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BW

cumbfanatic

Franchise Poster
Sep 13, 2009
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Bishop Walsh hired a top notch basketball coach. He has coached many NBA players including Kevin Durant. Was a coach at Montrose Christian Academy for many years. Recently coached St. James and completely turned that program around. Also, runs National recognized basketball camps
 
Will we see BW in the ACIT final soon? I'm not being snarky, that would be cool as hell.
 
If BW ever makes the ACIT final it would be standing room only at Bobcat Arena. A great moment to witness. The question is how many BW families will complain about their kids not making the teams because of the out-of-town players.
It will happen in the next 2-3 years and I guarantee they will have to find some more teams to schedule because the locals will drop them from the schedule.
 
It will happen in the next 2-3 years and I guarantee they will have to find some more teams to schedule because the locals will drop them from the schedule.

It's definitely possible if BW is committed, but it will take at least 4 years to get to the championship game. Those DC and Balt schools are already too far ahead in recruiting.
 
It will happen in the next 2-3 years and I guarantee they will have to find some more teams to schedule because the locals will drop them from the schedule.
The locals on their schedule like Hyndman, Paw Paw and WV Deaf?
 
So far BW has added 5 players for next year. Four who played at St. James last season:
Jalen Miller Soph PG, plays for Team Takeover AAU
Jordan Miller Sr
Anthony Torelli, Sr (video above)
Callum Baker, Sr. G, offers from Bowling Green, Hofstra, UMASS-Lowell

and Yavuz Gultekin who played last season at John Carroll in the Baltimore area. He has offers from DePaul, St. Joes, Penn St, Kansas St, George Mason, ODU, and just recently took unofficial visits to Rhode Island and Villanova
 
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I have heard BW will field 2 teams. a traveling squad and a local team. Not this year but that is the plan down the road. I hope it works out for Walsh. Could be very exciting.
 
It's possible, usually prep schools have a prep squad and a varsity squad but some privates do too. I think it will be great if they can get it going consistently. I doubt many, if any, local schools will be on the schedule but there should be some fun games hopefully.
 
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Remember BW dropped football 5 years ago, if they still had a team and bringing in a few players would have made a difference you might have seen it. But to restart the program from scratch with 25-30 players needed, no feeder program, and a declining high school population it would be hard to sell it. Basketball is totally different, smaller roster size, far less equipment, plus now being a Nike Elite school that will help with uniform costs, some tournaments, etc
 
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So BW can commit to basketball but not football..

Yeah, but its a numbers game though. You can field an entire basketball roster with the same number of starters to just have enough players to even take the field for football.
 
Yeah, but its a numbers game though. You can field an entire basketball roster with the same number of starters to just have enough players to even take the field for football.

My guess is that the new BW coach has two initial objectives for next season.....be the best team on Haystack Mountain and win at least one ACIT game.
 
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I would say they will hit both of those objectives. The 4 St. James players transferring were recruited to St. James from other schools. They aren't just your above average bb players
 
Yeah, but its a numbers game though. You can field an entire basketball roster with the same number of starters to just have enough players to even take the field for football.
There are plenty of schools the size of BW that has a Varsity football team.. Why couldn't they recruit for football like basketball?
 
There are plenty of schools the size of BW that has a Varsity football team.. Why couldn't they recruit for football like basketball?
Recruit from where? it's hard to bring in 30-40 kids from all over the Country for football, if you mean recruit in Cumberland, I don't think schools that recruit are looking for many kids from Cumberland.
in Basketball they only have to get 8-10 kids to come in give them free tuition and travel and play teams from everywhere. I think they are looking to be more on a level with Dematha types in Basketball than they are with local schools in football
 
There are plenty of schools the size of BW that has a Varsity football team.. Why couldn't they recruit for football like basketball?

Bigdawg kinda went where I was going to go. Yes, there are small private schools like BW that field varsity football teams, but very rarely are they in extreme rural areas like Cumberland.

BW has about 600 kids, so 300 boys. Georgetown Prep is an all boys school, probably about 400 or so boys. And they have had a successful on and off again football program. But they have all of suburban DC area to pull from. Totally different animal. Especially to pull enough kids to field a decent starting 11. Let alone a solid roster of 20 or so kids.

BW gets 2 or 3 good transfers, they have already more than half a good starting 5 for bball. But thats not even a dent for football. Even with the Redmon kid, and D'Atri they struggled before folding a few years ago. A couple good (even D1) players cant carry a football team. (e.g. Snow Hill/Ben Tate)
 
Bigdawg kinda went where I was going to go. Yes, there are small private schools like BW that field varsity football teams, but very rarely are they in extreme rural areas like Cumberland.

BW has about 600 kids, so 300 boys. Georgetown Prep is an all boys school, probably about 400 or so boys. And they have had a successful on and off again football program. But they have all of suburban DC area to pull from. Totally different animal. Especially to pull enough kids to field a decent starting 11. Let alone a solid roster of 20 or so kids.

BW gets 2 or 3 good transfers, they have already more than half a good starting 5 for bball. But thats not even a dent for football. Even with the Redmon kid, and D'Atri they struggled before folding a few years ago. A couple good (even D1) players cant carry a football team. (e.g. Snow Hill/Ben Tate)

600 kids?
BW has 72 males grades 9-12. There are 300 in the entire school grades K-12. Last year's graduating class had 36 students.
 
Exactly you'd literally have to recruit an entire team except for 5-10 kids who are there who would want to play now. Just couldn't be done, and honestly unless you went full St. Frances mode and brought in everyone from all over the country it would still be an uphill climb to get football fans away from FH or Alco. In basketball BW can have their niche where it doesn't require a ton of players or infrastructure investment, the already have a premier tournament in the ACIT to host, and they can exist without really taking anything away from the other local schools.
 
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600 kids?
BW has 72 males grades 9-12. There are 300 in the entire school grades K-12. Last year's graduating class had 36 students.
Wow I thought they were bigger than that..I wonder how many students they had when they were fielding a team yearly?
 
About 10-15 years ago they had about 200 or so in the high school now I'd say it's closer to 150 in the high school. But even then they had teams with 20-25 kids max 9-12
 
It's definitely possible if BW is committed, but it will take at least 4 years to get to the championship game. Those DC and Balt schools are already too far ahead in recruiting.

I was completely wrong about this. I didn't understand how aggressively he was going to recruit at BW. DeMatha and St. Francis are loaded but if Joe Carter can get creative with the brackets and put those two schools on the same side of the bracket BW can get to the championship game this year. Gonzaga and Goretti have a lot of talent too so it's still a long shot, but it's possible.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing the schedule, without being in a league it will be interesting to see how much they challenge themselves. Anyone heard any reaction from other area schools, i can't imagine there will be many, if any, on the schedule as it really wouldn't benefit either side.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing the schedule, without being in a league it will be interesting to see how much they challenge themselves. Anyone heard any reaction from other area schools, i can't imagine there will be many, if any, on the schedule as it really wouldn't benefit either side.
I think it benefits local Maryland Schools like Alco and FH to play them, the games would draw huge crowds and in Maryland playoffs everyone makes it anyways, These Teams should challenge themselves more than they do to actually prepare them to play the better teams when they get down state. You can go 5-15 and still have a chance to win it all but we know around here it's always about padding records in basketball.
 
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I think it benefits local Maryland Schools like Alco and FH to play them, the games would draw huge crowds and in Maryland playoffs everyone makes it anyways, These Teams should challenge themselves more than they do to actually prepare them to play the better teams when they get down state. You can go 5-15 and still have a chance to win it all but we know around here it's always about padding records in basketball.

It was also beneficial for BW to play the other city schools in football, baseball, etc. for the same reasons. BW has no playoffs. Could have made money at the gate, got challenged. They bailed because they could not compete. In short, I don't see many area schools playing BW in hoops. The City League will be no more until BW begins to field an A team and a B team.

On the flip side, I don't see how these nationally recruited kids lining up against local area teams benefits BW in any way, shape or form.

However, I do applaud BW for making this move. They really had no choice as their athletic program was going out of business. Very exciting for Cumberland.
 
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Yavuz Gultekin who played last season at John Carroll in the Baltimore area. He has offers from DePaul, St. Joes, Penn St, Kansas St, George Mason, ODU, and just recently took unofficial visits to Rhode Island and Villanova

He just picked up new offers from TCU, Minnesota, and GW. I think this kid might be worth checking out this year.
 
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It was also beneficial for BW to play the other city schools in football, baseball, etc. for the same reasons. BW has no playoffs. Could have made money at the gate, got challenged. They bailed because they could not compete. In short, I don't see many area schools playing BW in hoops. The City League will be no more until BW begins to field an A team and a B team.

On the flip side, I don't see how these nationally recruited kids lining up against local area teams benefits BW in any way, shape or form.

However, I do applaud BW for making this move. They really had no choice as their athletic program was going out of business. Very exciting for Cumberland.
I agree with you for the most part, back when FH and Alco were putting the beatdown on BW in football they simply couldn't physically compete and really served no purpose to anyone other than fans. With this I think a city series would still be cool just play one game instead of the normal 2 against each other, would give FH and Allegany a chance to play great competition at home and would give BW students/fans that sense of local rivalry still. BW may struggle a little at first to find games not being in a league and being isolated from other comparable teams. Just depends on what the schools and coaches feel like.
 
600 kids?
BW has 72 males grades 9-12. There are 300 in the entire school grades K-12. Last year's graduating class had 36 students.


After re-reading that I have no idea why I would have thought they had that many, the wiki page shows 600 in 2008, but that was the whole K-12. Derp.

But nonetheless, it supports the same argument. Getting a good starting 5 basketball players with a few good recruits is totally doable.
 
He just picked up new offers from TCU, Minnesota, and GW. I think this kid might be worth checking out this year.
Add Nebraska to the list of offers now.

And another new player. He has offers from UMass and Coppin. He'll be a junior.
 
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Bendji Pierre is a 6'7 small forward from NJ very highly recruited. A strong dominant player. He has visited Georgetown. One of the top players graduating 2020. A few months ago, I was thinking maybe BW will win a game in the ACIT with the new coach and a couple players. Now with these players I think they will win the ACIT. Especially if they bring in 2 more players, there is no doubt they will win it. Dematha don't have as many players as highly recruited as the players that are coming to BW and not all are seniors.
 
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Bendji Pierre is a 6'7 small forward from NJ very highly recruited. A strong dominant player. He has visited Georgetown. One of the top players graduating 2020. A few months ago, I was thinking maybe BW will win a game in the ACIT with the new coach and a couple players. Now with these players I think they will win the ACIT. Especially if they bring in 2 more players, there is no doubt they will win it. Dematha don't have as many players as highly recruited as the players that are coming to BW and not all are seniors.

Not even close. Even if BW adds two more ballers they aren't going to touch DM for at least two years. If you look at the MD/DC rankings, an area which is always one of the most talented regions in the country, DM has the Class of 2019 (Seniors) #1, #13, #19 and #26 players. In their 2020 Class (Juniors) they have the #1, #3 and #20 players. They are coming off the bench with guys ranked #20 and #26!!! By contrast BW has the 2019 #18 and #31 players. The guy they just added (Pierre) is ranked #14 in New England's Class of 2020. I don't think he's going to hold that high of a ranking in the MD/DC region.

Other ACIT regulars:

Gonzaga - Class of 2019: #11, #17 - Class of 2020: #5, #7, #13

St. John's - Class of 2019: #7 - Class of 2020: #9, #11

Goretti - Class of 2019: #5, #12 - Class of 2020: #17

St. Frances - Class of 2019: #21 - Class of 2020: #4, #24 (The guy ranked #24 is Jordan Toles and he's having an incredible summer. When they re-do the rankings I think he's going to be in the single digits. If you saw him play in the ACIT last year you know what I'm talking about. He's also the #1 Safety in his football class and Alabama has already offered)
 
BW will not be on the level of DM, they are a legit top 25 team nationally, but will they be in the same area as most of the better privates in the DMV, yes, they could very well lose all three games in the ACIT next year but they will have the players to compete in those games. IMO the amount of talent brought in for a new program has been impressive, winning breeds long-term success, if they win games, put guys in college, and the coach sticks around long enough, they could build something really nice. I honestly didn't think it would happen so fast with bringing top notch guys in. I hope people will go check out some games this winter, it will be great for local basketball fans
 
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