1. Recruiting and Keeping Talent - I'm not just talking about getting the five star guys, but since Ennis we've only recruited two natural point guards (Joseph and Washington), and we were lucky to be able to move Gbinije over to the 1. That's six classes in which we basically haven't managed to recruit a starting point guard. I know Joseph started for a year, but only due to the surprise departure of Ennis and then he lost his job as a returning starter to a guy playing out of position. (Edited to add: in fairness, they have Carey listed as just a SG, but I should have included him as a PG and we'll see how he turns out. I was just scanning for the positions without looking as in depth.)
As for the level of talent, we only have one top 100 player in this year's class, one last year, none in '17. Two in three years is not cutting it. In this time span Duke has five top 3 recruits and 15 top 100. They're getting 7.5 times as many top 100 recruits as us. I get that they're Duke, but that's still insane to think about.
Then when we do get them, all too often they seem to leave earlier than we expect, or earlier than other schools might have lost them to the NBA... And it's not like they're all going as lottery picks and tearing it up in the league.
I think one of the reasons we lose players too early is that we aren't really developing them for the next level (see point 2). Another is that I don't think they have as much fun playing here as they might have elsewhere (see point 3). Finally, I think a lot of them are probably frustrated by either playing out of position (because we always seem to be forcing a guy to play out of position due to recruiting failures or losing a guy earlier than expected) or by playing without a supporting cast that can maximize their talents (especially since we so rarely seem to have an actual starting point guard).
Also on the topic of recruiting, I took a look at this year's ESPN Top 100, and not only do we only have one (as a point of reference, Duke has 3, Virginia has 2, FSU has 2, Louisville has 5, NC State/UNC/Clemson/Miami have one each). Outside the conference, in the region, UConn has 3 and Villanova has 4. So not only that, but we're missing on guys in our back yard. There are eight top 100 recruits from New York. We're getting zero. In fairness, two haven't committed and we have an offer to one of them, but the other six are going to: Washington, NC State, Illinois, Louisville, UConn, Harvard. We offered two of them. Last year two in-state guys in the top-100 (UCLA, Stanford - we didn't offer either), in '17 there were five. They went to Texas, Kentucky, Arizona, Louisville, Minnesota - we offered two of them.
2. Developing Guys for the NBA - I see two key problems here. First is that we play the zone, which means a ton of time spent practicing and learning something that is irrelevant in the NBA. Second is that we spend so much time focusing on the zone that not that much time is spent during practice on developing guys' offensive games, or in learning any sort of offensive system. That's probably one of the most important things most college players need to do to succeed in the next level. Big men need to put on some muscle and develop more post moves. Guards need to put on a little muscle, gain some experience, and often develop their jump shot more.
3. Spending More Time Practicing Offense - This ties right into point #2, so I won't belabor that part of it... But I also imagine it's a lot more fun to be working on that side of the game than the zone, and I think that probably has a lot to do with guys who are on the fence about staying or going.
4. Developing a Deeper Bench - This bites us in a few ways. First of all, when we get into a situation like tonight, or like any of the myriad of examples of losing a key player late in the year and having no depth. If we gave Carey a few more minutes this year, maybe he could have played 8-10 minutes tonight and maybe we're not looking super tired at the end of the game. The same applies to foul trouble.
I get where JB is coming from here, because playing your 7 best players for all of the minutes is probably pretty close to optimal in terms of projecting the total number of wins in a season. However, in a must-win situation like the tournament, you're not just trying to maximize the number of wins you get in tournament games overall in a huge sample size... You're trying to maximize the number of times you string together wins for deep runs. In other words, it really sucks to be in spots where you have no real shot because you got a guy into foul trouble... and it's hard to go six straight games without that happening.
So what I'm saying here is that I would trade 1-2 wins per regular season over the long run to develop a deeper bench so that we can weather that stuff easier. It's also always possible to shorten the bench in close games or as a big underdog, but it's a lot harder to take a guy who hasn't been getting any run and lean on him in a big spot. So given that you could do that, the real expected number of wins lost per season by playing deeper is probably <1. This could also improve our program in terms of recruiting, developing and keeping players. Maybe some guys don't like playing 35+ minutes every game.
5. The Zone - I know it's beating a dead horse at the end of each season, and so many of these season-ending losses come when some team in the tourney shoots the lights out from deep, which can happen even if you play man... But for the love of God, would it kill Boeheim to be like 95% zone 5% man? I'm not even saying practice it, just freaking come out of the zone for like two or three possessions now and then when a team is torching us from three-point range. What's the worst that can happen?
It's also got such a huge impact on us in recruiting, imo, because we're really stuck going after a subset of players. I know there's a trade off there in that we can do really well with a lot of three and four star recruits who have a long wingspan, but if they trade off is just being out of the running for a lot of top prospects, I think that's a bad move for a powerhouse program with a top coach.
I know it'll never change under Boeheim, which is why I put it last, but I still had to say it.
Now, I feel like I've made a similar post before, and I feel like Boeheim is never going to change ANY of this... But it's one thing for him to be so committed to the zone he won't change it. It's another to make no changes at all. We're in a brutally tough conference, the game evolves over time, and this program needs to adapt. We've tried to patch the bad recruiting with grad transfers, but then you're asking a guy to learn the zone to the level needed and play a ton of minutes in the same season - it's tough to do.
Without making some changes in these areas, I don't see how we're going to do any better than we have the last few years and it really seems like we're destined to just be a middle of the pack ACC team until Boeheim retires, then we've got to hope we hire the right guy or else that's what we'll be until we snag a top coach.
I guess it is what it is. Boeheim built the program and dedicated his entire adult life to it, and he's earned the right to leave when he wants... and how he wants. I wouldn't have thought this would be how he wanted to go out, but hey, maybe I'm wrong and he'll have a couple more great years in him without making any changes.
As for the level of talent, we only have one top 100 player in this year's class, one last year, none in '17. Two in three years is not cutting it. In this time span Duke has five top 3 recruits and 15 top 100. They're getting 7.5 times as many top 100 recruits as us. I get that they're Duke, but that's still insane to think about.
Then when we do get them, all too often they seem to leave earlier than we expect, or earlier than other schools might have lost them to the NBA... And it's not like they're all going as lottery picks and tearing it up in the league.
I think one of the reasons we lose players too early is that we aren't really developing them for the next level (see point 2). Another is that I don't think they have as much fun playing here as they might have elsewhere (see point 3). Finally, I think a lot of them are probably frustrated by either playing out of position (because we always seem to be forcing a guy to play out of position due to recruiting failures or losing a guy earlier than expected) or by playing without a supporting cast that can maximize their talents (especially since we so rarely seem to have an actual starting point guard).
Also on the topic of recruiting, I took a look at this year's ESPN Top 100, and not only do we only have one (as a point of reference, Duke has 3, Virginia has 2, FSU has 2, Louisville has 5, NC State/UNC/Clemson/Miami have one each). Outside the conference, in the region, UConn has 3 and Villanova has 4. So not only that, but we're missing on guys in our back yard. There are eight top 100 recruits from New York. We're getting zero. In fairness, two haven't committed and we have an offer to one of them, but the other six are going to: Washington, NC State, Illinois, Louisville, UConn, Harvard. We offered two of them. Last year two in-state guys in the top-100 (UCLA, Stanford - we didn't offer either), in '17 there were five. They went to Texas, Kentucky, Arizona, Louisville, Minnesota - we offered two of them.
2. Developing Guys for the NBA - I see two key problems here. First is that we play the zone, which means a ton of time spent practicing and learning something that is irrelevant in the NBA. Second is that we spend so much time focusing on the zone that not that much time is spent during practice on developing guys' offensive games, or in learning any sort of offensive system. That's probably one of the most important things most college players need to do to succeed in the next level. Big men need to put on some muscle and develop more post moves. Guards need to put on a little muscle, gain some experience, and often develop their jump shot more.
3. Spending More Time Practicing Offense - This ties right into point #2, so I won't belabor that part of it... But I also imagine it's a lot more fun to be working on that side of the game than the zone, and I think that probably has a lot to do with guys who are on the fence about staying or going.
4. Developing a Deeper Bench - This bites us in a few ways. First of all, when we get into a situation like tonight, or like any of the myriad of examples of losing a key player late in the year and having no depth. If we gave Carey a few more minutes this year, maybe he could have played 8-10 minutes tonight and maybe we're not looking super tired at the end of the game. The same applies to foul trouble.
I get where JB is coming from here, because playing your 7 best players for all of the minutes is probably pretty close to optimal in terms of projecting the total number of wins in a season. However, in a must-win situation like the tournament, you're not just trying to maximize the number of wins you get in tournament games overall in a huge sample size... You're trying to maximize the number of times you string together wins for deep runs. In other words, it really sucks to be in spots where you have no real shot because you got a guy into foul trouble... and it's hard to go six straight games without that happening.
So what I'm saying here is that I would trade 1-2 wins per regular season over the long run to develop a deeper bench so that we can weather that stuff easier. It's also always possible to shorten the bench in close games or as a big underdog, but it's a lot harder to take a guy who hasn't been getting any run and lean on him in a big spot. So given that you could do that, the real expected number of wins lost per season by playing deeper is probably <1. This could also improve our program in terms of recruiting, developing and keeping players. Maybe some guys don't like playing 35+ minutes every game.
5. The Zone - I know it's beating a dead horse at the end of each season, and so many of these season-ending losses come when some team in the tourney shoots the lights out from deep, which can happen even if you play man... But for the love of God, would it kill Boeheim to be like 95% zone 5% man? I'm not even saying practice it, just freaking come out of the zone for like two or three possessions now and then when a team is torching us from three-point range. What's the worst that can happen?
It's also got such a huge impact on us in recruiting, imo, because we're really stuck going after a subset of players. I know there's a trade off there in that we can do really well with a lot of three and four star recruits who have a long wingspan, but if they trade off is just being out of the running for a lot of top prospects, I think that's a bad move for a powerhouse program with a top coach.
I know it'll never change under Boeheim, which is why I put it last, but I still had to say it.
Now, I feel like I've made a similar post before, and I feel like Boeheim is never going to change ANY of this... But it's one thing for him to be so committed to the zone he won't change it. It's another to make no changes at all. We're in a brutally tough conference, the game evolves over time, and this program needs to adapt. We've tried to patch the bad recruiting with grad transfers, but then you're asking a guy to learn the zone to the level needed and play a ton of minutes in the same season - it's tough to do.
Without making some changes in these areas, I don't see how we're going to do any better than we have the last few years and it really seems like we're destined to just be a middle of the pack ACC team until Boeheim retires, then we've got to hope we hire the right guy or else that's what we'll be until we snag a top coach.
I guess it is what it is. Boeheim built the program and dedicated his entire adult life to it, and he's earned the right to leave when he wants... and how he wants. I wouldn't have thought this would be how he wanted to go out, but hey, maybe I'm wrong and he'll have a couple more great years in him without making any changes.
