UNH commitments/recruits for 2010 and beyond

[SteveS.]

Thanks Steve S. for the info. It sounds like this youngster is in a good situation for his development (e.g., coaches invested in him as a native of Indiana).

I wonder whether Jobst is one of the 30 prospects who received the slew of e-mails from Coach Borek during the 2007-08 season - the incident that lead to UNH being placed on probation by the NCAA. If I'm reading the details of the NCAA's decision correctly (http://www.seacoastonline.com/articl...RTS-307249858), the e-mails were sent out in the Fall of 07 and Spring of 08 to players who were high school freshmen or sophomores at the time. Given that Jobst was born on Feb. 7, 1994 and he is entering his junior year of high school this September, he would have been an 8th grader when the e-mails were sent. If all of this is correct, then Jobst was not one of the 30 prospects and UNH can recruit him without restriction.
It sure would be interesting to know who those 30 prospects are.

CHC no he wouldn't be one of those 30, I think he was pretty much off everyone's radar till this Spring because he was so small. He still is only 5-6 or so but is growing and with his recent accomplishments and his potential playing at the U18 level he has a chance to really move up teams lists, we shall see.

[JB]

Here's Cam Reid's account of why he decommited from UNH last summer and will be playing for St. Cloud State instead:
http://www.examiner.com/x-8246-Nashv...back-to-school
It seems strange that neither Reid, his parents or advisors were aware of what high school courses were required for admission to UNH. One would think that this type of information would have been conveyed by the UNH coaches well in advance of July, 2009. Also, if Reid simply needed to complete a couple more high school courses, why not take care of them in 2009/10 and enroll in UNH this September? There must be more to this story.

UNH is surprisingly selective and demanding of out of state students. It isn't an easy school to get into for that class of student. I know people from mass accepted at BU and Umass and yet UNH had a hair across their ***** and said no.

My guess is something went sideways on Reid and SCSU had lower requirements. For all schools you must meet the clearing house limits but schools can be selective above that level. Most with high profile programs can work around these issues at admissions but it appears in this case the hockey team didn’t have the credit to get it done. (Maybe a certain captain being ineligible for his 2nd semester senior year caused the credit limit to shrink)

To me from the hockey end it sounds like a program management issue. If you have a kid that is going to be close you keep your eyes on him so there isn't a last minute surprise - this clearly was. The surprise is bad for the player and the team. This is the type of detail stuff I would want my recruiting guy to be on top of, sort of like those e-mail program details.

[C-H-C]

Mike Vecchione recently won the MVP Award in the Hockey Night in Boston Major Showcase Tournament. http://www.hockeynightinbostoninc.com/Major/

[Greg Ambrose]

UNH is surprisingly selective and demanding of out of state students. It isn't an easy school to get into for that class of student. I know people from mass accepted at BU and Umass and yet UNH had a hair across their ***** and said no.

My guess is something went sideways on Reid and SCSU had lower requirements. For all schools you must meet the clearing house limits but schools can be selective above that level. Most with high profile programs can work around these issues at admissions but it appears in this case the hockey team didn’t have the credit to get it done. (Maybe a certain captain being ineligible for his 2nd semester senior year caused the credit limit to shrink)

To me from the hockey end it sounds like a program management issue. If you have a kid that is going to be close you keep your eyes on him so there isn't a last minute surprise - this clearly was. The surprise is bad for the player and the team. This is the type of detail stuff I would want my recruiting guy to be on top of, sort of like those e-mail program details.

Since UNH got a new admissions officer a couple of years ago, my take is that the criteria for admission has gotten tougher. Not sure what the reason is, maybe they are favoring football more than hockey, but a kid like Cam Reid would probably have gotten into school no problem even five years ago. Just my take.

[Hokydad]

maybe but if I had to guess, there probably was some on line issues there...
they can get you in if you are a very avg student if you are a scholarship athlete.

[JB]

Since UNH got a new admissions officer a couple of years ago, my take is that the criteria for admission has gotten tougher. Not sure what the reason is, maybe they are favoring football more than hockey, but a kid like Cam Reid would probably have gotten into school no problem even five years ago. Just my take.

Interesting idea, I would figure that hockey would be able to have at least as much wiggle room as football if not more just based on program profile. However admissions might look at athletics as a whole and the "department" only gets some many chits and once they are all gone you are SOL. That could lead to football making things harder on hockey as they try to build that program.

It still makes me wonder if there was a different guy in charge of recruiting if this player would have made it. I don’t recall McCloskey having these issues, at least not as frequently. Why is the question? Did he do a better job of identifying the potential issues and staying away from those players? Did he have a better relationship with admissions? Were the rules/requirements just different then? Etc?

[Hokydad]

there has to be more to it than "admissions"

Must be an on line class issue or incomplete etc

UNH is still UNH and it is the exact same cloth as U Maine etc. We are not talking Harvard here.

[JB]

UNH is still UNH and it is the exact same cloth as U Maine etc. We are not talking Harvard here.

I would agree to a point. There certainly more in common between UNH and Maine then UNH and Harvard.

However, UNH has history of being an odd duck at admissions for out of state students. I don't know why other than because they can. For whatever reason UNH gets far more out of state applications then there are spots; this creates a supply and demand situation that allows admission to be very picky. I know of situations all the way back to the mid 60's of this strangeness.

[Hokydad]

I would agree to a point. There certainly more in common between UNH and Maine then UNH and Harvard.

However, UNH has history of being an odd duck at admissions for out of state students. I don't know why other than because they can. For whatever reason UNH gets far more out of state applications then there are spots; this creates a supply and demand situation that allows admission to be very picky. I know of situations all the way back to the mid 60's of this strangeness.

that could be true for john doe walking in off the street. but not a scholarship athlete where the application is walked in and basically handed to them

just like the Calof kid at Harvard, there has to be something here. such as on line classes , home schooling etc.

if he could get thru clearinghouse, he would be in

UNH is still UNH

[Mosrite]

Must be something to do with on line classes.

[Mosrite]

Not sure if this was mentioned in the discussion, but Cam Reid's situation may have something to do with on line classes.

[MagicCat]

Just a thought but the UNH football program is one of the highest ranked academic football programs in Div 1AA, best in its division and so forth.

In recent years we have had our Co-Captain, the brilliant Joe Charlebois dismissed from the team with a 0.0 gpa during his senior fall.

Would you think that admissions is looking at these and being more lenient towards letting football players in than hockey players?

[JB]

that could be true for john doe walking in off the street. but not a scholarship athlete where the application is walked in and basically handed to them

This is where I think the disconnect may be occurring.

As I have noted (and MagicCat has also) the hockey team has had some academic issues recently with players not staying eligible. Is admissions now being a little tighter with the hockey team.

FWIW there is a story that Bob Norton had both Silk and Eruzione going to UNH until he couldn’t get them past admissions. BU then grabbed them both without any change in their course work. Reid seems to be in the same boat but SCSU is the school that is OK with him as is.

if he could get thru clearinghouse, he would be in

It appears that Reid didn't need to do anything different to get into SCSU than he had for UNH and not made it - this indicated he would have passed the clearing house requirements and subsequently been denied by UNH. If both schools required the exact same stuff one would think he would be coming in to his first choice UNH. If there is a report/article somewhere out there indicating he had to take extra classes to get into SCSU I missed it.

This is not to indicate some superiority of UNH. On the contrary I think it is illustrative of the historical foolishness of the admissions folks.

[RockTheWhit]

From USHR:

6'0", 192 lb. North Jersey Avalanche forward Justin Selman has committed to the University of Michigan for the fall of '12
Selman also visited RPI and the University of New Hampshire.

Selman played for the USA in the recent Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament and will play for Des Moines of the USHL this year. Anybody else feeling uneasy about the lack of UNH recruiting noise lately? Can't help but feel the NCAA sanctions are having a negative effect.

[i'zonprize]

From USHR:


Selman played for the USA in the recent Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament and will play for Des Moines of the USHL this year. Anybody else feeling uneasy about the lack of UNH recruiting noise lately? Can't help but feel the NCAA sanctions are having a negative effect.

Ya.. maybe Michigan was able to pay for his visit

Sanctions are tough- They essentially have '11 taken care of and 3 decent recruits for '12 . Question is when do the travel and visit restrictions get lifted? March or April '11?

My guess is that you'll see more 'travelling JR teams' come through the Witt this yr, than normal to get kids a visit.

[Rogie21]

FWIW there is a story that Bob Norton had both Silk and Eruzione going to UNH until he couldn’t get them past admissions. BU then grabbed them both without any change in their course work.

As Eruzione tells it, he was headed to Merrimack, a D3 school at the time, when he played a summer league game that Parker was reffing. BU had an opening left and Parker offered him. I don't recall ever hearing anything about Mike and UNH.

[C-H-C]

I wonder whether (Mason) Jobst is one of the 30 prospects who received the slew of e-mails from Coach Borek during the 2007-08 season - the incident that lead to UNH being placed on probation by the NCAA. If I'm reading the details of the NCAA's decision correctly (http://www.seacoastonline.com/articl...RTS-307249858), the e-mails were sent out in the Fall of 07 and Spring of 08 to players who were high school freshmen or sophomores at the time. Given that Jobst was born on Feb. 7, 1994 and he is entering his junior year of high school this September, he would have been an 8th grader when the e-mails were sent. If all of this is correct, then Jobst was not one of the 30 prospects and UNH can recruit him without restriction.
It sure would be interesting to know who those 30 prospects are.

If I understand the NCAA penalty correctly (http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaah...new+hampshire), Justin Selman (who reportedly committed to Michigan) is not one of the 30 prospects who received the improper e-mails from Coach Borek in the Fall of 07 and Spring of 08. According to this article (http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Ic...to_Watch.html), Selman (D.O.B. 10/2/93) was a sophomore in the academic year 2009-10. That means he was in the 8th grade when the e-mails were sent out.

Without knowing who the 30 prospects are, it is difficult to determine whether the NCAA penalty is having a detrimental effect on UNH's success in gaining commitments from potential recruits. Since the prohibited e-mails were sent in the Fall of 2007 and Spring of 2008 to 30 prospects who were Freshmen or Sophomores at the time, these players would have been either 15 or 16 years old. I think that means that their birthdates would have fallen somewhere between Sept 1991 and May 1993. If you look at the recruits who have committed to UNH for either the Fall of 2011 or 2012 (http://unhhockeyrecruits.blogspot.com/), 9 out of the 11 players were born within this time frame. This group includes some talented kids such as Downing, Laleggia, Campbell, Thrush, Gaudreault, and Vecchione.

Other than receiving a reprimand and censure from the NCAA and being placed on probation for two years, the sanctions were:
(1) A reduction by one in the number of recruiters who are allowed to be off campus at the same time through Oct. 23, 2009.
(2) The 30 recruits will not be allowed to receive an expense-paid visit to the campus, nor will they be allowed to sign a National Letter of Intent with UNH.
The restriction on off-campus recruiters expired a long time ago. None of the Mystery 30 can receive a expense-paid visit to UNH. I think this means that they would still be allowed to skate at the Whit in a midget exhibition tour (although I'm not certain). None of the 30 prospects can sign a National Letter of Intent to come to UNH but they are not prohibited from making a verbal commitment. All in all, a case could be made that the NCAA penalties are not having a large negative impact on UNH recruiting efforts.

[WarriorDJ]

As Eruzione tells it, he was headed to Merrimack, a D3 school at the time, when he played a summer league game that Parker was reffing. BU had an opening left and Parker offered him. I don't recall ever hearing anything about Mike and UNH.

It's true, Eruzione was originally "committed" to Merrimack, which was actually a D2 school in 1973-1974. Most schools had passed over him based on his size at 5'9".

[C-H-C]

One of the NCAA sanctions placed the UNH hockey program under probation:
"Two years of probation beginning on the date the university accepted the committee’s additional recommended penalties (April 24, 2009, to April 23, 2011). That punishment was self-imposed by the school."(http://www.uscho.com/news/college-ho...ingViolations).
Perhaps this probation contributed to UNH's decision to not enroll two top prospects - Cam Reid or Matt White - last year. Reid and White had not completed one or more high school courses required for admission to UNH. If UNH had looked the other way and admitted them any way, then it might have been grounds for a new investigation by the NCAA.

[bomberhockey]

It's true, Eruzione was originally "committed" to Merrimack, which was actually a D2 school in 1973-1974. Most schools had passed over him based on his size at 5'9".

Eruzione was a Berwick PG, so it makes sense that he was at least a look-see at UNH, I know Berwick players attended alot of games. Many Berwick PGs ended up at UNH, Bob Francis being one.