In the seedy underground world of pimpin & prostitution it is known as “gettin knocked”…or in the family friendly definition, taking ones asset that provides a service from ones organization and adding it to their own for profit.
Well, well, well…as college basketball goes this was nothing unusual that a high profile recruit changed their mind and went a different direction.
I don’t live in North Carolina or Los Angeles or New York where college recruiting is the end all be all, I live in Wisconsin where we have some issues rise up from time to time with top flight players deciding if they are staying in state or out of state or if they are wanted by 1 or the the other big time in state programs. Then we have every once in a while instances like we have with hot D1 prospect Vander Blue of Madison Memorial HS.
Vander is rated by most recruiting services as one of the top thirty players in the country going into his senior year. At the tender age of 15 he made an oral commitment to the big local school which is Wisconsin, but there have been rumblings that all was not well with this deal for at least a year now. As this saga has carried on there has been a pipeline that has been established between Madison Memorial HS and the #1 rival of UW Hoops in the state in Marquette University. State players of the year in Wesley Matthews (now with the Utah Jazz) and Jeronne Maymon have come east and joined the Golden Eagles program in recent years, now Blue has followed them down Highway 94 after de-committing from Wisconsin 6 months ago, he Orally committed to Marquette this past weekend.
What will make this situation unique is the fact that with the recent success of both programs and the past rumored dislike between former coach Tom Crean and Bo Ryan that this will heat up the rivalry even more with Buzz Williams. Can you imagine Marquette going into the Kohl Center with star players from Madison Memorial beating Wisconsin on their home floor? Alumni always have been at each others throats as well as fans of the different programs, and trust me there are few fans that cheer for both teams, now it will heat up even more with the rumors, innuendo and speculation on how the recruiting trails lead up to these players choosing these schools.
I look at most college basketball & football programs as the brothels of higher learning, and the coaches of these programs as “pimps” who in a lot of ways turn these young men and women out to us, who are the “tricks”, or paying customers. The better the service provided the more money the brothel makes and the pimp gets more status and power. I am not trying to disrespect these institutions of higher learning by using this analogy, I’m just putting it in kind of crude street terms for this blog.
Bo got “knocked” by Buzz, UW got knocked by MU…as I quote Max Julian who starred as “Goldie” the pimp in the the 1973 blackplotation classic, “The Mack” explaining the rules of the game to a rival pimp; “Mr. Pretty Tony, your bitch choose me, now we can handle this like gentlemen, or we can get into some gangster $hit!”
What do you think is going to happen??? Like this pimp in his prime expect anything.
