Colorado men's basketball associate head coach Mike Rohn was recently named one of 50 impactful high major assistants in Division I men's basketball by Silver Waves Media.
CUSportsNation had the chance to conduct an exclusive interview with Rohn, who broke down recruiting 2020 players this spring in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as potential implications for the Buffs' 2021 recruiting endeavors.
Below is part one of our Q+A with Rohn. Part two will feature Rohn's thoughts on recruiting in general, the NCAA's impending rule change for one-time transfers and McKinley Wright IV's status with the NBA.
Q: What challenges did having to do the vast majority of spring recruiting in a virtual manner? How do you sign guys when they can't even get to campus and check Colorado out?
Rohn: “It’s definitely different for sure. With the guys that we did get in the spring, with the grad transfer — we recruited Jeriah (Horne) out of high school a little bit. We saw him play a lot in high school and with his AAU team and then obviously being at Nebraska and Tulsa the past few years, you know what guys ultimately end up being capable of doing and what their game is. (Recruiting him) wasn’t too hard in not being able to see him (this spring). Obviously, the challenge there was being timely and getting the virtual meetings set up. That was a real timely thing but (travel limitations) really didn’t hurt us in terms of evaluating him. He’s in a different scenario there as a grad transfer."
"(With) Jabari (Walker), we had been doing quite a bit of work with him leading up to the spring, so we’d seen him play on more than one occasion. Coach (Bill) Grier saw him play a couple time and coach AC (Anthony Coleman) saw him play, so from an evaluation standpoint, we felt pretty good about the work we’d put in (with him). Ultimately, we couldn’t get him on campus for an OV so we had to do virtual visits online and I think we just had done a good enough job prior to that with him where other than not getting him on campus, we were still in a good position before the pandemic ever came about. We knew Tyler (Bey's) situation and had more clarity on how we needed to go and get things done."
"Tristan (da Silva) was the one that was really unique because we never got to see him play other than on film and through people that we know that saw him play, (who) we have a lot of confidence in. That relationship was built through phone calls and Zoom calls. His brother being at Stanford really helped us in that regard. The kid was going to go to a really good academic school and he was going to go most likely to another school in the Pac-12 because the (da Silva) family was familiar with it and Oscar obviously, even though he had a tough deal happen at our place, he had a lot of respect for our program and (so did) the Stanford coaches, as well."
"I think we identified guys that we could get. We weren’t just chasing ghosts, so to speak...we had pretty good pinpointed guys, but it’s different without a doubt and doing face-to-face stuff. You make the most out of what you can do and luckily, it worked for us then."
Q: What did you guys see in Tristan da Silva? Is he cut of the same cloth as his brother? How did you guys hone in on him as the spring went on?
Rohn: “It started with some of the coaching staff at Stanford, talking about Tristan. They had more interactions with him because of Oscar. That helped us understand how good he probably was, as they were comparing the two of them together. They’re different players — at this stage and in their development. But when you talk about the total package of a player, in the kid and the student, you just don’t get much better than the da Silva family. (Tristan is a ) high-academic kid, unbelievably disciplined athlete who’s not just good at what he does. He’s got work ethic and personal characteristics of being a good teammate. We knew a lot of those things without ever having to see him play in person, through conversations with his coach and just knowing what Oscar is all about."
"He’s a different player than Oscar. Oscar showed up at Stanford and was a little bit more of a perimeter-oriented player who has now transitioned himself to a power forward-type player. I think that’ll happen with Tristan as he grows and gets a little stronger — he’s just not quite as big as Oscar yet — but they have a lot of similar characteristics. I would say that Tristan shoots the three a little bit better at the same stage of their careers coming out of high school, than Oscar did. But Tristan is going to grow. Same with Jabari."
"We were lucky with Tristan in a lot of ways, as well. If more people could have flown to Germany and seen him in the spring, it might have changed who the recruiting competition was. Ultimately, there was only a handful of Pac-12 schools and nobody really had a chance to see him play. Then, the pandemic all came about. Any time you’re recruiting, you’ve got to have a little bit of luck, too, and I think we had a little luck with all of those guys.”
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Q: Given what Colorado loses heading into 2020-21 — Tyler Bey, Shane Gatling, Lucas Siewert, Daylen Kountz and Jakub Dombek — what is your overall evaluation of this 2020 class? Do you feel like you are bringing in some helping hands that check the boxes that needed to be checked?
Rohn: “We feel really good and especially with the spring situation and with Tyler. We weren’t necessarily planning on having as many scholarships in the spring as we did, with Daylen and Jakub. But you’re recruiting year-round all the time. You’re always recruiting and if you're doing it right, you always have guys ready to come and guys who you feel good about. This group, without a doubt, we felt great about, with Luke and Nique in the fall fitting the perfect needs and having Keesahwn Barthelemey redshirting, sitting out and is part of this class now. We did check off a lot of boxes and we needed to."
“A guy like Jeriah just gives you some experience and is someone who’s proven. Our young group is really good and check a lot of the boxes that we were looking for. There’s a lot of versatility in this class and who knows what type of impact the freshmen will have. You really never know until late October. This year could be a little different if we’re not having any opportunity to get any summer access with these young guys and we won’t know how they fit into the rotation as we would if maybe we had a few weeks in the summer. But the best thing about this class is that we’re losing a big class, but now we have another young group kind of like when we brought in McKinley, Tyler, Evan and D'Shawn...those guys proved when they were young that they could come in and sustain us at the level we knew we needed to be at. I think that this group will certainly be able to do that, as well."
"This group may even be more talented when all is said and done...we feel great about this class. In my opinion, with guys we signed late, people don’t know about them quite as much — the national people don’t know about Dominique and Luke like they probably should. But this class is opinion — it’s better than the class that Stanford signed. Stanford is getting all this hype because they got one guy (five-star forward Ziaire Williams) who might be one-and-done. But our class, in my opinion, is a Top 25 recruiting class when you look at Tristan and Jabari, Luke, Dominique and then throw Jeriah in there. Man, this is about as good a class as I think we’ve had.”
Q: While recruiting in 2020 virtually I'm sure was tough enough, what is at stake right now if travel restrictions are still in place for the summer, which could deprive you of a few months of evaluations in June and July?
Rohn: "Moving forward, it’ll be really interesting for us for the 2021 class. If we can’t recruit all summer in terms of seeing guys play, that’s a little bit tougher. We’ve got four more spots to fill in the 2021 class and June and July and the summer are huge eval opportunities for us there. If things don’t change, it’s going to affect that class a little more than it did the one we just finished with.”
“That’s the biggest dilemma, more so than the last class, is what things look like for 2021 and finishing that group out. Fortunately, we got one done, which was a big one, and he (Lawson Lovering) will be an impact guy. That really helps kickstart things, but not having a plethora of guys in our region in 2021 doesn’t really help us in that class. There’s a few (in-state) guys we’re targeting and looking at a little bit, but it’s not like there’s a Dominique or Luke or Josh Scott or Wesley Gordon running around in our state in the Class of 2021. There’s a few good ones, but regionally, everyone’s hoping their own region will be good, because everybody feels like that’s the way that people will tend to recruit a bit more. But we can’t help where we’re at. It is going to be a challenge."
"We had a few 2021s on some OVs last year, who were juniors, that we are in really good shape in, so that’s a good thing. We have been able to see a lot of other guys in 2021 that we like and we would be more than happy to get and take even if we didn’t see them any more. The leg work we’ve put in to this point, and recruiting underclassmen is always a huge priority for us and evaluating them, but I think we’re in a pretty good spot (for 2021). We’re not in a different spot than anyone else. It is going to affect that class and how much we’ll get to see (players). The worst-case scenario, if we don’t get to recruit at all in the summer, normally our list is a lot bigger from seeing guys. Our list won’t be as big if we don’t get to start recruiting until the fall. We may not sign as many guys in the early period as we do late."
