Greeenway Freshman commits to St. Cloud State

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greenwayraider
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Greeenway Freshman commits to St. Cloud State

Post by greenwayraider » Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:44 pm

Duluth News-Tribune

Greenway freshman commits to St. Cloud State before his prep career starts
By Louie St. George on Apr 3, 2017 at 7:58 p.m.
608
Many prep athletes being recruited by college programs aim to make a commitment ahead of their senior season. They want to get the decision out of the way and focus on one final go-round with their high school buddies.

Ben Troumbly got it out of the way before his career with the Greenway boys hockey team ever started. The 15-year-old freshman forward verbally committed to St. Cloud State on Monday.


In that regard, Troumbly is similar to Grand Rapids junior Blake McLaughlin, who committed to Minnesota before ever skating in a varsity game.

“Sometimes, teams just want to lock them up and not risk losing them,” Greenway coach Grant Clafton said. “Ben’s that good of a player, that talented and that dynamic of a player. I think St. Cloud got a good one.”

Incidentally, Clafton, a Grand Rapids graduate, played for the Huskies, as well.

Clafton called the 5-foot-4 Troumbly an explosive skater with high-end skill and a motor that never stops.

“The best thing about him is his compete level,” Clafton said. “He’s a 200-foot player.”

Troumbly didn’t have much of a choice the past two seasons with Greenway’s Bantam A team, which reached state both years, including a third-place finish this past winter. The squad had just 10 skaters, meaning Troumbly hardly came off the ice.

He’s part of a talented batch of youngsters that should help Greenway continue its recent resurgence. The Raiders, led by guys like Taylor Lantz and Grant Troumbly — Ben’s older brother — went 18-8-1 and advanced to the Section 7A final in March.

Ben Troumbly visited the St. Cloud State campus last week and met with Huskies coach Bob Motzko.

“I felt at home there,” he said. “The NCHC is a great league, and I wanted to stay in Minnesota.”[/url]

kniven
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Re: Greeenway Freshman commits to St. Cloud State

Post by kniven » Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:42 pm

greenwayraider wrote:Duluth News-Tribune

Greenway freshman commits to St. Cloud State before his prep career starts
By Louie St. George on Apr 3, 2017 at 7:58 p.m.
608
Many prep athletes being recruited by college programs aim to make a commitment ahead of their senior season. They want to get the decision out of the way and focus on one final go-round with their high school buddies.

Ben Troumbly got it out of the way before his career with the Greenway boys hockey team ever started. The 15-year-old freshman forward verbally committed to St. Cloud State on Monday.


In that regard, Troumbly is similar to Grand Rapids junior Blake McLaughlin, who committed to Minnesota before ever skating in a varsity game.

“Sometimes, teams just want to lock them up and not risk losing them,” Greenway coach Grant Clafton said. “Ben’s that good of a player, that talented and that dynamic of a player. I think St. Cloud got a good one.”

Incidentally, Clafton, a Grand Rapids graduate, played for the Huskies, as well.

Clafton called the 5-foot-4 Troumbly an explosive skater with high-end skill and a motor that never stops.

“The best thing about him is his compete level,” Clafton said. “He’s a 200-foot player.”

Troumbly didn’t have much of a choice the past two seasons with Greenway’s Bantam A team, which reached state both years, including a third-place finish this past winter. The squad had just 10 skaters, meaning Troumbly hardly came off the ice.

He’s part of a talented batch of youngsters that should help Greenway continue its recent resurgence. The Raiders, led by guys like Taylor Lantz and Grant Troumbly — Ben’s older brother — went 18-8-1 and advanced to the Section 7A final in March.

Ben Troumbly visited the St. Cloud State campus last week and met with Huskies coach Bob Motzko.

“I felt at home there,” he said. “The NCHC is a great league, and I wanted to stay in Minnesota.”[/url]
Hermantown Hawks are going to crush Greenway this kids high school career. He will probably leave early like the 2 Hibbing kids.

mulefarm
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Re: Greeenway Freshman commits to St. Cloud State

Post by mulefarm » Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:57 pm

kniven wrote:
greenwayraider wrote:Duluth News-Tribune

Greenway freshman commits to St. Cloud State before his prep career starts
By Louie St. George on Apr 3, 2017 at 7:58 p.m.
608
Many prep athletes being recruited by college programs aim to make a commitment ahead of their senior season. They want to get the decision out of the way and focus on one final go-round with their high school buddies.

Ben Troumbly got it out of the way before his career with the Greenway boys hockey team ever started. The 15-year-old freshman forward verbally committed to St. Cloud State on Monday.


In that regard, Troumbly is similar to Grand Rapids junior Blake McLaughlin, who committed to Minnesota before ever skating in a varsity game.

“Sometimes, teams just want to lock them up and not risk losing them,” Greenway coach Grant Clafton said. “Ben’s that good of a player, that talented and that dynamic of a player. I think St. Cloud got a good one.”

Incidentally, Clafton, a Grand Rapids graduate, played for the Huskies, as well.

Clafton called the 5-foot-4 Troumbly an explosive skater with high-end skill and a motor that never stops.

“The best thing about him is his compete level,” Clafton said. “He’s a 200-foot player.”

Troumbly didn’t have much of a choice the past two seasons with Greenway’s Bantam A team, which reached state both years, including a third-place finish this past winter. The squad had just 10 skaters, meaning Troumbly hardly came off the ice.

He’s part of a talented batch of youngsters that should help Greenway continue its recent resurgence. The Raiders, led by guys like Taylor Lantz and Grant Troumbly — Ben’s older brother — went 18-8-1 and advanced to the Section 7A final in March.

Ben Troumbly visited the St. Cloud State campus last week and met with Huskies coach Bob Motzko.

“I felt at home there,” he said. “The NCHC is a great league, and I wanted to stay in Minnesota.”[/url]
Hermantown Hawks are going to crush Greenway this kids high school career. He will probably leave early like the 2 Hibbing kids.
Congrats to the kid!! Not sure what HT and kids leaving have to do with a kid committing to a D1 program?

kniven
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Re: Greeenway Freshman commits to St. Cloud State

Post by kniven » Tue Apr 04, 2017 6:27 pm

Oh heck yes! It is awesome for the kid for sure!!!! Um. Do you know how good Hermantown is in A hockey? I'm just saying that he, more than likely won't be staying around very long for Greenway high school. Heck. since 2011-2012, CEC doesn't hold on to their great players either so i'm speacking from experience. i have no expectations when it comes to our great players sticking around for their Junior and/or Senior years. Duluth East, Grand Rapids, Elk River, Andover.....thats what we have to get through to get to state...not just a stacked Hermantown team.

SCBlueLiner
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Post by SCBlueLiner » Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:05 pm

Why do these kids commit early and limit their options? Sure, it might be their dream school. I understand they have the option of decommiting as well. But committing early decreases contact you have with other schools and staffs and puts a limit on your options.

Also, what are the schools thinking? 15? A lot can happen over the next 3 to 5 years.

Congrats to the kid. I just don't understand the hurry.

MNHockeyFan
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Post by MNHockeyFan » Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:59 pm

SCBlueLiner wrote:Also, what are the schools thinking? 15? A lot can happen over the next 3 to 5 years.
Hopefully that includes a major growth spurt, 6 inches minimum.

greenwayraider
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Post by greenwayraider » Tue Apr 04, 2017 9:35 pm

I was surprised he got an offer at this point as he is a little guy. He has Division 1 talent but apparently St. Cloud is willing to take a chance. He was a lot of fun to watch at the bantam level. He made everyone around so much better. It will be interesting to see how he performs next season against high school kids. His dad and mom are both short so I don't see a major growth spurt. Hopefully he will get to be as tall as his brother who is 5'6". Also, the bantam team had a defensemen who could very well get a Division 1 offer. He is a big, strong kid and would not have a size problem in college.

karl(east)
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Post by karl(east) » Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:35 pm

Congrats to Ben. Out of curiosity, who was the last Greenway player to go D-I? Has there been one since the early 00s? Can't think of any, but I may be spacing, and haven't always been glued to Class A over that time frame.

greenwayraider
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Post by greenwayraider » Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:11 am

Guyer and Sertich were the last two.

Hula Papa
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Post by Hula Papa » Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:40 am

greenwayraider wrote:Guyer and Sertich were the last two.
Guyer and Sertich were 02 grads. Corey Carlson (transferred to Greenway before junior season) a 03 grad played in USHL for a few years and then went to University of Vermont for four years.

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Post by BSUBeaver » Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:17 am

greenwayraider wrote:I was surprised he got an offer at this point as he is a little guy. He has Division 1 talent but apparently St. Cloud is willing to take a chance. He was a lot of fun to watch at the bantam level. He made everyone around so much better. It will be interesting to see how he performs next season against high school kids. His dad and mom are both short so I don't see a major growth spurt. Hopefully he will get to be as tall as his brother who is 5'6". Also, the bantam team had a defensemen who could very well get a Division 1 offer. He is a big, strong kid and would not have a size problem in college.
He didn't necessarily receive an offer since college coaches can't actively recruit a player until January 1 of their Grade 10 year (players can initiate contact with coaches though). He just verbally committed to a school. Until he signs his National Letter of Intent, nothing is really official. SCSU could say nah, we don't have a spot for you or he may sour on SCSU and decide to go elsewhere.
Last edited by BSUBeaver on Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

BP
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Post by BP » Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:20 am

Christian Miller, another 9th grader for last year's Greenway A Bantams, committed to SCSU yesterday as well......

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:53 am

BSUBeaver wrote:He didn't necessarily receive an offer since college coaches can't actively recruit a player until January 1 of their Grade 10 year (players can initiate contact with coaches though). He just verbally committed to a school.
A verbal scholarship offer would have been made.

Also, active recruiting still happens at the younger ages, it's just a matter of circumventing the NCAA's official rules regarding the initiation of contact. In the view of the NCAA, contacting the parents of a player is the same as contacting the player. So, typically, NCAA coaches get around this by going through the youth and HS coaches. Basically, the college coach just tells the youth coach that he is interested in a certain player and to have that player contact him. The player "initiates" contact with the college coach and the college coach verbally offers a scholarship and roster spot.
greenwayraider wrote:His dad and mom are both short so I don't see a major growth spurt. Hopefully he will get to be as tall as his brother who is 5'6".
MNHockeyHub has him listed at 5'10", but I don't know him so I can't verify the accuracy of that. However, looking at some video of him playing, I'd wager he's a lot closer to 5'10" than 5'6". He looks pretty average sized in this video.
SCBlueLiner wrote:Why do these kids commit early and limit their options? Sure, it might be their dream school. I understand they have the option of decommiting as well. But committing early decreases contact you have with other schools and staffs and puts a limit on your options.
It's a hedge. The collateral is the reputation of the school. The kid accepts an offer that the school can technically rescind, but not without damaging the reputation of the school. Since you can't be certain another offer will ever be made, there's a lot of incentive to accept the offer.

The school gets the same thing in reverse. The kid's reputation is the school's collateral. They have to build their rosters for the future and verbals tend to stick more often than not. If they didn't go after these kids, their only options are to go after uncommitted late bloomers or try to steal commitments from other schools. Targeting late bloomers only wouldn't be enough to stay competitive and SCSU still abides by the "gentlemen's agreement". Consequently, they tend to target these kids at least as early as the other schools do.

It's a gamble, but less of a gamble if you have competent recruiters. Mike Gibbons and Bob Motzko are both excellent at spotting talent and at selling the benefits of a program with limited resources. Raboin is young, but he's learning from the best.

dueling21
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Post by dueling21 » Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:43 am

BP wrote:Christian Miller, another 9th grader for last year's Greenway A Bantams, committed to SCSU yesterday as well......
Kris Miller's kid by any chance?

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:44 am

dueling21 wrote:Kris Miller's kid by any chance?
Yes

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Post by hadenuf » Wed Apr 05, 2017 11:40 am

The College has no risk in trying to get all the kids it can to commit to its school. They do not have to honor it. It merely is the process of filling your stable and hoping that a racehorse comes out the other end.

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Apr 05, 2017 11:55 am

hadenuf wrote:The College has no risk in trying to get all the kids it can to commit to its school. They do not have to honor it. It merely is the process of filling your stable and hoping that a racehorse comes out the other end.
That's not true. Mike Eaves was an over-recruiter and it ultimately cost him his job.

You can only delay or rescind offers so many times before it comes back to bite you in the end.

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Post by SCBlueLiner » Wed Apr 05, 2017 12:28 pm

The Exiled One wrote:
hadenuf wrote:The College has no risk in trying to get all the kids it can to commit to its school. They do not have to honor it. It merely is the process of filling your stable and hoping that a racehorse comes out the other end.
That's not true. Mike Eaves was an over-recruiter and it ultimately cost him his job.

You can only delay or rescind offers so many times before it comes back to bite you in the end.
Yeah, I don't know. As with everything this will evolve. As the practice of getting early verbals continues to rise the practice of dropping the early verbals will continue to rise until there won't be much stigma attached. Eventually it will become just like it is in the world of big time college football, nothing is secure until that NLI is signed.

I guess my point is that if a player is good enough to warrant a verbal offer as a BANTAM than they should be good enough to continue to play the field. On the flip side, there is a huge hockey world out there and I don't understand what would prompt a college to verbally offer a BANTAM player when talent is being produced across the country and internationally now. You would think these coaches would wait to see a little more development. Which leads me to my point, I don't think there is going to be much of a stigma on coaches for dropping verbals going forward as there is a ton of talent being produced and only so many D1 schools to give offers. It's supply and demand. The market falls in favor of the coaches so they hold the cards, so to speak.

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Apr 05, 2017 1:01 pm

SCBlueLiner wrote:As the practice of getting early verbals continues to rise the practice of dropping the early verbals will continue to rise
Funny thing is, despite the fact that we're debating this in an SCSU thread, St. Cloud is far from the worst offender of recruiting youngsters. The Huskies have never verbally committed to a 14 year-old. Pinoniemi was close, but he still committed a month after his 15th birthday.

Meanwhile, there are currently 48 recruits who committed while they were 14 years old (or younger, in one case). Minnesota has two of them. Boston University, Quinnipiac, Notre Dame, and Michigan have five each!

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Post by BSUBeaver » Wed Apr 05, 2017 1:12 pm

I tend to agree with the fact that the stigma just isn't there anymore if a college pulls an offer. Since I mainly follow the WCHA, I took a look at the recruits Michigan Tech has lined up. They have, I believe, 11 that will age out ('96s) at the Junior level, so they either enter Tech this year, play another year of Junior and lose a year or eligibility or have their offer pulled/go else where. They also have five others who have signed NLIs, so more than likely they will be coming in for the 16-17 season (could in theory delay admission). Many of your "power" universities do the same thing. They intentionally stock their classes with more kids then they will ever bring in just to try and get them off the market.

Here is a nice recruits list compiled by Chris Heisenberg for 2017:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1726300324

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Post by hadenuf » Wed Apr 05, 2017 2:06 pm

The Exiled One wrote:
SCBlueLiner wrote:As the practice of getting early verbals continues to rise the practice of dropping the early verbals will continue to rise
Funny thing is, despite the fact that we're debating this in an SCSU thread, St. Cloud is far from the worst offender of recruiting youngsters. The Huskies have never verbally committed to a 14 year-old. Pinoniemi was close, but he still committed a month after his 15th birthday.

Meanwhile, there are currently 48 recruits who committed while they were 14 years old (or younger, in one case). Minnesota has two of them. Boston University, Quinnipiac, Notre Dame, and Michigan have five each!
Very true, but St. Cloud has a history of pressuring kids with a time limit. Giving kids a couple of days to accept the offer.

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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Apr 05, 2017 2:52 pm

hadenuf wrote:Very true, but St. Cloud has a history of pressuring kids with a time limit. Giving kids a couple of days to accept the offer.
Common for all D1 programs and HIGHLY dependent on the recruit.

There are a few reasons why I have zero problems with this. One, the school might be trying to find a single recruit for a particular class. If they have two targets in mind, logically, they have to get a final answer from the first one before they can make an offer to the second one. Two, related to that, is that recruiting pressure for top prospects increases very quickly after high profile exposure events like select camps. Time that can be committed to any one prospect is limited.

Point three is that kids generally go with their first impression, despite what they say to their friends and family about debating between multiple offers. Odds are, if a kid makes a visit, gets an offer, and doesn't commit right away... they likely never will.

I don't think it's unfair for the a program to expect their recruits to be excited about playing for their school. In fact, I think that's a good strategy for building a roster of highly enthusiastic and committed players. It's part of the reason Motzko's teams have such high team morale and cohesiveness.

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Post by Gopher Blog » Fri Apr 07, 2017 6:21 pm

The Exiled One wrote:That's not true. Mike Eaves was an over-recruiter and it ultimately cost him his job.

You can only delay or rescind offers so many times before it comes back to bite you in the end.
Eaves lost his job because he wasn't very well liked (which had built up over the years) and he did a poor job of hiring quality assistants after Osiecki left his staff. It had nothing to do with over recruiting. Hell, they are even worse at over recruiting at UW right now than they ever were with Eaves.

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Post by BodyShots » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:47 pm

The Exiled One wrote:
hadenuf wrote:Very true, but St. Cloud has a history of pressuring kids with a time limit. Giving kids a couple of days to accept the offer.
Common for all D1 programs and HIGHLY dependent on the recruit.

There are a few reasons why I have zero problems with this. One, the school might be trying to find a single recruit for a particular class. If they have two targets in mind, logically, they have to get a final answer from the first one before they can make an offer to the second one. Two, related to that, is that recruiting pressure for top prospects increases very quickly after high profile exposure events like select camps. Time that can be committed to any one prospect is limited.

Point three is that kids generally go with their first impression, despite what they say to their friends and family about debating between multiple offers. Odds are, if a kid makes a visit, gets an offer, and doesn't commit right away... they likely never will.

I don't think it's unfair for the a program to expect their recruits to be excited about playing for their school. In fact, I think that's a good strategy for building a roster of highly enthusiastic and committed players. It's part of the reason Motzko's teams have such high team morale and cohesiveness.
Really? Give me a break! :roll: :oops:

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