I guess if they go to class and graduate they are a Gator, unquestionably. If they only hang around a year or two I could care less what they call themselves. But...if all Goldrn can recruit is an international student, there could be an inherent weakness or flaw somewhere. I doubt that will happen however.
You can't teach that kind of height, but just because he is capable of lacing up his own shoes does not mean he will be the incarnation of Yao Ming. Give me Oscar T 2.0 in this offense/team and I will be DAMN HAPPY!
You either are kind of bad at humor, or you choose to be sanctimonious. It really is a simple question and it should be easy to answer...if you choose to use your brain and not say "I am perfect in my thinking, I don't need to explain myself to you or anyone." Again, if Golden goes "all-American" as you desire AND the team falls short of what you (and many fans) are used to seeing from the classic times of Donovan - and not the last years where IMO he was disgusted with the state of the game in recruiting and it WAS the reason why he left for the NBA - you ARE going to support the program and regime without loud grousing, correct? Because...IF better players are to be had from oversees and may be more motivated than their "purebred" counterparts - see Fudge and Reeves - you WILL accept our place in the heirarchy. Correct? Because...to make "grand" overtures to how Golden MUST operate and then ding him for the less-than-great results (it is called "middling", like USCe is in football) would be...hypocricy?
you need a balanced roster, find the best players you can, while not ignoring the kids in your own backyard. Too much talent is getting out of the state and had been since the lon kruger days
Condon would have been top 50 player if he played in States. In 3 years he will be on draft boards. Not saying top 10 but will get drafted no worse than middle 2nd.
Since the Stormin' Norman Sloan era, I've felt that the Gators could be a consistent NCAAT team even if they just got the top 3 or 4 players from within Florida each year. I still believe that. There's that much talent here. And I'm not even counting the basketball factory high schools like IMG and Montverde. Just the regular high schools. Make the state your base, then add a top-100 guy or two from wherever, and you'll be designed for annual runs in the tournament.
That doesn't require a link; the Pigpen is just offering a perspective. I tend to agree with his (or her or their, I dunno) assessment.
Reminds me of a funny science fiction short story I read many decades ago. Can't remember the title or the author. Anyway, it's about major league baseball in the future. One team, a perennial basement dweller, goes out and signs a pitcher from another planet. Because there's no rule against it. No one ever anticipated such a thing. So the new pitcher has a sort of 50'-long tentacle-arm it coils up and unleashes like a whip at the batter, releasing the ball at the last second. So no batter ever comes close to hitting the ball. Genius! The bottom-dweller team is suddenly unbeatable. But then another club manager comes up and signs some intelligent microbes from another star system and makes them batters. So any pitch thrown is automatically outside the strike zone, and they all get walked and the runs pile up. Even more genius! That's what we need to do.
There is a lady holding up a flame in New York harbor saying “Give me your tall, you’re gifted, your athletes yearning to earn.” But seriously, it is questionable if we come up with the A bomb first without immigrants and 45% of Fortune 500 companies in the us were started by immigrants. Not to mention how we get poultry, us vegetables or clean hotel rooms without immigrants. Plenty of immigrants study in the US and contribute, why not basketball players?
