Give him your answer

[AlaskaSU]

In JB and staff we trust.

 

[armory]

Games aren't played on paper.

 

[orangefan13]

First off Elite isn't about having a top 10 player its about having a top 10 team.I guess UNC's last two titles made them unelite because there were no nba stars on them. I guess Kevin Love proves how top 10 talent makes your team "elite".

JB recruits for team chemistry. I don't remember JB, Duke, UNC or UK going hard for lance stevenson. But he did go for Dajaun who was in the top 10 for a long time. Rak was ranked the number one center in america at a time as well.

MCW, Rak, Dajuan, Dion, Jerami Grant, Fab Melo were all mcdonalds all americans or jordan brand elite players. Ennis probobably will be there, and Patterson decomitted but was ranked 50-60 when his recruitment was open when he joined indiana. How he is at 150-175 right now makes no sense.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

If you look at ESPN's current top 10 class of 2013 rankings, the majority of the players are from places outside SU's main recruiting areas (DMV up to New England). The pool of top 10 players is small to begin with. The fact that SU doesn't have the necessary connections in some areas makes the pool even smaller.

(FYI, the top 10 players from that list who have not committed and are from areas where SU has connections (Wiggins and Vonleh) are currently being recruited by SU.)

The percentages of landing a top 10 player are tiny to begin with and geography makes them smaller. At most, there will be a few top 10 recruits located in SU's main recruiting region every year and if there isn't a lot of playing time available for those guys, they will pursue one of several other options.

Good call.

 

[Upstate]

Games aren't played on paper.

but they are played on a wooden court, which could be turned into paper and that is a fact.

 

[jekelish]

This is an insider article, ranking the top 25 impact players for the upcoming season:

http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-col...-top-25-impact-players-college-basketball-ncb

Awful lot of non-top 10, or even 25 or 50 or 100, players there.

Rankings are nice and all, but they mean precisely .

 

[stuckinbig11]

the simple answer: JB recruits to meet his needs; Calamari hires those who will take the deal

 

[Fly Rodder]

Games aren't played on paper.

Or more accurately, aren't played by the assigned grades by college basketball experts that absolutely cannot spend as much time with ALL recruits as recruiters spend with their group of 5-10 kids. SU has a system that has been fine tuned over the decades to win with players that may not be sexy top-50 recruits. SU did just fine before and now are arguably getting better overall athletic talent than ever.

Onauku was raw 3-star recruit and became so important to the team that SU would have likely made the final four had he not been injured by a cheap shot from a Hoya. Look at the re-rankings some sites do four years later.

 

[scottynguyen]

Tell him to google 'Chris McCullough'

 

[raf4488]

Great timing on this thread

 

[moqui]

Tell him to call your friend Igor.

Igor thinks everyone in Orange is a top ten player . . . this guy sounds like the anti-Igor

 

[Eric15]

Carmelo was not number 1 (Amare was #1) and was not top 10 when he committed. He blew up his senior year.

For some reason, I always thought Lenny Cooke (who fell off the face of the Earth due to character problems) was #1 in that class.

 

[MikeSU02]

For some reason, I always thought Lenny Cooke (who fell off the face of the Earth due to character problems) was #1 in that class.

Lenny / Amare / Melo were the top three (outside of Lebron obviously who was a junior) with Lenny obviously falling off, I believe.

The next group included Felton and Hassan Adams and Bosh and Jason Fraser. Maybe Shavlik Randolph? McCants?

 

[sufandu]

Maybe we're elite because we have a coach that doesn't need a recruiting service to tell him who will be good. Dion Waiters wasn't a MAA, but he was a #4 draft pick. I take the latter over the former as to whether he was a good recruit.