well bonded and happy here for the time being.

Am I optimistic overall for next season? No. I do think we have the chance to be significantly better than this season with a roster of more than eight healthy players, the continuing development of our guys, and hopefully the improvement of the coaching staff after a year of tough lessons. We'll know a lot more when the last two roster spots get filled and we get some eyes on all the new guys on campus.

[Tee4three]

13 hours ago, Chet said:

What’s the path forward? 

It's sad but time. The staff had to rebuild an entire roster from top to bottom and without nil doing that in one off season is near impossible 

I see a team that can last being built rather than a group of guys at a gym playing pick up coming together. Which is what we saw ever since oats left

Realistically the first recruiting class GH3 had provided a base - very useful players on a good Mac team but not likely the main pieces. High floor low ceiling type of players. His second class on paper looks to be higher potential a lot more size length and athleticism again continuing the build a base of a team. Hopefully hit on a main piece

His third class will be very telling because that's when you absolutely have to bring in legit talent to supplement the base or to put your team over the top

[UBinMD]

36 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

It's sad but time. The staff had to rebuild an entire roster from top to bottom and without nil doing that in one off season is near impossible 

I see a team that can last being built rather than a group of guys at a gym playing pick up coming together. Which is what we saw ever since oats left

Realistically the first recruiting class GH3 had provided a base - very useful players on a good Mac team but not likely the main pieces. High floor low ceiling type of players. His second class on paper looks to be higher potential a lot more size length and athleticism again continuing the build a base of a team. Hopefully hit on a main piece

His third class will be very telling because that's when you absolutely have to bring in legit talent to supplement the base or to put your team over the top

I agree with this assessment. Unfortunately, in our instant gratification society, it's hard to wait 3 years. I'm a Bulls fan for life, so 3 years is nothing 😂

[Bluebird96]

1 hour ago, UBinMD said:

I agree with this assessment. Unfortunately, in our instant gratification society, it's hard to wait 3 years. I'm a Bulls fan for life, so 3 years is nothing 😂

I don’t see what other option we fans have but to be patient under the current state of affairs.  Unless there’s some miraculous influx of cash from donors or a major change in philosophy from the University from an athletics funding standpoint, best we can hope for are competitive teams with coaches that are building their resumes and are gone after 3-4 years if they’re lucky.  The days of coaches sticking around for 10+ years with one program are gone, unless they’re the types that are churning out mediocre teams or like in Toledo’s case with MBB, very good regular season teams who can’t win when it really counts.

Personally I’m going to enjoy the ride with WBB as long as BB is around, continue to look forward to Coach Lembo’s first season this fall, and hope that GH3 and staff are smarter than we think and start turning it around.  Go Bulls! 🤘

Edited March 31 by Bluebird96

[Dabulls]

15 hours ago, Chet said:

What’s the path forward? 

He’s trying to build a team from the ground up, build chemistry and hope the majority stick together. I know he’s not going out and getting high end 3 stars like Oats and even Whitesell could pull but I still trust his judgement. He’s going through a development route