Change of Heart

[tornado]

There sure have been a lot of kids who change their minds and go from one college/school to another. Some that we've discussed here include DeAaron Williams, Jeremy Fears, Devan Bawinkel, Sead Odzic...
Reasons include grades, personality clashes, and playing time issues....

Da Coach's post about Stovall got me thinking of who else has done the flip flop among Illinois' elite recruits over the past few years.....

Here's just a simple tabulation on the number of kids who were top recruits from Illinois, who transferred or decommitted at least once.
I am not going to count kids who went to juco then on the a 4 year school unless they changed their minds for one reason or another.
I had to dig to find the rankings from several years ago...so give me a little leeway on who I consider...

Class of 2004...of the top 10 kids....(it is harder to find a consensus ranking this far back)
...one went NBA (Livingston) of the nine who finally ended at 4 year schools,
Five flip-flopped on their choices. (Jamarcus Ellis (Texas A&M->juco->IU), DeAaron Williams, Justin Dentmon, Justin Cerasoli, Jeremy Fears)

Class of 2005...of the top 15 kids...
Eight had changes of mind. (McNeal, Minnoy, Tabb, Perry, Dunson, Holloway, Odzic, Maurice Acker- Ball St.->Marquette))

Class of 2006...top 15
5 changed their minds so far (Eppinger, Cass, Bawinkel, Beyer, Thijin Moses)

Class of 2007...too soon to tell...these guys just started, but already Brandon Dunson & Mike Stovall have transferred.

So since 2004, that's maybe 18-19 out of 40 or so...and the jury is still out on a few of the kids like Bobby Frasor, Brian Carlwell, Will Walker, etc...whose careers are not done yet and may still transfer...

But what it shows is an average rate of essentially 40-50% and higher of the top recruits in Illinois are changing their minds.
Here are some new names just being announced...who are in the 15-25 part of the prior rankings...
Mike Stovall, Ryan Hare, Stephen Jones, Mason Stewart

Illinois is a great place for a lot of schools to come and recruit, but most of the kids who have changed their minds went OUT OF STATE first then changed their minds! Homesick?? Shooting too high like DeAaron or Odzic?
Only a few who committed to instate schools are on this list (Dentmon, Tabb, Dunson, Cass, Moses), so it seems the most common scenario is the kid who commits to a school outside Illinois then leaves and comes back!

[scout4126]

Eppinger really didn't have a change of heart, he just couldn't get his ACT score down, same with Jamarcus Ellis.

When did McNeal change his mind?

Fears, Cerasoli, Dentmon, Odzic, Acker, and Stephen Jones all landed in good spots.

Homesickness was the reason for Brandon Dunson's transfer.

DeAaron and Dodie Dunson are at different schools for academic reasons and Thijin was dismissed.

You really can't judge any of their situations if you don't know the full story.

[tornado]

Eppinger really didn't have a change of heart, he just couldn't get his ACT score down, same with Jamarcus Ellis.

When did McNeal change his mind?

Fears, Cerasoli, Dentmon, Odzic, Acker, and Stephen Jones all landed in good spots.

Homesickness was the reason for Brandon Dunson's transfer.

DeAaron and Dodie Dunson are at different schools for academic reasons and Thijin was dismissed.

You really can't judge any of their situations if you don't know the full story.

Eppinger's changes of heart took place as far back as high school.
He changed high schools, then committed to Fresno State, then backed out, then was going to go to Boys to Men, then changed again and ended up at juco. I'd say that qualifies as a few changes of plans.

Ellis was committed to Texas A&M, then backed out, then went to juco, which is what I define as a change.

Fears, Ceresoli, DeAaron are the absolute poster-boys for changing plans.DeAaron committed to as many as four different schools after HS (UW, ICC, BU, NKU), and Dentmon of course you know committed to ISU then backed out went to prep, then to Washington.
As to whether Dentmon in the end will be happy....still waits to be seen, as now he's a sophmore, and he's lost his starting position that he's had since he was a freshman, and his playing time as well as all of his stats are down this year, as is also Washington's team record.

My point in this thread was just to show the significant pct. of the top recruits from Illinois who might just be a risk and a hazard to recruit.
Those teams recruiting kids like Jeremy Fears and Justin Cerasoli wasted a whole lot of time, energy, and tied up scholarships with nothing to show for it.
It is no secret that if a school recruits a kid and gives him a scholarship, they'd like for him to stay at their school for a few years, and that's what my point is. Some of these kids' indecisiveness could even be seen as far back as high school. Kids like Nate Minnoy, Clarence Holloway, and Josh Tabb even hopped around a bit to different schools even before they graduated from HS.

Lastly, nobody's judging, only commenting about well established facts.
If knowing the "full story" is prerequisite to forming an opinion, then I guess we might as well shut all message boards and newspapers down. There isn't a great deal of speculation here, scout, really just a few undeniable facts about this substantial number of kids who have changed schools and reneged on committments.

[scout4126]

As far as transferring high schools, there are tons and tons...and TONS of kids who do it all the time but unless their top prospects we really don't say much about them. Also, out of curiosity, where did Nate Minnoy go besides Hales Franciscan?

Ellis committed to Texas A&M but failed to make the grades and was forced to play juco.

Eppinger was kicked out of ALL state of Illinois schools due to an infraction he had his junior year and was forced to move out of state. Plus, he never qualified which voided his commitment to Fresno State.

I agree that coaches expect their recruits to stay a few years but if they're not happy and realize they don't wanna be there, why make them stay? You won't get anything out of them anyway. A lot of times it is the coach's fault as well because they aren't able to communicate with their kids well enough to work things out...you have to look at it from both sides.

Illinois isn't the only states with top prospects that do this...I could probably name 49 MORE states. Because the bottom line is, this happens everywhere and whether we like it or don't like it, we have to respect it and hope that the parting works best both ways.

[tornado]

Actually, I think the top rated Illinois kids change their minds way more than, say, the top rated kids from Iowa and other states.
I only have the time to do a little digging, but when Carlton Reed changed plans, it got big-time writeups in the Iowa press because it doesn't appear to happen all that often to the kids there.
Here in Illinois, as I have pointed out, roughly 40% to 50% of all the top recruits don't stay where they first commit.
The reasons vary as you have comfirmed, but the numbers certainly don't lie.

Nate Minnoy transferred into Hales as a sophomore, but started at Chicago Mt. Carmel.
Here is an old link that talks about Minnoy's transfer back in 2002, as both he and his Mt. Carmel teammate Jerod Haynes came to Hales at the same time in 2002.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:-2bikfI_SUwJ:www.illinoisprephoops.com/TeamPages/2003/HalesFran2003.htm+%22nate+minnoy%22+and+%22transfer%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us