Reality of Following College Recruiting

[Andrew]

Enjoyed this article - I'm sure many can relate.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/59405534/

[ATPTourFan]

Awesome.

[SmartyBarrett]

Will Leitch is the best sportswriter on the planet IMO. He nails this one (as usual).

[rodfromcranston]

Alex Kline ‏@TheRecruitScoop 2m
2014 Detroit Pershing (MI) guard Mory Diane has verbally committed to Buffalo, per a source.

Looks like Bobby is plumbing the same places as URI. Pershing is Hare's old school.
Zags said he's similar to X Munford.

[ATPTourFan]

Wonder how long Bobby will be at Buffalo? Anyone care to wager which Hurley brother leaves their current school first?

[rodfromcranston]

Ask Scott Cordischi.

[Andrew]

Thanks for changing the title of the thread; I was struggling to come up with anything, but thought it was a worthwhile article. Leitch is great.

[Bos8]

Alex Kline ‏@TheRecruitScoop 2m
2014 Detroit Pershing (MI) guard Mory Diane has verbally committed to Buffalo, per a source.

Looks like Bobby is plumbing the same places as URI. Pershing is Hare's old school.
Zags said he's similar to X Munford.

Bobby hired EC's high school coach, who I would assume has connections in Michigan.

[SmartyBarrett]

Another interesting piece on the world of recruiting:

http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports. ... g-classes/

[SGreenwell]

Smarty, I kind of like pieces like that, but they just bring up more questions in my mind than they answer. Like, is it more of a reflection that the rankings themselves can improve, or that there is only so much correlation between recruiting and team success?

Back when I was unemployed five or so years ago, I looked into when players improved the most from year to year, using PER as the factor. Almost across the board, it was freshman to sophomore year, with the second biggest jump being sophomore to junior, and the lowest bounce being from junior to senior year. Like, it's rare for a player to become even a serviceable starter as a senior if he was a bum as a freshman, and it usually happened in the non-power conferences, IIRC. I imagine that there is so much noise (what program you end up at, how good is a coach at developing talent vs. scouting talent, the effect of injuries, the effect of competition) in the data when it comes to recruiting that it makes analysis of it tough.

[SmartyBarrett]

True, this is a very basic analysis, which leads to sort of a "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" cyclical debate. A focused delve into a school like Villanova (for example) that has highly-rated recruits but mediocre (by comparison) success could yield more relevant data.

[ELeslie's 1st assist]

Detroit Pershing is not Hare's school. Hare is from the Tri-Cities area...Saginaw/Bay City/Midland. Pershing has had quite a history of hoops. I believe Ricky Paulding from Missouri went there. So did Spencer Haywood, Kevin Willis, among others.

[ramster]

Detroit Pershing is not Hare's school. Hare is from the Tri-Cities area...Saginaw/Bay City/Midland. Pershing has had quite a history of hoops. I believe Ricky Paulding from Missouri went there. So did Spencer Haywood, Kevin Willis, among others.

Jordan Hare went to Saginaw Arthur Hill.
Eric Davis is also from Saginaw Arthur Hill, currently ranked #19 Nationally Class of 2015, who we are recruiting against many of the Big Boys.

Some guys of note from Pershing since we are on that subject..............
Justin Tillman, 6'7" from Pershing Class of 2014 has verballed to VCU of the A10.
Mory Diane, 6'4" SG From Pershing Class of 2014 has verballed to Buffalo and Bobby Hurley. http://zagsblog.com/articles/mory-diane-to-buffalo/
Interesting how much Diane had to say about the Coaching Staff at Buffalo. Bobby using his connections with Michigan to land this kid from Pershing (played his 1st 3 years with Detroit Country Day)

Mory Diane to Buffalo
September 3rd, 2013 2:53 pm
Mory Diane, a 6-foot-3, 175-pound 2014 shooting guard from Detroit Pershing High, verbally committed to Buffalo coach Bobby Hurley.
Diane, who spent the last three years at Detroit Country Day before transferring to Pershing, took an unofficial visit to Buffalo Friday and Saturday.
“My relationship with the coaching staff and their vision for the future were the main reasons I chose Buffalo,” he told SNY.tv.
“As a guard, there’s not a better coach to be developed by than Coach Hurley. With the help of my teammates, I want to win the MAC championship and get Buffalo into the NCAA Tournament.”
Diane is reminiscent of Rhode Island guard Xavier Munford, who led the Atlantic 10 in scoring last season. “Mory is a triple threat on offense with his ability to score at the rim, pull up for the mid-range jumper or shoot it from deep,” Mike Allie, Diane’s AAU coach with Reach Legends, told SNY.tv.
“He takes pride in his defense as well and is a competitor in every sense of the word.”
Indiana State, Kent State, Texas Tech, Toledo and Detroit had also offered.
“Buffalo did a great job of recruiting Mory,” Allie said. “Coach Hurley and Coach Oats created a great relationship with Mory and his family. They showed Mory their vision for the future and he felt like he could be a key contributor. There’s no question he’s in great hands with Coach Hurley.”

[BFC]

[rjsuperfly66]

There were a few thoughts that NBC/Telep recruiting piece (mostly criticisms). I fully recognize there is no perfect way to measure this but these were my issues.

I think the biggest thing I see is that while top talent does not guarantee success in March, it definitely shows that you have a great chance of making the tournament. Naturally there are coaches who underachieve and don't meet standards, but of the 12 teams listed, the worst four teams (Indiana, Arizona, Baylor, and UCLA) all at least made two out of four NCAA Tournaments. The worst teams via record (Villanova and Memphis) all made 3 out of 4 NCAA Tournaments, something that might be slightly disappointing given talent but is still better than missing all together.

However, when it comes to the "rebuild vs. reload" thing, it would be interesting to see a team's entire class measured when it comes to success. What does the amount of Top 100 players mean if the rest of your class is full of ehh guys? Plus maybe you grabbed a quality transfer or two, but they won't be recognized in your top players. This method is not a perfect science.

Two, I'm not a huge fan of using 5 years worth of recruiting results, but only 4 years worth of tourney results. Teams that had decent recruiting classes last year might be somewhat inflated. Also, this does not include transfers, which do happen from time to time. Villanova, for example, has only had 7 Top 100 players recruiting during the four year tourney sample (2 Top 100s last year, 2 transfers).

Three, I think the biggest thing this survey misses is that there is a big difference between recruits #1 and #99. #1 is the type of kid that can single-handedly take your team to the tournament as a freshman, #99 is likely a very good four year player that still needs seasoning and experience. It's hard to compare a team like Villanova whose Top 100 talent typically comes in the bottom half (believe '09 they had a good year but it's been down other than that) of the rankings to a team like Kentucky who lives in the top quarter of the rankings. Kentucky's talent and depth should be double Villanova's on the surface.

Lastly, I think the thing that would interest me most is roster studies of your mid-majors and high-majors who don't fall into the listed teams above. I'm more interested in how your average, run-of-the-mill program (like PC and URI) doesn't have a roster full of Top 100 players but still consistently makes and wins in the tournament. Maybe they have a few Top 100 guys, but the rest of the guys are borderline Top 150 players. Is it reliance on transfers? Good player development?

Recruiting definitely isn't a perfect science, so I don't discourage what was written. But like everything, there are a few critiques and those were mine.

[rodfromcranston]

I've always felt, you neded three high quality players, to
make an impact in college basketball.
A solid PG, a swingman/scorer, and some PF or C.
This makes your team what Jim Harrick used to call, "Hard to guard."
The floor is spread and balanced. Opposing teams can shut down one aspect of
the offense, but not all three.
You don't need a team full of all stars/aka top 100 players. You need a coach who can develop
players he has into top 100 COLLEGIATE players.
It's the college level that matters, beyond the rankings of so called gurus, most of whom have never
seen most of the players they rank.
We've seen so many busts over the years. We've also seen unheralded guys like Cat Mobley, Tommy Garrick, Ryan Gomes and
Marshon Brooks, make it to the NBA. Tom Izzo rarely gets the McDonald's AAs or top 50. Like the
results he gets, year after year?
It's not an exact science. I think coaching is more important to get the most out of a player,
rather than a top 100 ranking.

[rjsuperfly66]

I agree with most of what you had to say though. The three players you need to be successful, spot on. The only place I have a problem is while Top 100 recruits could end up meaning squat (there are Top 100 players who flame out), I think the more Top 100 recruits you have, the higher likelihood you are successful, since there is a better chance they become those cornerstone guys you need to be high-tournament caliber.

That said, I don't think PC or URI are going to become programs that have 1-13 full of high Top 100 players, but need to compliment by developing younger, unranked talent underneath their elite talent or upperclassmen.

PC never won anything with Gomes. He was an NBA player sure, and a 1st Team All-American, but they made 1 NCAA with him and won zero games. Welsh kept trying to hit "lightning in a bottle" before and after he left, trying to grab other potential diamonds in the rough. It requires a lot of luck and miracles, and a lot of those diamonds will turn out to be duds. I think it's a model that can bring a lot of good memories (PC fans will always remember the 2004 team), but I'd prefer to be dancing 3 out of 4 years than one good year every decade.

As for Tom Izzo, in the past 14 seasons, he has had 33 Top 100 players. including a #1 recruit, a #2 recruit, a #3 recruit, a #5 recruit, a #7 recruit, and a #10 recruit. In total, 9 Top 20 players, 19 Top 50 players. In comparison to some of his peers, I think he does more with less, but it's not like he is working with bare cupboards.

[rodfromcranston]

33 top 100 in 14 years, players is paltry compared to Calipari,. Coach K, Roy Williams, Billy D. and Pitino.

[SGreenwell]

When I looked at coach success in the past, Izzo was the one guy who consistently had a better record in close games (decided by 3 points or less) than his peers. Usually, the sign of a great coach is that they have more blowouts than other coaches - i.e. they get the led above 10 points and don't let a few random plays in the final five minutes decide things. If there is such a thing as clutch in coaches, then Izzo might have it. (I'm generally not a believer in clutch in any sport - that players get BETTER in the final minutes of a game - but I do believe that some players can crack and get substantially worse, thus creating the illusion of clutch.)

[TruePoint]

Re: clutch - I also don't buy that a player gets "better" as the leverage of the situation gets higher. But I've always thought that was the wrong way to look at it. I think the ability to block out the noise/pressure in those situations and perform at or near your typical level is what differentiates a clutch player from one who isn't. I almost punched my radio a couple weeks ago when someone was arguing against clutch by citing that Derek Jeter's career playoff numbers aren't better than his lifetime averages. Well, first of all, you are playing much better competition in the playoffs than you are on average over the course of full seasons. Second of all, it is a real thing that some guys completely go in the tank when the calendar turns to October. So just being anywhere close to your normal production against better competition when other guys are flaking out is a good sign of "clutchness" to me.

[rodfromcranston]

Joe Montana 4 for 4 in Super Bowls, 3 SB MVPs and should have been 4,
ZERO interceptions. QBR of 127.8 in Super Bowls.
That's clutch, people. Superhuman, also.