Brunson, PG after Ennis and sanctions

[AlpharettaCuse]

Because player's at Syracuse never get significant injuries?

I mean, it’s pretty rare. I just don’t think that’s the strategy to recruit players in the event yours get hurt

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Every player at Syracuse always pans out as well.

I don’t think coaches recruit other players in the event someone doesn’t work out

 

[two3zone]

I don’t think coaches recruit other players in the event someone doesn’t work out

If you have one point guard on the roster it may be smart to recruit another in case of injury or ineffectiveness or else you're rolling with a 6-7 man rotation.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

If you have one point guard on the roster it may be smart to recruit another in case of injury or ineffectiveness or else you're rolling with a 6-7 man rotation.

We had 2 point guards

 

[two3zone]

We had 2 point guards

If our staff wasn't at least 50/50 on Ennius leaving by January then they all should be fired.

We had one point guard and a small forward with a PG next to his name.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

If our staff wasn't at least 50/50 on Ennius leaving by January then they all should be fired.

We had one point guard and a small forward with a PG next to his name.

Nah...that’s absurd. They had Ennis and Kaleb Joseph, whom they thought would be pretty good. In their minds, they were all set at pg. hindsight is 20/20 and Brunson is really good, but that’s life.

 

[two3zone]

Nah...that’s absurd. They had Ennis and Kaleb Joseph, whom they thought would be pretty good. In their minds, they were all set at pg. hindsight is 20/20 and Brunson is really good, but that’s life.

Absurd that Ennis would leave? It's absurd anybody thought he'd stay.

 

[Brooky03]

Excellent post, OP. Wish I could give it 100 likes

 

[rrlbees]

If our staff wasn't at least 50/50 on Ennius leaving by January then they all should be fired.

We had one point guard and a small forward with a PG next to his name.

You’re mixing years

 

[two3zone]

You’re mixing years

The second paragraph was for the season after Ennis.

 

[Orangety15]

I posted this previously but wanted to do so again. People continually complain and still can't grasp why we didn't get Brunson or another PG such as JaQuan Newton. Well if you read the following you might see the impact of players declaring early and sanctions had.

I’m not close enough to recruiting to have any idea about the complete inside story but here's some very simple math and dates which might shed some light on the PG misses. Things become a little clearer when looking at dates and it’s not so easy to just crap on the staff for not getting kid x or kid y.

Commitment Dates to keep in Mind:

· JaQuan Newton commits to Miami 8/7/13

· Jalen Brunson commits to Nova 9/10/14

· Tyler Lydon commits to Syracuse 10/17/13

· Malachi commit to Syracuse 12/13/13

· Howard commit to Syracuse 4/14/14

· Diagne commit to Syracuse 6/1/14

· Kaleb Joseph commit to Syracuse 8/7/13

· Chris McCullough 11/5/12

Transfer Dates:

· Patterson and BJ announce transfer March 20, 2015

NBA Declaration Dates:

· Tyler Ennis declares March 27, 2014

· Jerami Grant declares April 14, 2014

· Chris McCullough declares April 2, 2015

Sanction Dates:

· March 6, 2015: Reduction of 12 scholarships over 4 year period

o 3 scholarships lost in 2015-16

o 3 scholarships lost in 2016-17

o 3 scholarships lost in 2017-18

o 3 scholarships lost in 2018-19

· December 2015 NCAA announces reduction to 8 lost scholarships and will accept Syracuse plan to use 3 scholarships in 2014-15 (so the adjusted penalties)

o 3 scholarships lost in 2014-15

o 2 scholarships lost in 2015-16

o 2 scholarship lost in 2016-17

o 1 scholarship lost in 2017-18

Syracuse Roster Size:
· 2013-14 roster of 12 scholarship players (Gbinijie, Cooney, Ennis, Grant, Fair, Christmas, Keita, Coleman, Roberson, Patterson, BJ, Obokoh)

· 2014-15 roster of 10 scholarship players (Gbinijie, Cooney, Christmas, McCullough, Coleman, Roberson, Joseph, Patterson, BJ, Obokoh)

Why no Jaquan Newtown in the 2014-15 class?

· Very simply we prioritized Kaleb Joseph over JaQuan Newtown in the summer of 2013. Kaleb was ranked a bit higher (overall and as a point guard). There was not a chance to take both. They were both in the same class and both signed on the same day with respective schools. If Joseph was a miss he was missed by all other major recruiting services too.

· As seen above, the 2013-14 roster consisted of 12 players and only two were seniors (Fair and Keita). Ennis and Grant were expected to return and did not announce until March and April of 2014 (well after recruiting season was done).

· The 2014-15 roster would have been 12 under the assumption Ennis and Grant returned and Joseph and McCullough joined the team

· If we took Newtown as the 3rd point guard it would have been an unnecessary PG luxury. Additionally, the option to take any scholarship reductions in 2014-15 upon NCAA appeal would not have existed. We would have been at 13 scholarships. Taking a 3 scholarship reduction a year early was actually a very good result.

Why no Jalen Brunson in the 2015-16 class?

· Follow the timelines once again and it’s easy to see why he may not have been prioritized.

· We enter the 2014-15 season with a 10 player roster with Christmas as the only senior.

· We have already gotten 4 commitments and all these commitments are early and well before Kaleb plays his first game in the 2014-15 season. There is no chance to evaluate in real game situations.

· 2 of these commitments are very early (Malachi and Lydon (Oct and Dec 2013) and occur before Ennis declares, before Grant declares). This is important as Jimmy and staff assume they already have two very good PG prospects on next year’s roster (Ennis and a highly recruited Joseph)

· By the time Ennis declares (which surprises the staff and they express their disagreement with his decision) the ship has sailed with Brunson and he has a prioritized list of 5 that does not include us. Who knows if we tried to get back in but top tier players usually have enough top tier interest and ignore last minute begging.

· Remember this is the season sanctions hit (March 6, 2015).

o Post sanction BJ and Patterson announce transfer March 22, 2015

o McCullough declares April 2, 2015

· When all things shake out the roster size sits at 10. NCAA penalties result in loss of 3 scholarships for 2015-16 so having 10 is the only number that can work. Only later did we find out the Diagne was ruled ineligible and in December we received a reduction in scholarship losses.

· However, after the March 6, 2015 penalties we could not have been higher than 10 scholarships so there was no room at the inn for Brunson!

When you look at the whole situation it becomes a lot more complicated. Simple saying the staff missed the boat on these key recruits does not take into account the scholarship situation and the timing of various announcements.

By the way, Ja'Quan Newton would not help at all. He averages 8pts a game as senior, 2.8 Ass and 2.0 Turnovers and shoots 13% from 3 pt land.

Everyone also could not believe the staff passed on Isiah Washington during the Quade fiasco. He was the second coming blah blah blah. Quiet on the front now. Guess what? Maybe the staff was right to not follow board guidance. Washington is averaging 7pts a game 2.3 ass and 1.6 turnovers. He's shooting a whopping 18% from three.

Sanctions limited our chances for Thomas Bryant, eliminated our chances for Huerter and magnified recruiting misses and unexpected early departures. Anyone who can't see that and make a connection between our tremendous run pre-sanctions (2009-2014) and then our downward trend post sanctions (2015-18) is either oblivious or too stubborn.

Cuse!

Great post!!!!

 

[cuseinseattle]

I was more bothered by the miss on Monte Morris. That still kills me. He wanted to come here and would have backed up Ennis and then taken over. He was fine with that. What a terrible mistake. I went back and added him to the teams the next 3 years. It really is a painful exercise.

 

[cuseinseattle]

Fun Monte Morris fact. He was the leader in assist to turnover ratio 4 years in a row

 

[NineOneSeven]

Fun Monte Morris fact. He was the leader in assist to turnover ratio 4 years in a row

what's his wingspan though?

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Absurd that Ennis would leave? It's absurd anybody thought he'd stay.

No, absurd that you think the coaching staff should be fired because they didn't know in January that Ennis would leave.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

what's his wingspan though?

probably longer than Quade Green's and Alterique Gilbert's? Wait, I thought we didn't recruit 6-0 point guards?

 

[Brooky03]

C'mon. He was borderline 5-star who was barely left off the McD AA roster and his strengths were a mature refined feel for the game. What were they expecting him to do? Improve? If they were surprised by McCullough, Malachi, Lydon, or Ennis leaving for the NBA, then they weren't paying attention.

McCullough was kind of trash against decent competition and got hurt. Malachi wasn't any better than average until he went off on Virginia in the tournament. It would be revisionist to say anybody expected either to leave based on the first month or two of their seasons. I'll grant you that McCullough was recruited with the expectation that he'd be OAD, but his play was not indicative of a OAD (he was 6'10" and routinely missed layups). Both guys had NBA measurables but lacked the on-court production you'd expect from a OAD. The possibility that they'd leave was always there, but I would not say either was in the 'more likely gone than not' camp even by midseason. And any information about their likelihood to depart that was learned after midseason was just too late in the ballgame to do anything about.

Ennis and Lydon were in the 'more likely gone than not' category before midseason, but neither was a sure thing. Lydon had a disappointing sophomore year, relative to the production expected based on his freshman year, and Ennis lacked the size and/or athleticism of a typical starting NBA PG. Regardless, we had backup plans in place. Joseph was a high level recruit brought in to replace Ennis and Gbinije was more than capable of taking some backup PG duties. It just so happened that Kaleb didn't pan out and Gbinije had to take over the starting role. He did a pretty good job of that, I might add. Diagne was supposed to be in the same class as Lydon but the NCAA shot that horse in the face. The staff recovered nicely, imo, between TT, Moyer, and Brissett. Nobody would have expected a transfer from TT, who was all but guaranteed 35+ minutes and 15+ ppg.

 

[RF2044]

I was more bothered by the miss on Monte Morris. That still kills me. He wanted to come here and would have backed up Ennis and then taken over. He was fine with that. What a terrible mistake. I went back and added him to the teams the next 3 years. It really is a painful exercise.

Agree 100%.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

We had one point guard and a small forward with a PG next to his name.

We had Tyler Ennis, and Kaleb Joseph, who the staff thought would be pretty good.

 

[cuseincincy]

Unspoken in all this is that the time period we are talking is also when it became trendy, acceptable, necessary for players to leave early even if they weren't going to be lottery picks. "If you can get a check you have to leave" mentality. What I find sad is that out of Grant, Richardson, Ennis, McCullough, Lydon, NONE of them have been worth a damn in the NBA. Why am I supposed to give a damn that they're getting paid? I'm a Syracuse fan.

 

[cuseinseattle]

Unspoken in all this is that the time period we are talking is also when it became trendy, acceptable, necessary for players to leave early even if they weren't going to be lottery picks. "If you can get a check you have to leave" mentality. What I find sad is that out of Grant, Richardson, Ennis, McCullough, Lydon, NONE of them have been worth a damn in the NBA. Why am I supposed to give a damn that they're getting paid? I'm a Syracuse fan.

Grant is about to get paid and Ennis has been a solid back up pg in the league the last year or two and carved out a role. Lydon is in his first season so I'm not sure that he hasn't been worth a damn. If you care about the program and are a fan you are supposed to care about the kids who come through. I'm not capable of separating the two things and would never want to.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Unspoken in all this is that the time period we are talking is also when it became trendy, acceptable, necessary for players to leave early even if they weren't going to be lottery picks. "If you can get a check you have to leave" mentality. What I find sad is that out of Grant, Richardson, Ennis, McCullough, Lydon, NONE of them have been worth a damn in the NBA.

Not sure what your metric is here. All-star? Playing in the NBA is exceedingly hard. Being an all-star is exceptionally difficult to do. Just getting a check for 2-5 years of basketball is pretty good. Kentucky has its share of flameouts despite getting the recruits who are in the top-20.

I find it incredibly odd that so many people blame the mediocrity of the SU program over the last 4-5 years on kids who are following their dream and not the incredibly well-compensated coaching staff who have the responsibility to recruit and develop players, maintain compliance with rules, and design the teams' play. But then pat the coaches on the back when one kid goes off and has an unreal couple of games in the tournament. That's a helluva good deal. I'd take that kind of support from my boss in a heartbeat.

 

[Alsacs]

Unspoken in all this is that the time period we are talking is also when it became trendy, acceptable, necessary for players to leave early even if they weren't going to be lottery picks. "If you can get a check you have to leave" mentality. What I find sad is that out of Grant, Richardson, Ennis, McCullough, Lydon, NONE of them have been worth a damn in the NBA. Why am I supposed to give a damn that they're getting paid? I'm a Syracuse fan.

Why would you stay in school and not get paid when you can get paid anywhere else for your services.
Pro coaching is also way better than college coaching.

These kids owe us nothing other than playing hard while in school.
Ennis is finally developing he would a rookie now if he stayed 4 years.
Grant is having a really good year on the Thunder bench and he will get paid.
Lydon is a rookie. Rookies don’t contribute most of them. He is getting paid to develop and work on man to man defense something vital in pro ball and not zone.
Richardson has been okay and had his option picked up.
McCollough was never staying and if he didn’t have to go to college he likely would have tried to get drafted out of HS.

These kids aren’t paid if I could get paid and not do something for free when other were making millions off me I would get paid.

 

[Brooky03]

This would be like me saying if we had another Brandon Triche over Trevor Cooney in 2014 we win a NC.
Joseph was a freshman expecting him to be Ennis was stupid.
That is on roster mismanagement.

He didn't have to be Ennis. I don't think anybody expected him to be that good right off the bat. We expected him to at least be serviceable, though. It's harsh, but he couldn't even dribble the ball.

Should one recruiting miss result in 4 years of roster/pg issues? No, of course not. It explains the problems the team had his first two years. After that, it just made it harder to recover from other recruiting misses coupled with early departures and underperformers. The staff could have done better. The staff was also in one heck of a quagmire.

 

[ssbriefcase]

Who can explain the one narrative of, "we don't recruit small guards, they don't fit the zone" that's why we didn't offer Brunson, to, "we put all our eggs in one basket to recruit Quade"?