Cade Cunningham/Bryce Thompson recruiting nuggets

A hearty welcome to PFB+ with some juicy recruiting nuggets …

I talked to a #sauce today about the Cade Cunningham (five-star 2020 PG)/Bryce Thompson (five-star 2020 SG) recruitments, and uhm, some takeaways . . .

  • Growing sense that Cade is distancing himself from Oklahoma State and could potentially surprise by committing elsewhere, despite his brother being on OSU’s staff

  • Getting Cade seems like a prerequisite to getting Bryce. No Cade, no Bryce. He wants to play with elite talent and compete in the NCAA Tournament, and Cade holds the key to unlocking that possibility.

  • Bryce is probably going to sign in the next signing period (the early period, which is Nov. 13-20 this fall). If Cunningham hasn’t made his mind up yet, then that could be an ominous week for OSU’s staff…

  • Source told me that Cade was scheduled to connect with Bryce last month via a phone call, and at least one topic of conversation would involve what a potential team-up at OSU would look like. As of Wednesday, though, Cade had not yet called and the two haven’t talked. They know of each other and respect each others games, but my understanding is they don’t know each other well enough to wink at one another and decide to team-up at OSU … at least not yet.

2 Likes

That’s…horrifying. None of that is good, but at least we know. I was really queasy when people starting making the guarantee that CC would be a Cowboy and this is why. I can imagine that he’s pretty fed up with people saying ‘Oh, he’s a lock to OSU because of his brother’. Hopefully Boynton (when he’s able) can smooth things over and seal the deal. Otherwise…whoof. Not that this falls on Boynton’s shoulders but, man, OSU not being able to close on elite talent in two sports would be a bad look.

It’s certainly not encouraging. But to your point: I think there was some premature celebrations about Cade coming to OSU (even by some inside the OSU offices). I still would say OSU is the leader because, of course, if he goes elsewhere his brother is probably losing his job. But it seems a little dicey – more dicey than expected. No one knows what Cade is going to do, and as a result, Bryce is in limbo.

Just as an estimate (and I know that I’m going to regret asking this), what do you think the percentage chance of CC wearing the orange and black next year is? I’m hoping it’s still 75-80% but it doesn’t feel that strong now.

I honestly don’t have a great read on Cade; no one does. But I have heard from multiple people now who told me recently that he’s either not interested in OSU or that he’s seriously considering other schools. (Like, talking to other recruits about the potential of playing together at other schools in his top 5 not named OSU).

My percentage that he winds up at OSU would be like 49 right now. I still think Cannen being on staff is massive, and him going anywhere but OSU – which, again, would cost Cannen the OSU job – would shock just about everyone in the industry. But the sticker shock of him going elsewhere is slowly becoming less and less because many people feel like when he says he’s completely open with no favorites, he really means it. OSU still has ground to cover.

This was a punch in the gut. Not that Cade won’t come. But that I again cared too much about teenagers making decisions about where to play a sport. Either way, hope that his brother sticks around. It can’t hurt to have a star player who’s brother is well connected in the DFW market for future recruits.

4 Likes

:nauseated_face: That was considerably worse than I thought. I really hope we can close the deal, if only to give fans SOME hope that the ‘elite’ programs won’t always just be able to pick and choose who they want.

1 Like

ugh… just… ugh… why cant we have nice things… except this whole + forum thing… this is a nice thing!

5 Likes

I say we wait and see – because maybe it all flips. Boynton has recruited Bryce and Cade longer than any other program, and those relationships and inroads he’s formed matter.

3 Likes

How possible is it that the distancing is mostly him making sure that he’s making the best choice for himself? I know several times in job recruiting where a candidate would get a little distant prior to the final decision mostly because they wanted to make sure our commitment was as strong and we weren’t taking it for granted. Also hiring his brother probably made this more likely since it makes people assume his decision is made and lowers his viability a bit. Given that CC is on a NBA lottery path the last thing you want to do is lose momentum on that by having your college recruitment go dark early.

Just trying to look at this from his perspective.

Boynton’s got this. No worries.

It is a nice thing!

Not sure if being sarcastic, but I still feel pretty good about it. Negative Kyle B. and his actual reporting can’t get me down.

2 Likes

Nah I’ll designate sarcasm with /s.

Boynton understands and values recruiting. (Exactly like the football coach does /s :wink:) There’s lots of ups and downs to these things, today was clearly a down day. He’ll give it a shot and if we come up short oh well. Still think he can close the deal though.

This is something I think 20-year-old me didn’t understand. Recruiting is a long, slow play that rewards grinders. I thought it was all flash and choppers.

I definitely think it’s still possible they land Cade … or even both. Just kinda crazy how wide-open Cade seems to be. I didn’t read much into it at first, but now it seems pretty real that he really is open. Totally undecided.

2 Likes

Boynton will work his magic.

Agreed that bit is surprising.

If boynton comes up empty, I can live with that. There’s still going to be an absurd amount of talent on the team with a high floor, just might lower the ceiling a little bit.

If Cade + Bryce fall through, the class is still going to be pretty good with four-star Davonte Davis as the building block. Feel like four-star center Jaylin Williams (Davis’ AAU teammate) is a pretty realistic get. And Rondel Walker from OKC is still out there waiting, too …

2 Likes

Just figured out how to quote reply. Excellent.

1 Like