Looking at where the program sits in the recruiting wars it seems to me that we are in a better place than we have been for the last 35 years or so.  Verbal commitments from 3 big kids with recognizable talent for 2018 greatly pleases me.

When I look at Keith Dambrot's record as a coach I see the same thing that these 3 young men and their parents see; a coach with a track record of developing players and winning.  And this coach has just made a move up to a much stronger conference, one that gets multiple NCAA bids every year.  So it doesn't surprise me that Keith is able to attract solid talent to The Bluff.  And as these players develop and start winning, as they most certainly will, more and more good players will be showing up on campus.  Hopefully before long a truly special talent who can lift his teammates to a higher level will arrive on campus and we'll be an elite program again.  Maybe one of the kids in these first 2 classes will turn out to be this special talent.  Wouldn't that be nice?

Looking at the 3 recruits for next year I'm reminded of a conversation with Gumby back in the Fall of 1975.  We had a front court of Ernie Cooper, Don Gambridge, Bill Piekarski, Rich Cotten, Jesse Hubbard, Ray Milligan, Lindsley Timmons and Murray Miekenhaus.  That season was the last time we were ranked in a poll and I was pretty optimistic as practice was getting started since we had Norm Nixon leading the team.  When expressing my optimism to Gumby he said, "Well, at least we'll look good in the airport."  Unfortunately, after a fast start and ranking in the UPI Poll we stumbled our way to a 12-13 record that year.

Well, we're going to be looking good in the airport in the very near future and I'm here to say that we're going to be looking good on Selection Sunday before too very long as well.  I believe our 2018 recruits have the same thoughts about upcoming Selection Sundays or they wouldn't be committing to the Dukes and Keith Dambrot.

Let's Go Dukes!!!