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Cleare, Layman, Allen, Dodd, Mitchell, Cassell / 2012 Class


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#21 bnickle

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 10:39 PM

Maryland’s currently projected 2012-13 roster looks like:

Guards: Stoglin (Jr), Howard (Jr), Allen (Freshman)
Wings: Faust (Soph), Parker (Jr), Layman (Freshman)
Bigs: Padgett (Sr), Pankey (Soph), Len (Soph), Cleare (Freshman), Dodd (Freshman), Mitchell (Freshman)

I guess it is a good 'problem' to have, but if Len and Pankey return; that is a very full Front-Court.

With Mitchell; Jeff Ermann (Inside MD Sports) is reporting that attention will turn to Cassell Jr.
If you added Cassell Jr, and there were no other departures, that would mean MD had only 1 scholarship to give for '13 (Padgett).

My sense is Coach Turgeon is not loading up in case of people moving on, but because he wants to make a statement in year 2. You get everyone back, with this incoming class, and MD should be a Top 3 team in the ACC, and a Top 15-20 team overall.

Scott Greene, TerpsInsider.com, reported that Cassell had 27 points (6 3's) yesterday for Notre Dame Prep in their 78-74 loss to Brewster.



There will be attrition. It's just a matter of who. Hopefully, it's just Pankey. No offense to him of course but it's better than losing Len or Stoglin. I know one thing for sure, there will be two spots available for the Harrison twins in '13 should they pick Maryland.

#22 BSLChrisStoner

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 11:23 AM

There will be attrition. It's just a matter of who. Hopefully, it's just Pankey. No offense to him of course but it's better than losing Len or Stoglin. I know one thing for sure, there will be two spots available for the Harrison twins in '13 should they pick Maryland.


As we have discussed, 'bnickle' was obviously right here with the departure of Parker.

Here is a report from The Sun, of the Capital Classic, with Cleare, Allen, Dodd, Mitchell, and Cassell Jr. playing.

Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimore...0,3878850.story

#23 Pedro Cerrano

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 08:12 PM

Getting very very excited for next season.

There is baseball, and occasionally there are other things of note

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#24 bnickle

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Posted 23 April 2012 - 10:49 PM

Getting very very excited for next season.



You should be. I'm more psyched for MD basketball than I have been in a long time. The arrow is clearly pointing up for this program.

#25 Coker

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 12:16 PM

Getting very very excited for next season.

As am I. Maybe I'll push some classes back from summer to fall semester so I can still get basketball tickets :lol:

#26 glenn__davis

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 09:09 AM

I truly am not trying to bring up this debate again, but other than quantity how is this class all that different from a typical Gary class? You've got 1 4-star in Cleare, a few 3-stars in Mitchell and Layman, and then 3 fringe-y type guys in Allen, Cassell and Dodd.

I understand the team needs depth in a bad way, and I appreciate that this was the staffs first year and I thing they did a very good job, but I think the class is being over-stated a bit. I do hope they will be good enough to make the NCAAs next year, and I think that's a realistic goal.

#27 ravens8589

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 02:46 PM

I truly am not trying to bring up this debate again, but other than quantity how is this class all that different from a typical Gary class? You've got 1 4-star in Cleare, a few 3-stars in Mitchell and Layman, and then 3 fringe-y type guys in Allen, Cassell and Dodd.

I understand the team needs depth in a bad way, and I appreciate that this was the staffs first year and I thing they did a very good job, but I think the class is being over-stated a bit. I do hope they will be good enough to make the NCAAs next year, and I think that's a realistic goal.


When you talk about a typical Gary class, you need to be more specific. I am a huge Gary Williams fan and loved his coaching and am not down on him by any means but his recruiting dipped in his last few season. There were too many classes he only brought in one or two recruits and that doesn't provide depth no matter how skilled the player(s) are.

In this class, there is not just one 4 star recruit. There are 2 and one that is a borderline depending on where you look. People are very high on Charles Mitchell and believe he has the talent and work ethic to be a 4 star. There is only one recruiting site not listing Layman as a 4 star recruit so from that, he is a 4 star in my book. Cassell Jr. was a late riser in his prep school and if he had played the way he did during high school, he would have been a high 3 star maybe a 4 star. He has a lot more talent than his ranking shows. Allen was very under the radar and was rising before maryland grabbed him. A broken wrist is what led to his ranking not increasing; he missed too much time.

I'll compare it to Gary's class with Bowie, Tucker, Gregory, Walker and Dupree. Looking at that class, It is exactly what you said, one 4 star and a bunch of other guys. But look closely at scouting reports and film and rankings, The class coming in now under Turgeon is far and ahead better than this class even though the building blocks are nearly identical. Allen can be compared to Bowie. Allen scored better than Bowie did and has better court vision. Cleare can be compared to Dupree. Cleare is a lot more polished out of high school than Dupree was. Tucker can be compared to Layman. Layman can shoot the ball better and can do more for the squad than Tucker could. He is longer and more athletic.

At first glance, these classes are pretty much the same but if you dig deeper, this class is more than depth. It is a class loaded with not only potential, but talent. Cassell Jr. adds the deep shot that Maryland has lacked for so long; he will be feared beyond the arc. Maryland has needed a long wing like Layman for some time now and they finally have it in a guy that can put it on the deck and shoot the lights out from 3. This team is a lot more dangerous now because of this class on top of what it already has on the squad.

You're point is absolutely valid and I am as big of a Gary supporter as anyone. He found a steal in Jordon Williams that noone thought he had. I never wanted Gary to retire but we have to give Turgeon a lot of credit. He hit a homerun with this class and got us ranked in the top 15 in classes for the first time in a while. If Gary is not the coach, I wouldn't want anyone but Turgeon. He has brought class to this team like Gary already had and he kept the fire and emotion Gary had. This class was huge for the Terps.
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#28 bnickle

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 08:58 PM

The general felling is that we have some underrated guys in this class. Cleare and Layman are the only top 100 players but Mitchell is considered underrated and he's generally in the top 120 anyway. Cassell Jr is a late riser. He was one of the top unsigned guards left this spring. I read somewhere that if he was a HS senior he would now be a top 100 player. Allen is another smooth player considered to be underrated. He's been hurt a lot, missed all of last summer's AAU ball and because of that probably never got the attention he deserved. Dodd is the one raw, flyer type of guy. The kind of guy Gary was seemingly bringing in 2 of every year.


I think in a lot of ways you have to ignore HS rankings. I agree with the general thought that once you get passed the top 30 or so players in a class the next 100 or so kids is in a lot of ways are all in the eye of the beholder. These scouting networks are usually only looking at AAU ball and beyond that often have a different criteria for ranking players than coaches. A good way I like to look at players is at a lot of the other schools offering or trying to get in late on players. From what I understand in the case of say Layman and Cassell I heard that some of the big boy schools were trying to get in on each of these guys late in the process. I think Turg knows exactly what he wants from kids and more importantly wants to watch them play before offering a scholarship. SOmething Gary did not do a lot of.

#29 glenn__davis

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 09:14 PM

My fault on Layman and the 4-star thing. But he still is generally listed in the 50-70 range. Good, but not elite.

bnickle, I agree with you about the rankings. But the whole "under-the-radar" thing is the same type of stuff we heard with Gary's guys. Heard it with Bowie and Tucker, and Shane Walker, and Pe'Shon. Guys that just hadn't been discovered yet, that should have moved up the charts, etc.

I'm just curious as to why people are so excited for those types of players at this point.

And I'm not saying these guys won't be better than what Gary was bringing in at the end. I have a lot of faith in Turgeon and hope that he truly has found some diamonds. I'm just saying that this class, which everyone is so excited about, looks an awful lot like a Gary class.

#30 bnickle

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 10:52 PM

My fault on Layman and the 4-star thing. But he still is generally listed in the 50-70 range. Good, but not elite.

bnickle, I agree with you about the rankings. But the whole "under-the-radar" thing is the same type of stuff we heard with Gary's guys. Heard it with Bowie and Tucker, and Shane Walker, and Pe'Shon. Guys that just hadn't been discovered yet, that should have moved up the charts, etc.

I'm just curious as to why people are so excited for those types of players at this point.

And I'm not saying these guys won't be better than what Gary was bringing in at the end. I have a lot of faith in Turgeon and hope that he truly has found some diamonds. I'm just saying that this class, which everyone is so excited about, looks an awful lot like a Gary class.


Well I think that comes down to trusting who the coach wants and his evaluation of the players he sees. The truth with Gary was he never went out and scouted much. I think Gary was much more of a lets bring a guy in and I'll mold him into a flex 3 or flex 4 even if that didn't fit the players skillset very well. It just got to a point where MD and Gary were on so little players that they just had to take players that were decently ranked and go from there.With Turge he is out hitting the trail hard and is looking for players that really fit his style of play. Basically, Turge is out looking for circles to put into his circle holes where Gary was out picking up squares trying to plug them into his circle holes..

#31 ravens8589

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 11:04 PM

Bnickle and Glenn, I hope you didn't take my post as an attack on your posts. That wasn't my intent at all. My intent was to just analyze the class. I believe it is an underlooked class and rankings don't do justice for how skilled these players really are. You're right, it really is in the eye of the beholder. From what I have seen, I see a class that has the potential to be a program changer. Big programs didn't take some of these guys seriously and I believe they will pay for that, specifically in the Cassell situation. I think he will drop a lot of points on some teams, maybe not next year, but definitely in the future.
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#32 glenn__davis

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Posted 26 April 2012 - 06:25 AM

Bnickle and Glenn, I hope you didn't take my post as an attack on your posts.


Oh, not at all. It was a good post.

I hope you guys are right and that this group of "diamonds in the rough" has more success than some of the more recent groups.

#33 Mackus

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Posted 26 April 2012 - 07:59 AM

Late to this conversation, but I would say this, as an unashamed Gary fanatic:

I think this class is quite better and different than a "typical Gary class" of the last 5-7 years of his tenure. It isn't far and away better than one of Gary's better classes, though, even within that time-frame. I also discount, just a little bit, how great of a class this is because of the "fact" that Gary had a pretty solid class developed at the time he left, with Cleare all but committed and Justin Anderson in the fold. Turg locked in Cleare (deserve credit), swapped Anderson for Layman (we'll see if that's good for the Terps or not), and then brought in the other pieces who (aside from Mitchell) are all guys that are held in lesser regard but still viewed with some upside and optimism, very much like guys Gary had been bringing in.

So I would say that this class is quite similar to one of the good or better classes Gary could/would have brought in, plus you get Mitchell, who's the 3rd best recruit out of the 6.

I think Turgeon will consistently out-recruit compared to the latter years of Gary's tenure. Now we'll just have to see what he can do with those players. I'm very optimistic about the team's future.




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