Change in recruiting Strategy? | Syracusefan.com

Change in recruiting Strategy?

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We are making more offers than ever before but then again we have more openings. Historically we are a team that is relatively selective in its offers and it has brought good results over the years. Some teams, like UCon offered everybody under the sun and it worked for them. It feels like our old selective strategy is no longer as effective in the ACC as it was in the Big East. Obviously, it is hard to separate out the effect of the sanctions. The sanctions damaged our
image. For better or worse, are we about to change recruiting strategies? Now that we are in the ACC and we have been middle of the pack and on the bubble, should we cast a wider net?
 
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the staff is not allowed to talk about recruits, so all reports about offers come from the player side, and just because a player or his people claim that an offer is in hand it does not mean that one has actually been made

there is a pretense of knowledge in the recruiting sphere; we can't really know for certain who has actually been offered, who is claiming various offers in order to boost their own profile, who has misconstrued interest for an offer, etc.
 
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It seems to me that in the past earlier commitments were easier to come by. Therefore, the staff would get on a few kids hard, get their commitments for the foundation of the class and then have the luxury of being fussy for the last slot or two. Now, it seems harder get earlier commitments so the net has to be cast wider.

Yes, I know we have an early commitment from BG, but that is only one in what will probably need to be a 4 to 6 player class.
 
It seems to me that in the past earlier commitments were easier to come by. Therefore, the staff would get on a few kids hard, get their commitments for the foundation of the class and then have the luxury of being fussy for the last slot or two. Now, it seems harder get earlier commitments so the net has to be cast wider.

Yes, I know we have an early commitment from BG, but that is only one in what will probably need to be a 4 to 6 player class.


It’s also harder to predict what your roster of returning players will look like next year, much less two or three years out, making it harder to know what your focus needs to be.
 
I like that we are offering more guys. We don't play in the big east anymore, and that's effected recruiting. We don't dominate recruiting in the tri-state area like we used too. Nova seems to have passed us by. Playing in the ACC may allow us to expand our brand a bit further south. I like that we are involved in Canada, and Marek Dolejaz has worked out nicely too. So it's good that we are casting a bigger net. If anything I'd be open to casting an even wider net.
 
Regardless of strategy this cycle will be very telling. Sanctions, Hop are in the past. Plenty of playing time available. No excuses.
 
Maybe this view is too simplistic but I think the wider net mentality may have been greatly influenced by the failed all eggs in one basket approach we appeared to have taken with Quade Green. Not only did we miss out on Green as well as the others we didn't fully recruit, but as it turns out Green doesn't appear to be special so we sold out that year for a not sure thing that we didn't even get. This approach seems to make a lot more sense and hopefully will eliminate the grad student route as a need rather than a cherry on the top .
 
Regardless of strategy this cycle will be very telling. Sanctions, Hop are in the past. Plenty of playing time available. No excuses.

I would say our squad this upcoming season is very telling, especially considering our #1 recruit decided to decommit & Moyer who everyone was expecting to contribute when he sat out his frosh year moved on.
Carey was such a big-get, the boy is a man and i do think we will do very well for 19, i would sign on the dotted line yesterday w/ Goodine, Akok and QG and run for the hills. We will get a big man as well and then in 21 we are already on a few goodies.
 
Regardless of strategy this cycle will be very telling. Sanctions, Hop are in the past. Plenty of playing time available. No excuses.

I'm not sure I get the no excuses thing. I mean, how do you judge recruits (not you personally but anyone)? So if Braswell ends up being a solid 3 or 4 year player is that a win for JB or do we blame him in part for Bazely's decision? Is Dolezaj a win or is it bad that we missed out on our top targets even though we ended up with a really solid multi-year (hopefully 3 or four) player?

For me personally, I think the Quade situation sucked. Not sure if I blame the staff, per se, or not but it sucked and we obviously got hurt by that a bit. Washington is interesting but certainly not the best we could have done with that particular scholarship.

But a lot of the other stuff to me just falls under the natural bi-polar world of basketball recruiting these days. Things change so quickly and if you're flexible and OK with the fact that you may have to go into the season with Plan E instead of Plan A or Plan B with your roster, then you're in good shape. Obviously the blue bloods don't have to live this way and you want to be closer to the nova model than what we've been (thin and no continuity), but it's easier said than done.

Anyway, my point is, I'm not totally sure what grade to put on the past four years or so. We've still been really competitive and produced NBA talent, yet it's felt like there's a lot of scotch tape and bubble gum used on the roster. Is that a situation where you blame the coaches or a situation where you give them credit?

Anyway, just don't know that I agree that this one year is a do or die scenario because I'm not even sure that long-term a guy like Akok or Guerrier (if they are one and done athletes) helps or hurts long term.

It's a weird world.
 
I'm not sure I get the no excuses thing. I mean, how do you judge recruits (not you personally but anyone)? So if Braswell ends up being a solid 3 or 4 year player is that a win for JB or do we blame him in part for Bazely's decision? Is Dolezaj a win or is it bad that we missed out on our top targets even though we ended up with a really solid multi-year (hopefully 3 or four) player?

For me personally, I think the Quade situation sucked. Not sure if I blame the staff, per se, or not but it sucked and we obviously got hurt by that a bit. Washington is interesting but certainly not the best we could have done with that particular scholarship.

But a lot of the other stuff to me just falls under the natural bi-polar world of basketball recruiting these days. Things change so quickly and if you're flexible and OK with the fact that you may have to go into the season with Plan E instead of Plan A or Plan B with your roster, then you're in good shape. Obviously the blue bloods don't have to live this way and you want to be closer to the nova model than what we've been (thin and no continuity), but it's easier said than done.

Anyway, my point is, I'm not totally sure what grade to put on the past four years or so. We've still been really competitive and produced NBA talent, yet it's felt like there's a lot of scotch tape and bubble gum used on the roster. Is that a situation where you blame the coaches or a situation where you give them credit?

Anyway, just don't know that I agree that this one year is a do or die scenario because I'm not even sure that long-term a guy like Akok or Guerrier (if they are one and done athletes) helps or hurts long term.

It's a weird world.
If we get Akok and/or Guerrier it will be a very good thing.
 
We were talking a lot about recruiting in the Akok thread, and I thought it was more appropriate to bring it over to this thread where it belongs.

I stated several times in the past that we should perhaps avoid putting a lot of effort into the 5 star recruits. I suggested that we try to go after the 4 star guys and the highest rated 3 star guys. I suggested targeting guys ranked between 100-200 (I think that's the range I used) thinking we'd still get good players but not the one and dones that are holding out for the Kentucky or Duke offers. I got crucified for writing that we needed to readjust our recruiting strategy because we were losing the 5 star guys to the blue bloods. There was even an article in the Syracuse paper about the topic. Everyone said all is well. We're back. Sanctions were the "only reason" for the decline in recruiting. So I reluctantly said fine... let's bang with the big boys.

So why is it that im now being criticized for expecting an elite 2019 class? Sanctions are done. That's the part that bothers me. It's hypocrisy. I can't win no matter what I write... LOL
 
If you only recruit players in the 100-200 range, you can forget about making the NCAA tournament in the ACC.
All of the guys we landed in 2017 were in the 100-200 range except Washington who was 289. Carey is the only top 100 recruit in the last two years.

Whom do you think we should be recruiting?

If you say top 100 recruits then we're not getting it done. If you say 100-200 ranked guys we are.
Syracuse 2017 Basketball Commits
 
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All of the guys we landed in 2017 were in the 100-200 range except Washington who was 289. Carey is the only top 100 recruit in the last two years.

Whom do you think we should be recruiting?

If you say top 100 recruits then we're not getting it done. If you say 100-200 ranked guys we are.
Syracuse 2017 Basketball Commits
Your numbers are not correct, because 3 of our 4 frosh last season played their last prep year outside the US, and the rating services basically ignore anyone who does not play HS ball in this country.
 
All of the guys we landed in 2017 were in the 100-200 range except Washington who was 289. Carey is the only top 100 recruit in the last two years.

Whom do you think we should be recruiting?

If you say top 100 recruits then we're not getting it done. If you say 100-200 ranked guys we are.
Syracuse 2017 Basketball Commits

To bring over from that thread- Washington was 82 when still in the US. Both he and Oshae we're hurt by being in Canada where they are not ranked by US rankings sites. Similar issue with Marek as you can't even say he was 100-200 at all because he was international.

As I asked before how do you define elite or top 20? If it's rankings on paper purely then you missing a huge faction of reality as results are what are key.

Oshae, Marek, Bourama and Washington all contributed with Oshae and Marek having large roles and Oshae averaging nearly a double double. If that is not a top 20 class production wise then please define what is. Again not on paper but what is an elite class? How does rankings on paper mean more than actual production?
 
Your numbers are not correct, because 3 of our 4 frosh last season played their last prep year outside the US, and the rating services basically ignore anyone who does not play HS ball in this country.
Just using the numbers in the link.
 
To bring over from that thread- Washington was 82 when still in the US. Both he and Oshae we're hurt by being in Canada where they are not ranked by US rankings sites. Similar issue with Marek as you can't even say he was 100-200 at all because he was international.

As I asked before how do you define elite or top 20? If it's rankings on paper purely then you missing a huge faction of reality as results are what are key.

Oshae, Marek, Bourama and Washington all contributed with Oshae and Marek having large roles and Oshae averaging nearly a double double. If that is not a top 20 class production wise then please define what is. Again not on paper but what is an elite class? How does rankings on paper mean more than actual production?
Answer me this... since I already answered your question in the Akok thread...

Who do you think we should we be recruiting?

If you say 100-200 rated guys then we're getting it done (and for the record it's where I said we should target).

BUT If you say top 100... then we're not getting it done.

You can't see the hypocrisy?

You want me to define something that can't be defined. The only measurable when the players are in high school are the rankings.

If you want to talk about readjusting ratings afterwards that's different. The 2017 class overachieved. They didn't have a great regular season. They made a great run in a tournament they got lucky to make. Does that make them a top 20 class? I can't say. I think JB did one heck of a coaching job.
 
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Answer me this... since I already answered your question in the Akok thread...

Who do you think we should we be recruiting?

If you say 100-200 rated guys we're getting it done (and for the record it's where I said we should target).

BUT If you say top 100... then we're not getting it done.

You can't see the hypocrisy?

You can't see the fallacy of basing an argument on phony numbers?
 
Answer me this... since I already answered your question in the Akok thread...

Who do you think we should we be recruiting?

If you say 100-200 rated guys we're getting it done (and for the record it's where I said we should target).

BUT If you say top 100... then we're not getting it done.

You can't see the hypocrisy?

Actually no you didn't answer my question about how you define a top 20 class.

What hypocrisy? I did not say anything about top 100 or 100-200. You keep going back to the one link you posted as some type of single source of truth despite numerous corrections on how rankings are sourced.

The class I'm looking for is two fold. First it's about needs. You need impact guys and depth and to fill holes. Sometimes that's a big, sometimes that is a shooter sometimes it's a playmaker at guard. If a guy is ranked low but his tape is great and meets the need we have then that is who I want and what makes a good class. Ideally you want at least one top 30 guy if you can get him. Goodine is that type of talent so we already have success there.

Next we need another big and another PF based on expected attrition. Akok has been rising in the rankings but was much closer to the Fringe of your rankings you so cherish until more recently and I think has the exact tools and fit for our system. At guard since we have Goodine and will have several guys returning we most definitely need depth more than just a high ranking guy. I like we have targeted several like Girard, Guerrier etc and I think we are winning with any of those we have targeted based on fit. So it's not as simple as numbers here. We are already targeting talented guys that have a lot of potential and others who can bring something right
Away. That is the balance we need and a solid class. I don't see it as targeting based on rankings at all because what you get in output is the real value. This past years class really highlights that point.
 

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