Catching up on News and Notes

Its July and that means the big recruiting period is here. I'll take a look at who's where on Monday. But here are some old news and notes worth catching up on.

1st is the Kevin Noreen signing with West Virginia. Great story from the Charleston, WV Gazette on how it all went down (Read it here).  Congrats to him on a great high school career and he's a better person.  For all the criticism he took during his high school career, it shows hard work pays off.  Hope he does well at WVU.

Second, a really nice story out of Red Wing where 7'1" Isaac Oeltjen signed with Boise State this week.  Boise State previously had signed 7'1" Ben Mills out of Wisconsin to fill that spot before they changed coaches.  Mills then left for Colorado (where they also had interest in Winona's Alec Brown at that time).  Oeltjen averaged 7.4 PPG for the 9-19 Wingers in an abbreviated senior season in 08-09 but he had numerous leg issues and worked his way back.  Very smart use of technology as part of that.  Nice article from the Idaho Statesman on how he put himself on the map. (read it here)

Third, Minnesota gets shutout of the new 2012 Scout.com top 75.  JP Tokoto from Menomonee Falls, WI drops to #26.  The Martin Brothers trio out of Iowa all makes it includes #18 Marcus Paige.  I've seen both play in person and Paige is very good (a notch above Siyani Chambers if you want a comparison), but no way should he be ahead of Tokoto.

Finally, Wisconsin voted this week to go to a 5 division playoff format (yuck).  It was 20 years ago that Wisconsin switched from 3 divisions (A, B, C) to 4 (1-4).  Some of the section travel is an absolute nightmare (particularly for my alma mater).  The smallest schools have very minor changes.  What it addresses are the smallest D1 schools with enrollments around 1000 playing against 2500 kids.  What's ridiculous about that argument is that D1 got 8 schools to state and everybody else got 4.  That's no longer true.  Doesn't really address the problem of urban private D3s (Racine St Cats, La Crosse Aquinas, Whitefish Bay Dominican and Manitowoc Roncalli are the culprits) dominating the state tournament and keeping out rural small public schools.  That was one of the driving forces behind all of the discussion in the first place. 

What's interesting is that the enrollment breakdowns (1200+ D1, 600+ D2, 201-600 D3 and 4, 200 and down D5) are very similar to what we have in Minnesota for our 4 divisions.  1161+ is 4A, 565+ is 3A, 220+ is 2A and single A is the rest.  Read all about the plan and see maps and enrollments here.