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[SoBeCuse]

I'll argue it.

We didn't send GMac out VS Cal - it was against WorldWide Wes. Oh Lord

And since SU doesn't have an official bag-man like WWW , we lost. :bang:

We could have sent Boeheim, Joe Biden, and Vanessa Williams out, and still not closed on Quade.
His own HS coach stated that it was nothing that GMac did or didn't do.

I'm not going to go any further and speculate on what happened, or could've happened, or didn't happen. The head coach does needs to be out there more and that's not up for debate. Attending an AAU event once in a blue moon isn't good enough for some of these elite recruits. The other HEAD coaches are checking out their games on their turf. Now, I didn't think we were getting Quade anyways but we didn't help ourselves, imo. Maybe his H.S. coach was shocked he left it up to GMac. Who knows. Again, I'm not crucifying the Almighty JB but mistakes have been made plain and simple with the evaluations. It doesn't matter what the reasoning was. He and the staff mucked it up with those players listed above, mishandled Lonnie Walker now it seems, etc. Now maybe Walker WAS a strong Nova lean for awhile but Walker himself was puzzled why there was a long stretch of time where nobody from SU reached out to him and that's after he came to the Elite Camp. I don't know. It's obvious to me that something has to be fixed.

 

[OttoMets]

I don't think that the staff refused to give Bruson the time of day -- they hosted the player and his father on a visit to the Carmelo K. Anthony center. The interest just wasn't reciprocal, despite Jaylen being such a highly rated recruit. Which is crazy, because he had a ton of other offers. This wasn't just some marginal talent that the dad was trying to talk up with the coaches in hopes of garnering a scholarship--this was a very highly rated prospect with elite skills / impressive offer list.

In fairness, he's small [5-10, probably 170 pounds]. Not a guy who jumps out as a fit for our system. BUT he started a lot on a national championship team. And we know the predicament we're in at PG.

What makes me mad has absolutely ZERO to do with any old connections I have to the dad, but rather that PG is the one position where we shouldn't sacrifice skill for size--and yet we repeatedly do. Was Jaylen a McD's all American? Might have been--not sure without looking--but you don't turn your nose up at players of that caliber. Especially when PG is a position of relative weakness on the squad [which it was last season, forcing G to play there].

And this isn't the first time this has happened. Monte Morris drove up with his mom on their own dime to participate in the elite camp, expecting to get an offer. Despite playing well, the staff turned up their nose in favor of Ennis [despite the fact that we had a TON of scholarships to use that year, and that Morris said that he'd come here even if Ennis did as well] and he ended up at Iowa State, where he's been an all American caliber player for three years. Think we could have used him the last three years?

The following year, Jaquan Newton from Neumann-Gorretti [sound familar?] wanted to come here, but we were all-in on Kaleb Joseph and wouldn't let him commit. Joseph flamed out here, but Newton is a starter at Miami. Another swing and miss. Not suggesting that he is a world beater, but he's worlds better than Joseph was.

Brunson is just another example of a lengthy trend of strange recruiting decisions on guards made by the staff in recent years.

Good post, thanks for sharing all that (wasn't aware of the Brunson thing). Though it's probably not your intent, one can't help reading this as an indictment of Boeheim's recent decision-making. This will sound even more critical of Boeheim, but it's worth wondering how much any of those guys would've helped, since:

a) Boeheim is notorious for being uncomfortable using his bench, so it's possible none of those guys would have contributed here and/or would've been run off like Patterson and Joseph; and
b) Given how poorly the program handled Joseph, I have little faith that any of the other kids would've fared differently. I really think too many of our players have suffered due to the the tough love/quick hook practice, along with our slow player development due in part to a lack of fundamental skills instruction.

I get it; better to have more players than fewer, and it's frustrating that we never gave ourselves a chance to see how those kids would perform for Syracuse. But their success at other schools is no guarantee that they'd have been good for us, unfortunately.

 

[chugg21]

Just read through all of this...the thing that is really standing out to me is why so many guys seem to not get better at all in subsequent seasons. Kaleb and Frank in particular saw a ton & a good amount of time respectively and should've made jumps but neither improved whatsoever. Seemed Cooney and now Roberson made minimal if any improvements from their soph to sr years. Just seems these kind of guys would make huge jumps in the past.

 

[AZOrange]

Just read through all of this...the thing that is really standing out to me is why so many guys seem to not get better at all in subsequent seasons. Kaleb and Frank in particular saw a ton & a good amount of time respectively and should've made jumps but neither improved whatsoever. Seemed Cooney and now Roberson made minimal if any improvements from their soph to sr years. Just seems these kind of guys would make huge jumps in the past.

I think it's our biggest problem and one Dean pointed out in his pod.

 

[supp]

We do? Examples.

You're kidding, right?

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Maybe Thad Matta didn't want him? Dayton was on him though.

Matta offered him, so apparently he wanted him.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Maybe JB is on him earlier and gets him to sign earlier so it doesn't get to that point. Not saying that's what would have happened but the entire scenario hurt us.

It wasn't like Boehiem wasn't involved. The kid was on board and changed his mind. It happens, and there's nothing Boeheim could have done.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

You're kidding, right?

No. Give examples.

 

[IthacaMatt]

IF JB winds up announcing at the end of this year that he is retiring immediately, that might really hurt us with '17 signees. They might be able to get out of their commitments with a coaching change.

What signees? The 2 guys we got are good program players, but we missed on EVERYONE we targeted.

 

[IthacaMatt]

but, see, that's kind of my point. There doesn't seem to be an explanation. We all can agree that JB and staff know enough about basketball and what constitutes a good player that they wouldn't just pass on those players because they didn't think they were good enough and then settle for a Ron Patterson. Don't you/we think it's possible other stuff was at play that none of us are aware of?

For the last several years we have not put many offers out there at all, and we've acted like we are a selector school and our offers are precious. That's fine, but then you have to be able to give a kid a hard deadline, and you have to have a back-up plan or two in place. How did we wind up with nobody? I mean, it boggles the mind. We turned away the kid from Oak Hill "for Green". Now, we might not have gotten the kid from Oak Hill, but What?? Or how about that kid Michael Porter? We gave up on him almost from the very beginning! What again. How many times has that happened these past few years?

 

[IthacaMatt]

He hasn't been the lead recruiter in half a decade. Won't do the leg work. Sends assistants to get slaughtered vs K and Cal. .

Longer. Much longer. Our best recruiters in the last 20 years have been Troy Weaver and Hop, and even Hop wasn't on the road very much the past year or two.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I'll argue it.

We didn't send GMac out VS Cal - it was against WorldWide Wes. Oh Lord

And since SU doesn't have an official bag-man like WWW , we lost. :bang:

We could have sent Boeheim, Joe Biden, and Vanessa Williams out, and still not closed on Quade.
His own HS coach stated that it was nothing that GMac did or didn't do.

Look, we should have managed that whole situation better, and cut Quade loose if he didn't commit by the third week of October. But we didn't - and Quade didn't even announce until AFTER the fall signing period was over. That is mismanagement of a prime recruitment. That was the guy who was supposed to be the cornerstone of our class, and lead to another 3 or 4 top guys. And we flat out blew it. Period.

 

[SoBeCuse]

For the last several years we have not put many offers out there at all, and we've acted like we are a selector school and our offers are precious. That's fine, but then you have to be able to give a kid a hard deadline, and you have to have a back-up plan or two in place. How did we wind up with nobody? I mean, it boggles the mind. We turned away the kid from Oak Hill "for Green". Now, we might not have gotten the kid from Oak Hill, but What?? Or how about that kid Michael Porter? We gave up on him almost from the very beginning! What again. How many times has that happened these past few years?

Good post. That's the gist of it. Somebody else (Newhouser?) mentioned something similar. We aren't the kind of program that should be TOO choosey. We don't have and haven't had the depth to justify turning down all these big time talents like Brunson/Morris because of some handpicked scenarios. I don't get it.

 

[NKR1978]

Idk but if they are not good we need to advise them to Sean Lewis bc that mans Twitter game is FIRE.

Everything with the basketball program feels old fashioned. The football program feels so much more exciting.

Obviously there was no way to tell back then that they picked the wrong guys but they picked the wrong guys.

My concern is that we'd be having this discussion about Buss and Joseph being the successful players who got away.

 

[chugg21]

How much would a redshirt Jr BJ be helping our mindset right now. Might've cost us White but we would at least have another wing on the roster for next year and a skilled senior at that. Hated wasting his freshman year since he was so damn young and then hated pushing him out just as much.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Everything with the basketball program feels old fashioned. The football program feels so much more exciting.



My concern is that we'd be having this discussion about Buss and Joseph being the successful players who got away.

We'll see about Joseph. Patterson is not good. He had his best game of the year for IUPUI the other night in OT but they are a 9-12 team. He's only playing 24mpg there and only averaging like 9/2/2. He's basically a role player over there, too.

 

[50YRsofCuse]

Matta offered him, so apparently he wanted him.

Matta offerred 2-3 days before Moyer committed to Syracuse. He did not offer when Moyer and his family visited OSU campus.

 

[We Are Syracuse]

Everything with the basketball program feels old fashioned. The football program feels so much more exciting.



My concern is that we'd be having this discussion about Buss and Joseph being the successful players who got away.

I agree, man. Spot on. Lets hope the football team can get some results bc I am a huge Babers fan. As for basketball, cannot deny the great teams JB has had but it's just simply time

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

Matta offerred 2-3 days before Moyer committed to Syracuse. He did not offer when Moyer and his family visited OSU campus.

Right. Matta was late to the party on Moyer. Matta wanted Moyer after Florida and Syracuse offered.

 

[RF2044]

Right. Matta was late to the party on Moyer. Matta wanted Moyer after Florida and Syracuse offered.

If I'm not mistaken, Moyer's parents are Michigan grads. I don't think that they seriously considered OSU an option for a landing spot, despite living in Columbus -- pretty unusual circumstances in that regard.

They made a token effort, but knew it was a longshot. There was some minor angst from the buckeye fanbase over that one, but the writing was on the wall from the beginning.

 

[Francis03]

Otto's World: Otto's World Podcast Episode 21
Credit to the team for even inspiring me to do one of these since the last joint.

 

[two3zone]

Otto's World: Otto's World Podcast Episode 21
Credit to the team for even inspiring me to do one of these since the last joint.

YES!!!! Have something to listen to on the ride home now!

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

View attachment 55245
Just to let you know you're appreciated!

Is that Skylar?

 

[Toga]

Ahh - Pitt fans

 

[two3zone]

Getting me through the awful construction and traffic. Killing it Francis. Thank you for what you do.