B-Line’s got 99 problems but Alex Legion ain’t One
At least not any more. It has been reported by Mark Snyder of the Free Press that Alex Legion wanted to “re-open” his recruitment.
On Monday, Michigan complied by releasing Legion from his national letter of intent.
“I just wanted to open my recruitment again,” said Legion, who played his senior season at Oak Hill (Va.) Academy after three years at Birmingham Detroit Country Day. “I’m not going to start looking until the end of next week. But (Beilein) said he’s still recruiting me.”
I’m sure this will be viewed as a direct result of hiring John Beilein as the new head coach. The thinking is if only Amaker would have been retained or if Michigan hired a coach who had a better relationship with Legion then the player might have honored his second commitment to Michigan - after having bailed out on Tommy Amaker once before.
Legion first verbally committed in November 2005, de-committed in April 2006, re-committed in July 2006 and signed in October 2006.
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“[Amaker’s] the coach I committed to,” Legion said. “The recruiting process is long and it’s one where I have to feel comfortable with the coaching staff I’ll be with for four years.”
Yeah, rock solid commitment there. This just draws more attention to an annual rite of passage with the Michigan basketball program under Amaker: recruiting, losing, and re-recruiting players. If it happened once then that’s understandable. The problem is it happened all the time. Al Horford (who clearly ended up making the right choice), Malik Hairston and Joe Crawford were all guys who committed to Amaker and then ended up signing elsewhere.
The title of the post is entirely tongue in cheek and I don’t hold Legion’s decision to open his recruitment and likely go to another school against him. He’s entitled to do so and if he isn’t committed to the program (he clearly wasn’t before when the “coach he committed to” was coaching) then it’s best for everyone involved that he move on.
This will hopefully be the last bit of fallout from Amaker’s tenure at Michigan. If that is the case then the program is in good shape heading into Beilein’s first year as head coach.
Alex Legion John Beilein Michigan Basketball Tommy Amaker2 Comments
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I went to high school (w/ Alex Legion) for a couple of years and it was fun to watch him play. I’m bummed that he won’t be playing for UM- I was actually going to try to squeeze in some bball games! Oh well.
Christy,
I’ve heard he’s a good kid and I am not the least bit upset or mad at him for deciding to reconsider where he will go to school. I’m just at the point where I want to move on from the whole commit, de-commit, re-commit, re-de-commit saga. I wish him the best of luck regardless of where he goes to school.