Got to LOVE the UCLA world view. Wake me up when UCLA pulls a guy that Arizona wants
Apparently you slept through Lonzo Ball, who has had UA coaches at his AAU events well after he verballed to UCLA. He hasn't made it to UCLA yet but he's the one clear example of a kid UA wants who picked UCLA.
I'm certainly not going to claim CSA is out recruiting Miller he's clearly not. I'm just saying this recruitment changed dramatically after Adidas Nations, which means the people who thought he was a strong UCLA lean were clearly wrong. Because if he was, something minor such as Don MacLean not playing him enough wouldn't have been enough to convince the dad to yank him out of the event and start looking at Nike AAU programs. My personal opinion is they were already starting to "look around", and the MacLean stuff was just a convenient time to make the move.
In other words I'm not saying Nike got Leaf for Arizona, I'm saying Leaf was already looking to move from Adidas and UCLA(or Indiana) and what happened at Adidas Nations just sealed the deal.
UCLA absolutely wanted Leaf, in fact as soon as this stuff happened, UCLA started trying to close the wound, and when that didn't work UCLA got involved with a kid named Nick Rakocevic, who's sort of a poor man's TJ Leaf. Any UCLA fan who suggests they didn't want Leaf is lying.
The Adidas Nations stuff has been discussed on UCLA boards since August 3rd when Tracy Pierson wrote a blurb that mentioned what had happened and said it appears those who were saying he was a big UCLA lean, were wrong, if he were, this wouldn't have happened. I've been saying the same thing on UCLA boards all day, everyone saying he's overrated or a primadonna is just making an excuse because Alford lost a prime target to Miller.
Now to be fair, if you go back and read some of the threads from June and July on PGU, UA fans were calling Leaf "soft, skinny, afraid of contact". That all went out the window when it became apparent UA was one of his top 2 choices.
It's a great commit for UA and a loss for UCLA anyway you slice it. I just think the backstory is interesting, lots of people have alleged MacLean working at Adidas Nations is an unfair advantage for UCLA, in this case it apparently actually harmed their chances.