National Media Wrongly Criticizes Perry Ellis Announcement

Earlier this week, Wichita Heights sent out a release about Perry Ellis’ college announcement. The email simply stated that Ellis would be doing a press conference and that he would only allow 10 minutes of questions because the volleyball team had practice at 3:15.

The school sent out the release, not Perry Ellis or his mother.

Yet… the national media came out of the woodwork to slam Ellis and his mother.

Dave Telep tweeted all of this out…

Jeff Goodman started off with this tweet:

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Really Jeff? You haven’t heard of someone getting more media attention than Perry Ellis? Josh Selby had an article in the New York Times before he made his decision.

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The national media certainly want to hear from Perry’s mother. On Tuesday, Fonda Ellis told me at least ten media outlets, including USA Today, had requests to speak to her after Perry’s announcement on Wednesday.

Goodman was responding to a lot of tweets after he initially tweeted those statements.

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How exactly did she “rub” anyone the wrong way? He announced his college decision before the early signing period. He hasn’t even used any of his official visits yet. His announcement wasn’t televised on ESPN or via Skype  (Harrison Barnes) or with a bunch of hats in front of him.

He made his decision when he wanted to, at his high school, and did not give more than 10 minutes of media access.

And that last part of that statement is what pissed off the media. Rather than Perry talking to every media outlet, his mother did. The media wanted access and he was not giving them enough.

That gives me the impression that recruiting rankings are nothing but the writer’s personal favorites, not based on their basketball knowledge. To me, that completely discredits Scout, Rivals and ESPNU recruiting lists.

It wasn’t just Jeff Goodman either.

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Most highly rated recruits don’t even commit until March or April. Kansas got a few Class of 2011 players the weekend of the Final Four. Brandon Rush didn’t commit to Kansas until a week until his freshman year of college.

And I won’t even get into Seth Davis’ tweets between Curtis Kitchen, since he already covered it in his blog, but Davis was out of line there, as well.

Some of these writers need to understand that these recruits are kids, they’re 17 or 18. They want attention but not too much attention. And without them, many of these writers wouldn’t have these jobs where they complain about these recruits.

Let the kid have his day in the spotlight and on his own terms. Perry Ellis tried to do that and a bunch of grown men complained on Twitter all day about him. Seems childish, doesn’t it?

Read about Ellis’ announcement to Kansas here.