i'm wondering why in rival's preview of baylor that was posted today (ranked them 43rd overall, 6th in the big 12) they don't mention this guy whatsoever.
http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=992007
Jason King at Rivals is one of the laziest reporters around. I can say with a great deal of certainty that he probably bought himself a basketball magazine and did no research in writing that preview. Most guys who cover college basketball are in the same boat. They have never played the sport. They get paid to write hype pieces for schools who have large fan bases- Kansas, Kentucky, etc...
If Big Time, Dirty Mess, Bigabd or someone who actually followed the sport was paid to write previews, you would get a much better product. Look, here's the deal with Dragan... Duke, UConn, Pitt, Maryland, Wisconsin, Purdue, Washington, Georgia Tech and others were recruiting him hard when his coach at Cibona started making inquiries about Dragan playing in the US.
Cibona has three guys Dragan's age who are very skilled and talented big men. All three of them are projected to go in the 1st or 2nd round of the NBA draft in 2011: Mario Delas, Leon Radosevic and Tomislav Zubcic. Dragan was caught in a numbers game there so he sought to play college ball. Some of the bigger boys stopped recruiting him hard when there seemed to be some doubts that he would become NCAA eligible.
One of Baylor's coaches had an in with Cibona. Baylor stuck with him and landed his commitment and he got qualified academically. A Baylor fan asked Jerry Meyer about him at Rivals. Jerry had seen him play and said that he would have been a 5-star recruit in the US but that he would not likely qualify.
One of my friends from Dallas is from France. His buddy in Europe writes for a basketball magazine and had seen Dragan play many times. His take was that Dragan could develop into a pro player. Said he was highly skilled and hard-nosed. Compared him to Suton at Michigan State last year. He's definitely been under the radar but he is very good and would likely have been a top 30 guy on Rivals if he played his high school ball in the states.
