Photo by Gregory Fisher W/ USA TODAY Sports
If you are like me, UK’s recruitment of recent transfer portal entrant Baylor Scheierman was a bit of a head scratcher.
The former South Dakota State Jackrabbit now turned Creighton Bluejay basketball commit entered the transfer portal on April 25th. The 2021 Summit League Player of the Year was immediately linked to several high profile programs including the likes of Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Clemson and Wake Forest plus Creighton, Nebraska and Mississippi State.
Kentucky fans were salivating at the thought of adding the 6-6 high scoring, ball handling guard to UK’s existing lineup.
As his recruitment gathered steam some interesting rumors concerning NIL money and playing time surfaced and some of the higher profile schools, most notably Duke, Kansas and Kentucky, all dropped out of the race — but it was never very clear exactly why that happened.
Maybe the words of Scheierman in a recent ESPN interview will clarify that.
“It’s actually funny because there was information getting out that, like, I was demanding this and that,” Scheierman said. “In all reality, I knew NIL was gonna be a part of it, but I told my parents at the beginning of the process that if I’m going back to school, I’m doing this to ultimately put myself in a better position for my pro aspirations.”
That seems like an interesting twist. He was going back to school to better position himself for his pro aspirations. I find that odd because Creighton has only had four players selected in the NBA Draft since 2014, two in the first round and two in the second round.
Duke has had 23 players selected since 2014 (mostly first round picks), Kansas has had 10 players selected and Kentucky has had 26 players selected (mostly first round picks). Seems odd that a place like Creighton would be chosen to further his opportunities at getting selected by an NBA team.
He went on to say that he liked Creighton for ira style of play and he felt they had a great opportunity to win a national championship — with him as the final piece.
Scheierman said, “I decided to commit to Creighton because I really like how they play. They are an unselfish team who really share the ball, and that’s what I’m used to and I enjoy playing that way. They also let their guys play free and loose, and I feel like I play my best in that type of system.”
So he preferred a free and loose system with players that share the ball. Not sure that would knock out UK, Duke or Kansas. None of them run a Princeton-style offense.
Scheierman implied that Creighton greatly valued his skill set and best of all, they were close to home. He said, “They said I’m that missing piece that can take them to a national championship — and better yet, I can do it at home.”
I’m sure being home was nice but the extra NIL money doesn’t hurt either. Scheierman is also still considering a jump to the G League (Nebraska does not have a G League team).
“There isn’t a number I had in mind. I think if I can get drafted and it’s guaranteed money, then I will stay (in the G League),” he told ESPN.
So there you have it straight from the horse‘s, uh Jackrabbit turned Bluejay’s mouth. It appears to me that, as the rumors indicated, Scheierman was looking to get back home, with significant NIL money on a team that considered him the key piece of its lineup. That wasn’t happening at UK, Duke or Kansas.
So I guess when fans truly look at the situation it’s easy to see why UK and others ultimately had no interest in Scheierman. He was shooting for the moon and hoping he landed.
After hearing him talk about his overall situation the only real possibility was Creighton because they are, after all, close to home (Scheierman is from Aurora, Neb.).
This whole interaction makes me think about the inside story of every player that UK has ever tried to recruit. There are so many things that are hidden from the general public in these recruiting deals it’s never easy to know exactly what happened and why the player didn’t sign with a program like UK. In this case the bottom line is that unless Mitch Barnhart was willing to move the basketball program to Nebraska, Scheierman wasn’t coming to UK.
And that type scenario is probably repeated with every recruit that says no to the Wildcats.
The good thing is Kentucky still has a 2022 roster that is loaded with talent and its centerpiece for a potential national championship team is another player of the year — in this case National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe.
7 Responses
I completely understand a player wanting to be close to home and I think that is a good thing, most of the time. However, after reading about his attitude and comments his agent made, I don’t think he would have been happy or successful at any of the top programs. Going somewhere like UK, Kansas, or Duke would have only helped him get to the pros because he would have been around better players. He would have also had to fight for playing time and find more ways to get his points. Does he think an NBA team is going to make any kind of promises to him???
He wants to be the big fish. He’s not good enough to do that at the big schools and besides Kansas, Duke , UK play team basketball.
Because he’s not actually good enough to play here and he knows it.
YOu always had a way with words Mark
He is good enough to play ANYWHERE and you know it. You are just ticked because he didn’t choose YOUR team. And as far as team basketball is concerned, SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY is team basketball. As far as him wanting to be the “”big fish” his past performances at SDSU should tell you that he is UNSELFISH. Check his assist record.(I am assuming that you are familiar with assists eventhough you are from “the big schools”)
Originally Kyle Tucker tweeted that Scheierman was cutting UK from his list because we wouldn’t promise the NIL money and he didn’t want to play the Grady role.
I fully understood not wanting to play the Grady role and defended him online. But now it sounds like he really wanted to be promised big minutes as a ball handler, maybe even point.
What bothers me in this whole story is that everyone went crazy about the NIL quote. When pressed about sources, Kyle said that the source wasn’t from the UK side, so everyone was even madder.
But then, the next day, Kyle tweeted that his agent had NOT discussed NIL with any school yet, so his source wasn’t clear at all and I thought Kyle needed to clean up his mess on this one.
Scheierman quickly became a very unpopular player and it was all from unnamed sources and conflicting tweets from he same reporter.
Yeah there is always more than one side to a story and with unnamed sources I always have my doubts . Plus schools that don’t get a player sometimes put info out to make them look good and player bad and we never really know what is or is not true