Loading ...Kevin Noreen sets official visit for May 7-8
103 comments
by Dustin Dopirak | Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:29 pm UTC
Kevin Noreen, the 6-foot-10 forward from Minnesota Transitions charter school from Minneapolis who decommitted from Boston College, said he will take on official visit to Indiana May 7-8.
“Coach Crean really, he’s been talking to me a lot lately,” said Noreen, who said the Hoosiers have not yet formally offered a scholarship. ” I think he’s a great recruiter. He just told me he had to weed out some of the problems there, and that they’re going to turn it around starting next year.”
Noreen said he’s already taken visits to Northwestern and Marquette and will visit Providence this weekend. He has scholarship offers from those schools as well as Boston College, Colorado, Oklahoma, St. Louis, UTEP, Duquesne, Virginia Commonwealth and Washington State. There is also significant interest from Iowa State, and Noreen said California and Florida have offered to take him if he would go to prep school for a year. That isn’t for academic reasons — Noreen and MTS coach John Sherman say he carries a 4.0 grade point average — but because those schools are out of scholarship space.
Noreen said he’s mostly wide open now, but that he wants to act fairly quickly.
“I want to get it done sooner rather than later,” he said. “I want to be able to get in for the first summer session.”
The 6-foot-10, 220-pounder is certainly an intriguing case. The numbers he produced in his years at Minnesota Transitions are barely believable.
He was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball and led his school to the Class A state championship, averaging a ludicrous 38.2 points per game and about 16 rebounds per contest. He set state records with 4,086 career points and 1,899 career rebounds, and according to his coach, was just 35 assists short of the state record.
The constant knock against him, of course, is that he didn’t play great competition, so the numbers don’t carry much weight. Minnesota has produced numerous NBA players, but it isn’t considered a powerhouse, and it’s hard to imagine Noreen saw many 6-10 players defending him.
Noreen said he understands the knock, but said that Minnesota Transitions loaded up its schedule with 3A and 4A teams this season to make sure the squad was ready for the state championship run it eventually made.
“For a Class A team, we played the toughest schedule of anybody in the history of Minnesota,” he said. “We played the best teams we could play. Against the 3A and 4A teams we played, I still did pretty good. And AAU is where I earned my scholarship anyway.”
Minnesota Transitions coach Jim Sherman said he thinks the best fit for Noreen would be at power forward, but that he could eventually become either a small forward or a center depending on how he develops physically. Noreen has the skills, Sherman said, to play any position. He was actually the team’s starting point guard as a freshman and was captain all four seasons.
“I’ve coached more than 60 Division I players,” said Sherman, who has also worked with the Minnesota Magic AAU program. “He has the highest basketball IQ of any player I’ve coached.”
The list is actually quite impressive. Former or current NBA players Kris Humphries, Troy Bell, Khalid El-Amin and Joel Przybilla all played under Sherman. The coach said he would take Noreen’s intelligence and versatility over any of them. He can rebound down low, but he can also pass, handle and shoot from beyond the 3-point arc.
“His main thing is he’ll give his college coach some versatility,” Sherman said. “He’s not a guy that sets up in the low post or at the free throw line. He doesn’t really have a description. He can play anywhere including point guard. Whenever we had a lead late in the game, we put him at point and he closed it out. He’s a really good ball handler with either hand. He can get by a lot of people. He’s a good all around player.”
Sherman said Noreen’s leaping ability is good but not spectacular and that his foot speed is “faster than anyone else in our high school” but might not be that exciting to Division I coaches. But his intelligence makes a difference in the little things.
“He’s a great rebounder,” Sherman said. “He’s got great timing on his rebounds. He boxes out well. He can rebound in heavy traffic. He controls rebounds and he seldom makes a mistake on an outlet pass. He rebounds and makes a secure, good decision with it. That’s one of the things people might not notice with all the points he scores and the assists he gets is how good of a rebounder he is.”
The one problem a college coach might have, Sherman said, is figuring out where to play him. At 225, he doesn’t really have the frame to play center right now, but Noreen said doctors have told him his growth plates are still open, which means he could still grow beyond 7-feet. Sherman said Noreen has the frame to go up to 250 pounds if need be.
“He can guard centers and he can guard power forwards,” Sherman said. “Guarding the three might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think he can be a very good three offensively right now.”
Great report Korman!! What not to like!!
Great report Korman!! What’s not to like!! Thanks!
Nice Write up. Would absolutely love to land this kid. This class wouldn’t turn out so bad with Noreen and Offutt.
agreed, nice report, cant believe this kid is just now on the radar. never heard of him myself but the small school thing doesnt worry me a bit, especially if he has the versatility spoken of.
What problems do you think Crean was referring to when he said he needed to weed out some problems.
He just told me he had to weed out some of the problems there, What does Crean mean?
Hammmer, I believe he is talking about the Sampson players.
A 4.0 at a charter school can mean any number of things. Do his SAT scores qualify?
weed out, hmmm….. pritchard and Bawa perhaps? Who else?
I hope Pritchard does this year.
I meant to say Great.
Chet,
I don’t know his SAT’s for sure, but I feel more than a little confident saying academics won’t be an issue here. And by weed out, I’m pretty sure Crean meant the issues before he arrived.
I read he got a 36 on his ACT. Fittingly, I also read there is quite a bit of mutual interest between he and Northwestern.
I read in another article that he scored a 36 on his ACT. If I am not mistaken that is a perfect score.
Nerdvana you beat me to it. Here is to hoping that the new practice facility really impresses him.
I’m kinda suprised with that quote….don’t really know what that means….maybe it has something to do with Dumes graduating?…he might have been a hinderance last year.
I think it would be fantastic if this kid said the practice facility put IU over the edge and I had to go there!
When I was reading it I definitely took the weeding out statement to be a reference to Sampson players.
The descriptions make this kid sound a lot like Shurna from Northwestern. If he doesn’t go to IU, I sure hope he doesn’t go there. One of him is enough.
Growth plates, really? I smell B.S. on that little nugget, but hey, who am I to dispute a claim by a guy with a 36 ACT?
Full speed ahead, TC. Bring this guy to Bloomington.
Sampson players are long gone.
Sampson players are long gone. Nothing to weed out there.
Speaking of Sampson players. Take a look at the Police Beat on April 30 (today’s paper) and you’ll notice a former Hoosier amongst the bunch of Lil 5 arrestees.
Jim Bob- I know who it was even without having to look. YOu are wise in not saying his name – they censor you here if you make any mention of that guy.
CTC: Get ‘er done. Fit this guy for a pair of candystripes!
There can no longer be any SERIOUS question or issue of whether or not Coach Crean is a relentless, persistent, creative, driven, energetic recruiter of college basketball talent for his team, his university and his fans. He is all of the above! Let’s go IU!
I would say by weed out CTC is referring to COACHES and STAFF! Why do people get off on player transfers? I love IU and hope that any player that commits to IU stays for 4 years, gets a good education and becomes a better basketball player. You transfer freaks get on my nerves!
I would say by weed out CTC is referring to player he wants to shed to open up some scholarships.
OK SSTRAUB – you love IU we do too! Transfers are a part of college life! Coaches bring in better players and someone has to sit! Many decide they want to go elsewhere! It doesnt mean because a person thinks transfer or discusses transfers that they are “transfer freaks”. You’ll have to admit we are reviewing a lot of people and we dont have that many scholarships left for the kids coming in 2011/2012. I honestly believe you’ll see one of the kids transfer out of the Creans highly recruited class because of future kids/players coming in? I hope Im wrong but reality says probably?
Transfers are part of the game. By weed out he was talking about Sampson’s players I believe. If anybody transfers, hopefully it is Bawa and Capo to help balance out that class and free up a couple wasted scholarships.
Crean should have had at least two transfers by now. I’m not sure what is going on. He probably can’t control his players and they don’t like his style so they are sticking around. But eventually someone will transfer there is still alot of time left.
“…can’t control his players and they don’t like his style so they are sticking around…” Wow, have we abandoned all reason and rational thinking?
That was the idiot impostor who nobody is doing anything about….
I found the link to the police report.
Strangely enough, I also stumbled on a picture of Husky Tom and his 4guards.
No, it sounds just like you. Whats the difference? What should “nobody” do to accomodate your personal needs?
Did anybody see the new rivals rankings? Our 2 recruits both dropped in the rankings, neither one in the top 140.
Our recruits are terrible they aren’t 5 star recruits. Crean can’t land the big ones.
The 4guards impostor is pretty easy to identify — he’s the one who posts with obvious grammatical errors and run-on sentences.
I’ll say this for 4guards — I may disagree with 80% of what comes out of his keyboard, but he knows how to express himself well in the Queen’s English. The other guy posting as 4guards doesn’t.
You can kiss a donkey in the face, but you’re still kissing an ass.
I’m still convinced the weed out comment was made in the past tense and in reference to the time Crean first got here. No Coach is going to tell a recruit that his current program has players that need to be weeded out to open up scholarships. Absurd.
But some how the 09 scholarship bulge has to be dealt with. The problem I have is I like everyone of those 09 scholarship holders. Yes Bawa too.
The new rankings are interesting; they’ve got MoAb in there at nintety-something. Not really a big deal that Oladipo and Sheehey dropped a bit – the difference is minimal between recruits 101-150 anyway.
The one that really hurts me is (P)Enes Kanter – he verballed with Washington, and then came Calipari promising NBA draft, and (P)enes was out with the wind. Slimy bastard, that Calipari.
Whose rankings are you reading Tom?
Tom, you’re absolutely correct that Calipari’s a slime ball, but he’s only a product of circumstances. He practices his craft as a result of the NBA’s 19-year age minimum. That minimum needs to be either 18 or at least 20.
Calipari was successful as a coach before the 19 year minimum, but he’s taken it up several levels since that rule came in. He didn’t have Derrick Rose/Tyreke Evans/John Wall (et al) in consecutive years earlier in his career. So I guess my point is, what needs to change is the NBA rule. If players had to stay eligible for at least 2 college seasons, a lot of Calipari’s star one-and-dones would play in Europe instead, or go straight to the NBA if they went back to a minimum age of 18.Either is better than one-and-done factories with players who don’t even have to go to class the second term.
If IU ends up Offut, Negedu and Noreen, this may qualify as the strangest spring recruiting class EVER!! A walk-on in-conference transfer, a heart patient and a de-commit. Weird but good!
DD- 4guards? The Queen’s English? Seriously? Do you mean Queen Latifah’s English? Because you surely aren’t talking about the 4guards I know.
This is the 4tards who can’t find the shift key on the keyboard to make a capital letter (he used to post as “stevealford”); it is also the one who accused people of “immatating” him.
Clarion- I am looking at the newest Rivals 150: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/rankings/rank-1909
Selby is the new #1. There are whispers that Brandon Knight never truly “signed” with Kentucky because Calipari wants to take the Cavs job next year.
Eric, is it an age thing or is the requirement that you have to be at least one year removed from your class’ HS graduation?
We need this kid! Come on Coach Crean turn on the charm for this kid!
GFDave,
I believe that it is:
1. At least 19 years of age, and
2. One year removed from High School.
Clarion- I am looking at the newest Rivals 150: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/rankings/rank-1909
Selby is the new #1. There are whispers that Brandon Knight never truly “signed” with Kentucky because Calipari wants to take the Cavs job next year.
DD- 4guards? The Queen’s English? Seriously? Do you mean Queen Latifah’s English? Because you surely aren’t talking about the 4guards I know.
This is the 4tards who can’t find the shift key on the keyboard to make a capital letter (he used to post as “stevealford”); it is also the one who accused people of “immatating” him.
I see I am now being censored, despite the fact the the 4tards impostor lives on and continues to post. I guess my anti-establishment streak is finally catching up to me.
Husky,
Are you really being censored?
yea, the impostor should be banned. I don’t know how it hasn’t happened. I don’t believe it is funny for anybody any longer.
Agree on this one…censor that guy.
Yeah, posters should not be allowed to hijack screen names. That should go without saying, but somehow it is happening.
Millport- yes. I playfully criticized DD for saying that 4guards spoke the Queen’s English, and it was shot down.
Most of my post was about basketball, though, and I even posted a link to the Rivals top 150 for Clarion. But I guess the powers that be have had enough of me.
Tom,
Are you the impostor?
After seeing some of the stuff that gets posted on this site…really hard to believe any censorship whatsoever is going on…i agree the imposter should be outed and suspended.
GF Dave, I believe Millport is correct. You have to have been graduated from HS for at least a year before being drafted, and 19 to suit up and play. That’s at least pretty close to the wording of the policy.
Bob Knight was correct–this is a bad thing; kids only have to scrape by on grades for a semester to be eligible the second half of the season; coaches like Calipari who don’t care a bit about academics won’t even see that they attend class second term, and they’ll drop out at whatever point in March/April their season ends. This empowers people like Calipari to do what they do–also a bad thing.
4tards- I confess I was one of the many, many impostors, but in my own defense, mine were so silly that no one would mistake them for your comments. For example I wrote, as 4guards, that I just swallowed a whole head of garlic and washed it down with a wine cooler.
I stopped posting for a week, and to no surprise, the impostors were still there.
Censored, aye Tom? I did not get to see the post but what the hell did mentioning the Queen’s English have to do with anything? Thanks for the Rivals 150 having an update.
The more I read about Noreen, the more I like him. It’s good to see Crean secure an official visit from a player of his caliber this late in the game. The 2010 class may get a lot better in the next month, but it is certainly an oddly conceived one.
I would take Noreen and Offutt over Oladipo and Shehey any day of the week. It would really raise my hopes for this class.
Anybody listen to Dakich today? He doesn’t seem too fond of Offutt, and he was giving a shoutout to the other site.
Noreen would certainly be a good pickup, I don’t think anyone is debating that with his size and skill level.
“I would take Noreen and Offut over Oladipo and Sheehey any day of the week”?
You’re an idiot. We can have Noreen, Oladipo, and Sheehey all on scholarship and Offut as a walk-on. This will be a great situation for us.
Oladipo and Sheehey are both outstanding, hardworking players with a lot of upside. Once you see these guys get play and get coached up you will eat your words.
I am from Indy and have played with Offut, he is also a great player with tremendouos upside that can be molded into a great college player by Crean. He will have no problem playing professionally overseas when all is said and done, and I wouldn’t be extremely surprised if he was a 2nd round NBA draft pick if he keeps his head on straight.
Dakich is a man I respect as a man who loves IU basketball. But he is close-minded and he thinks he is always right. He is too extreme in is tough guy act and doesn’t give anyone a chance. Take anything he says with a grain of salt. He might have helped to shut down Jordan, but Bob Knights teams were about team defense and Jordan was frustrated by the squad not Dakich. Dakich can speak in some of Bob Knights terms and seem semi-basketball smart, but he doesn’t have natural basketball intelligence, and eye for talent, or any sense of a kid who needs help to become a better man.
Tom-
I doubt if you were intentionally censored. Are you familiar with the dumb downed bugs that now pose as one of the biggest threats to blogging networks. They get in by using the most primitive aspects of electronic DNA software to hide and evolve once in the system. I’ll try to send one through. These missing link a.k.a “hardhat viruses” easily get attached to a Trojan Horse.
Crean may be currently swimming along the bottom, but he is a highly evolved recruiter. Soon the fish will be jumping!
No matter what class this kid played in HS he sure was consistent with his production. He will be a nice fit with VO, WS and hopefully Offutt.
Noreen would be a great pick up this late in the game. Let Negedu walk on with Offutt if he really wants to play. With Creek and Roth returning from injury next fall, this could be a good year if a couple more pieces drop into place.
HT, have you been keeping tabs on what is going on with T. Jones verbal to Washington and not choosing Criminalipari’s NBA hangout?
Clarion- You better believe it. Washington just apparently scored a major coup, although the situation with Jones is weird. He verballed, but his friend Terrence Ross, Rivals #48 was sitting right next to him and signed an LOI to Washington.
Why wouldn’t Jones sign the letter alongside Ross? They always said they wanted to play together. Rumor has it that Calipari is going all out at the last second with Jones – kinda reminds me of Crean’s late charge on Moses Abraham.
If the situation holds, UW will suddenly have a top 10 recruiting class out of nowhere.
?! ?! ?! ?! ?! ?!
Hoosier Clarion- “But some how the 09 scholarship bulge has to be dealt with. The problem I have is I like everyone of those 09 scholarship holders. Yes Bawa too.”
–I agree w/ everything you said here!
The 2012 class is really great we would like several of these kids on the IU team!ie: Bell,Hollowell,Hammonns,Jurkin,Kaminski,Perea,Smith-Rivera,Patterson just to name a few who will be available.
If Negedu joins the team and can play right away, won’t he join Roth, Elston, Hulls,Creek, Watford, Capo, and Bawa?
That would be 8 scholarships in the same class.
Tom,
You put a link in your comment, and it therefore ended up in the moderation bin. And I just put it through.
I’ve banned at least three IP addresses recently for imitating 4guards, and of course that means that I support 4guards and agree with him completely. Which I don’t. But he doesn’t resort to childish stuff when somebody disagrees with him.
Korman-
Fair enough. Thank you for not censoring me intentionally.
Regarding the childish stuff, there was once a wacky poster on here who would come home from the bars at 230 in the morning and post childish keyboard art, taunt Husky Tom, Clarion, GFDave, and sometimes Downing with pictures and video clips, while resorting to all kinds of different childish late-night debauchery to get a rise out of us. His name was L’accent, and he received the full carte blanche from you and your censors.
To suddenly activate your conscience for the sake 4guards seems highly hypocritical.
Did L’accent go around using your screen name? If not, than you are trying to compare completely different situations.
Saying that something is “different” is a cheap way to avoid an argument.
Bottom line: “childish” behavior exists every day on this blog. To selectively apply that label and use it as a grounds for censoring some posts but not others is hypocritical.
Husky Tom,
At least you know the reason for not being immediately posted.
Chris Korman,
I don’t envy you the task of mediating this blog.
4guards,
Now, we know that Chris Korman doesn’t agree with your posts, he does have a sense of fairness. You and your impostors are all boring. I wouldn’t be too proud of myself, if I were you. Weren’t you an impostor while using the name stevealford?
And to give total disregard to kids feelings that come to play for Tom Crean with sincere heart and admiration for no other reason than to wear the cream and crimson? And what of the months and months of daily lashings and repeated bashings, the rants of deceit and mountains made from molehills, aimed at Crean’s level of competence? And what of the spewing of unwarranted contempt with weak meaningless statistics and unfounded attempts to build a case for hatred against the coach in charge our fine young men that are giving all to rebuild a basketball program from scratch in the face of unprecedented eyes of scrutiny and voices of doubt? And what of giving credence to someone so undeveloped fair reasoning as to believe the task is comparable to filling a little plastic pale in sandbox with 10 Scoops of the blogging sand he plays in? That’s not childish behavior. I would call it forever stuck in boxed-in thoughts with no need to ever check out the swing sets.
Oops..”plastic [pail]….”
I’m glad to see some action taken against the imposters…that was seriously annoying. Hopefully that will help deter people from using someone else’s screen name. While I’m sure no one agrees with 4 guards 100% of the time I think he does make some interesting points. It would be really lame if we all agreed all the time. The main issue is posting under someone else’s name. Yeah childish stuff goes on here but be man enough to post it under your own name.
Tom, you thought that argument through pretty thoroughly before you started it. Congrats.
And if multiple screen names are no problem on Scoop, it makes rather weak any argument that points a finger to different bloggers their childish behavior..There is no proof that “L’accent” was not Husky Tom getting home late from the bars.
I tried to spear the great whale for two years on Basketblog before he tamed his behavior for the larger Scoop audience. If you only had any idea his full arsenal of deceptions and character creations. He’s got all of you buying into every word exhaled out his blowhole…He has read every piece of literature under the ocean’s sun and has complete mastery of the English language. Only one old man that tracked him across every sea to islands of diversions and fantasy can detect the tiniest misstep the sleuth not evident the trained harpooner spearing blindly in the fog for treason or truth.
He’ll make lunch of your toes.
Random Entertainment: 4guards decides to leave the sandbox…Husky Tom on his baby swing.
I can get away with my posts because they are the truth. The scoop guys love all the traffic I have brought to the blog. Traffic = $$$$$. Also they didn’t want to spend the money to program a site with real password and accounts. Until then they will take care of me and protect my account. Thanks scooop buds!!!
Here’s the sound of your “truth“.
So,Tom now that you are back I wish to ask the question a second time. Why are the Husky Tom comments left on Hutch’s Star blog site an exact opposite of what you post on the Scoop? Is that someone using your name or you ? I know 4guards has started to post on that site so what say you,,,,real or unreal or both?
southport65- without a doubt, that was 4guards co-opting my name. I don’t even go on the Indy Star sight; I don’t like Terry Hutchens and I am not a fan of conservative newspapers that quote the bible on their front page every morning.
I didn’t answer your question for a long time because I assumed you were 4guards trying to get a rise out of me, and I was ignoring you. It was funny how you tried to bait me over on the Hoosier Hype, but I refused to bite.
There is still an impostor left obviously. The above comments weren’t mine.
Isn’t Crean about as Christian right as they come? I thought it’s why he scheduled games with small private Christian schools like Lipscomb and Grace..I thought it’s why he spends much of his efforts recruiting from Christian Academies instead of public high schools…I thought it’s why we have connections with overseas programs selling Christianity to African kids in exchange a chance for an education though playing hoops. I thought it’s why his last coaching job was at a Catholic college. I thought it’s why we have marketing campaigns with our players in a team photo reaching for a divine light above their collective fingertips. I though it’s why Husky Tom is such a huge born again Tom Crean fan.
Enjoy!
Hoops powerhouse’s woeful acedemic record
rivals.yahoo.com – Submitted: 9 hours ago Kentucky was one of the country’s best teams on the court, but it struggled badly in the classroom » Full Story on rivals.yahoo.com
Isn’t Crean about as Christian right as they come? I thought it’s why he scheduled games with small private Christian schools like Lipscomb and Grace..I thought it’s why he spends much of his efforts recruiting from Christian Academies instead of public high schools…I thought it’s why we have connections with overseas programs selling Christianity to African kids in exchange a chance for an education though playing hoops. I thought it’s why his last coaching job was at a Catholic college. I thought it’s why we have marketing campaigns with our players in a team photo reaching for a divine light above their collective fingertips. I thought it’s why he walks with blind arrogance on moral high ground of piety and treats with unforgiving petulance kids that made mistakes likely no greater his own as a young man…I though it’s why Husky Tom is such a huge born again Tom Crean fan.
What are you talking about?? Divine Bite you are obviously out of your element.
Does anyone on here talk about basketball anymore?
Just wondering.
no and thats why this site stinks now. ever since it got out of control with 4tards running a muck and now hes just a sweet angel isnt he?
Crean is likely telling this kid he is going to be the next Dwayne Wade. It’s about the only recuriting line the clown has left.
How ingenious of 4guards to protect by pretense of spite. How ingenious we serve his true desire to protect Tom Crean for we not dare association with his massacre.
Blah,Blah,Blah
There are still very few posts here that don’t mention basketball, FYI.
Sometimes there just isn’t a lot to say – it’s the offseason, after all.
If you are going to imitate me, at least spell Dwyane Wade right. I also doubt he is telling Noreen this.
Husky, Thanks for your answer but I really don’t know who is you and who is 4 guards. I liked it better when everyone had one name and they did not make stuff up and blame it on someone. I have never posted on the Hoosier Hype so I don’t know what you are talking about. As info, I don’t care about left or right just gold old Basketball.
John Wilkins commits to Illinois State
http://www.pjstar.com/sports/x1042477643/Report-Ex -Bradley-recruit-signs-with-ISU
Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.
Southport- You can trust this is me. And pardon my mistake – the posting on the Hype was 4guards copying and pasting your remark, as a way to try to bait me. Didn’t work.
4tards is quiet on this front now, because I was open about how/when I imitated him.
Husky, Thanks for your reply
not that I care, but I didn’t copy and paste anything to the hype. Just made a couple comments under my username.
John Wilkins to ISU, This may actually be a good thing. Still I wonder why we cannot land a top 100 and can’t hardly land a recruit period. With out the B.S. someone explain this. Why are these big men going to these small schools? Are we truly even offering scholarships too them?