Oh look our two VC are in the top 100

[Cusefan0307]

That's great, but with our team, if we want to improve our chances at advancing to the top of the league, 'lottery tickets' like Kadary aren't the way. And we're not Gonzaga. Few accomplishes amazing things without high-ranked HS talent. They'd be great in any conference, but they're not in the ACC. I can't even name another team in their conference. Or their conference... : (

The point is, if we want to maximize our chances—the odds—of success in our context, we have to do better in getting more elite talent.

We have had our standards decline as far as what we (can) expect to get in terms of recruits over the past 15 years. That's commensurate with our league and national ranking declines. And we have a tendency to react by blasting the ratings—it's a conspiracy!... to re-inflate our own recruits numbers—'he played in Africa/Europe/Canada, so no one could see him!... to rationalize not even trying for top 20s because we weren't going to 'drop bags' and then cherrypick outliers (good players who were 50+) to justify the next 50+ player.

We'll get 50s to 80s kids and forum people say "we'll be just fine." And then we'll finish 7th in the conference and "just fine" is our new normal... And every few years, we'll have a nice tournament run, and some people will crow about that... meanwhile, the teams with the more elite talent are continuing to recruit the elite talent because they are nationally ranked, have better seasons, are predicted to do better in the season and the tournament, and have more 'impressive on paper' talent to compete against in practices. Those things are resumé fillers when recruits are assessing how attractive your program is. We're now competing with Rutgers and a greatly diminished UConn, and Auburn(?!) and a bunch of other programs that are also not elite. That's not "fine" unless "fine" = "average."

In the recent college basketball landscape one and done's haven't been winning titles. And there's a few examples of teams with recruiting classes worse than ours finishing ahead of us. Plus with the transfer portal I don't get why people are fixated on HS prospects. We can find good players in the portal Our issue is we have not had a point guard since Ennis left and that is the main reason we have been slightly above average.

Also, I am not cherry picking anything. The guys we have signed now are ranked higher than guys in the past 4-5 years. we have the 4th ranked recruiting class right now in the conference. I suspect if we sign Bunch, Carey and/or Starling we will have the 2nd or at worst 3rd behind Duke and UNC and that is right where we should be.

There's a portion of this fanbase that thinks we should get like 2 top 25 guys every season and that is the only way to win. Recent college basketball history shows that is not true. And it really has not been true for us even when we were winning 25 games a season. I believe that's happened twice in the past 25 years. 2007 with Flynn and Donte and 2010 with Fab and Dion.

So I guess if you love top HS players so much then you really should be excited for Benny Williams.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

My personal 'metric' for how good we are is not winning a national championship.
Ones and Dones do more for a program than that. They are pretty important toward doing a few things, most notably ensuring enough talent to keep a team at/near the top of the conference, and attaining top rankings, which gets tv programming... all of which feeds the machine to get you more top talent. All of which feeds the machine toward the ideal of consistent excellence.

Elite talent has options, and those players tend to focus on playing in elite circumstances—whether that means playing with other elite players or for programs that have elite performances. That hasn't been us lately, in either sphere.

Examples of teams with worse HS talent finishing ahead of us is also not a model for us. People like Few and that Virginia coach—they routinely field excellent teams without top 50 talent. That's not us. Again, that probably shouldn't be the model. And if you ask Few and that Virginia coach if they'd prefer to continue with players ranked 75-150 or whether they want to get higher-ranked players as they're starting to sign, i'm pretty sure i know what the (honest) answer would be.

Were we ever getting 2 top 25 guys? When we've been successful as a top quality program, it's been when we had top level talent relative to our conference. In the Big East, it was either us, UConn, or Georgetown that had the best players. And we were pretty consistently in that top 3. Then, add our 'unique system,' and that combination was our success formula. We no longer have top 3 league talent, and our system has been weakened by exposure and the overall system trends in basketball.

Who doesn't "love top HS players?" Not sure how that comment makes sense or is relevant. Every person here was much more excited to see Dior play in orange than Symmir. We all prize top 20 HS players. Doesn't mean we can't be fully in support of Every player we sign, though. Personally, i have missed only two or three broadcasted (tv or radio or web) games... total... since 1985. The waning rankings of our players hasn't eroded my interest in the team. And yeah, i'm excited to see Benny.

Sometimes it seems like the 'two' different factions on this site are People who want the best for the program and aren't affected by internal criticism of it, and People who are defensive at every step because that criticism is taken almost as an assault on their personal identities. We all want the best for the program—but some of us rationalize everything that happens so that the baseline is neutral and the headroom is all optimism.

 

[Cusefan0307]

My personal 'metric' for how good we are is not winning a national championship.
Ones and Dones do more for a program than that. They are pretty important toward doing a few things, most notably ensuring enough talent to keep a team at/near the top of the conference, and attaining top rankings, which gets tv programming... all of which feeds the machine to get you more top talent. All of which feeds the machine toward the ideal of consistent excellence.

Elite talent has options, and those players tend to focus on playing in elite circumstances—whether that means playing with other elite players or for programs that have elite performances. That hasn't been us lately, in either sphere.

Examples of teams with worse HS talent finishing ahead of us is also not a model for us. People like Few and that Virginia coach—they routinely field excellent teams without top 50 talent. That's not us. Again, that probably shouldn't be the model. And if you ask Few and that Virginia coach if they'd prefer to continue with players ranked 75-150 or whether they want to get higher-ranked players as they're starting to sign, i'm pretty sure i know what the (honest) answer would be.

Were we ever getting 2 top 25 guys? When we've been successful as a top quality program, it's been when we had top level talent relative to our conference. In the Big East, it was either us, UConn, or Georgetown that had the best players. And we were pretty consistently in that top 3. Then, add our 'unique system,' and that combination was our success formula. We no longer have top 3 league talent, and our system has been weakened by exposure and the overall system trends in basketball.

Who doesn't "love top HS players?" Not sure how that comment makes sense or is relevant. Every person here was much more excited to see Dior play in orange than Symmir. We all prize top 20 HS players. Doesn't mean we can't be fully in support of Every player we sign, though. Personally, i have missed only two or three broadcasted (tv or radio or web) games... total... since 1985. The waning rankings of our players hasn't eroded my interest in the team. And yeah, i'm excited to see Benny.

Sometimes it seems like the 'two' different factions on this site are People who want the best for the program and aren't affected by internal criticism of it, and People who are defensive at every step because that criticism is taken almost as an assault on their personal identities. We all want the best for the program—but some of us rationalize everything that happens so that the baseline is neutral and the headroom is all optimism.

I’m not sure what you’re arguing about here. I wasn’t getting defensive about anything. I used data to backup my argument. I said we are likely headed toward a top 2 or 3 class in the conference this cycle if we close out how I think we can here.

Personally, I’d rather put a team together that can win long term like Baylor, Virginia or Villanova than rely on one and done’s because that’s a better formula for us then trying to out recruit Duke or UK because we are never doing that and either is anyone else. Those schools
like us are still on TV plenty. I guess I’d rather win games then just churn in elite talent every year. That’s where our opinion differs and it works for 2 schools. North Carolina isn’t even recruiting this way anymore and they are the bluest of the blue bloods.

Duke and UK has signed or is expected to sign 9 out of the top 19 prospect for 2022. That leaves little room for everyone else to sign McDonalds American level talent. Couple that with the G league and overtime elite then it’s pretty apparent what is left for everyone else is ranked 30 and below.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I’m not sure what you’re arguing about here. I wasn’t getting defensive about anything. I used data to backup my argument. I said we are likely headed toward a top 2 or 3 class in the conference this cycle if we close out how I think we can here.

Personally, I’d rather put a team together that can win long term like Baylor, Virginia or Villanova than rely on one and done’s because that’s a better formula for us then trying to out recruit Duke or UK because we are never doing that and either is anyone else. Those schools
like us are still on TV plenty. I guess I’d rather win games then just churn in elite talent every year. That’s where our opinion differs and it works for 2 schools. North Carolina isn’t even recruiting this way anymore and they are the bluest of the blue bloods.

Duke and UK has signed or is expected to sign 9 out of the top 19 prospect for 2022. That leaves little room for everyone else to sign McDonalds American level talent. Couple that with the G league and overtime elite then it’s pretty apparent what is left for everyone else is ranked 30 and below.

The 'defensive' comment was global, and only partially related to what you wrote, defending our '60 and 80'-ranked recruits as being "just fine" for what we need to be what we need to be.

The thing is, i don't believe you can discuss Baylor, Virginia, and Villanova as models for how we are going to be successful. That's like saying we should all do what the Tampa Bay Rays do in baseball—let's win the best division in baseball with no fans and no money. Sounds good, but those situations aren't useful as predictable models if you don't have the entire structure to do that. A lot of the opinion on this probably depends on how you rate our staff. If you see a HoFer on the bench, then you probably don't think that aspect of the equation is the hanging point, for example, and then it becomes even more of a challenge to find 'reasons why not'—why we can't just do the same thing as Baylor.

We probably don't differ all that much on these matters, but i'm seeing a larger gap between the recruiting area i'd like to be in than you are seeing... possibly. When we're talking about a recruit at 80, that might also mean he's the 35th best at his position in his class (generalizing—not related to specific recruits). And i'm looking at it like this: we are a top 10 team historically, we have a premier coaching name at the top, we have one of the top 5 playing environments, we have a school with top 5 curricula in certain attractive departments, we have space in the New York media, and we're in the best conference in the country. If we want to be in the upper echelon of quality teams in that conference, we need to be stocking and re-stocking our roster with better than '35th best' position players.

Maybe it's just that simple for my way of thinking about it? And, again—i've said it before—i 'love' any kid who commits to my alma mater. They become ours. They become 'family,' whether they're a #1 recruit or #150. But, what i'm seeing is us finishing middle of the pack and then getting 80th-ranked players who basically are just going to continue what we've been seeing. And then more rationalizations about the number of 60-80 ranked players contributing to an overall 'top five' class, but those kids are going to be playing against top 20 and top 50 kids, so the aggregate 'class math' doesn't matter.

 

[Cusefan0307]

The 'defensive' comment was global, and only partially related to what you wrote, defending our '60 and 80'-ranked recruits as being "just fine" for what we need to be what we need to be.

The thing is, i don't believe you can discuss Baylor, Virginia, and Villanova as models for how we are going to be successful. That's like saying we should all do what the Tampa Bay Rays do in baseball—let's win the best division in baseball with no fans and no money. Sounds good, but those situations aren't useful as predictable models if you don't have the entire structure to do that. A lot of the opinion on this probably depends on how you rate our staff. If you see a HoFer on the bench, then you probably don't think that aspect of the equation is the hanging point, for example, and then it becomes even more of a challenge to find 'reasons why not'—why we can't just do the same thing as Baylor.

We probably don't differ all that much on these matters, but i'm seeing a larger gap between the recruiting area i'd like to be in than you are seeing... possibly. When we're talking about a recruit at 80, that might also mean he's the 35th best at his position in his class (generalizing—not related to specific recruits). And i'm looking at it like this: we are a top 10 team historically, we have a premier coaching name at the top, we have one of the top 5 playing environments, we have a school with top 5 curricula in certain attractive departments, we have space in the New York media, and we're in the best conference in the country. If we want to be in the upper echelon of quality teams in that conference, we need to be stocking and re-stocking our roster with better than '35th best' position players.

Maybe it's just that simple for my way of thinking about it? And, again—i've said it before—i 'love' any kid who commits to my alma mater. They become ours. They become 'family,' whether they're a #1 recruit or #150. But, what i'm seeing is us finishing middle of the pack and then getting 80th-ranked players who basically are just going to continue what we've been seeing. And then more rationalizations about the number of 60-80 ranked players contributing to an overall 'top five' class, but those kids are going to be playing against top 20 and top 50 kids, so the aggregate 'class math' doesn't matter.

How is Villanova comparable to the Tampa Bay Rays? They are one of our peer schools for recruits. The same can be said for UConn, Michigan, Sparty, Louisville and whoever else you want to put in there. That's where I disagree. We are in next group below the blue bloods. We have won with that talent before. Our biggest issue is we haven't had a pg.

You seem to be asking us to recruit at a level nobody else can do besides Duke or UK. And then Kansas gets their scraps just below them.

UNC's 4 guys signed are ranked 34/49/81/149. That's going to be similar to what we end up with. I think you're asking us to consistently sign guys that we have never consistently signed and nobody else has either. Most schools outside of Duke or UK get maybe a top 25-30 player once every other year. Nobody else is signing elite talent like those schools because with the one and done rule schools are turning over their roster every season. There isn't a year that goes by where the two schools don't need players and even then both schools had it blow up in their faces last season.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

How is Villanova comparable to the Tampa Bay Rays? They are one of our peer schools for recruits. The same can be said for UConn, Michigan, Sparty, Louisville and whoever else you want to put in there. That's where I disagree. We are in next group below the blue bloods. We have won with that talent before. Our biggest issue is we haven't had a pg.

You seem to be asking us to recruit at a level nobody else can do besides Duke or UK. And then Kansas gets their scraps just below them.

UNC's 4 guys signed are ranked 34/49/81/149. That's going to be similar to what we end up with. I think you're asking us to consistently sign guys that we have never consistently signed and nobody else has either. Most schools outside of Duke or UK get maybe a top 25-30 player once every other year. Nobody else is signing elite talent like those schools because with the one and done rule schools are turning over their roster every season. There isn't a year that goes by where the two schools don't need players and even then both schools had it blow up in their faces last season.

I didn't say Villanova was the Rays. I'm saying the basic thought of saying we should do something like another successful program, when that program has certain unique variables that enable it to work under that set of variables—that's something that isn't a set of 'rules' you can universally apply.

No, that's not what i'm suggesting. Your characterization of my perspectives is pretty binary. There aren't just two tiers in terms of recruiting. To use your own 'blue bloods' standard, sure, there's UK and Duke and Kansas. My point is that we have been nearer to them than we are now, and the chasm is wide and we're just saying 'that's them and we can't be them,' so "it's fine" that we're competing against Rutgers and Auburn.

You ignored possibly my clearest illustration, where i said i don't like that we're struggling to get the 35th best player at his position in the country each year, and when we get him, we say, 'Oh, well, he would be ranked so much higher if he committed to X,Y,Z,' or 'He's only ranked #90 because he was out of the country,' etc. We've been doing that for 10 years and we have an ACC record to match.

I have no idea what the top 10-20 kids are expecting now, in terms of 'bags' or NIL. I think we ought to be players in that arena, though.

Bottom line is that, until we do start signing higher-level talent, we're going to be where we are. But, there will still be a contingent here who will say, "oh, it's cool, because (even though we're not ranked in the top 25), we beat Duke one out of three tries, and then we made the Sweet 16." And that's not a standard i am happy with. Everyone is entitled to their own standard. That will never be mine, though.

I've said it before—a lot, actually—that what we expect from our program may be very much dependent upon what it was like when we first arrived at it. My introduction was my freshman year of 1985. We had Pearl—who had been a national high school star. We had Seikaly. We were a power in the conference. And my soph year, we beat Carolina and went to the NC. Then we got Coleman. Then Owens... We were a force. Maybe that 'spoiled' me, but it was who we are and it was all i practically knew of who we were. A power.

And now, we're all up in arms about how Duke can basically have our backyard 4-star, just for the asking. I don't like that. It's not "fine."

 

[Sherman20]

I didn't say Villanova was the Rays. I'm saying the basic thought of saying we should do something like another successful program, when that program has certain unique variables that enable it to work under that set of variables—that's something that isn't a set of 'rules' you can universally apply.

No, that's not what i'm suggesting. Your characterization of my perspectives is pretty binary. There aren't just two tiers in terms of recruiting. To use your own 'blue bloods' standard, sure, there's UK and Duke and Kansas. My point is that we have been nearer to them than we are now, and the chasm is wide and we're just saying 'that's them and we can't be them,' so "it's fine" that we're competing against Rutgers and Auburn.

You ignored possibly my clearest illustration, where i said i don't like that we're struggling to get the 35th best player at his position in the country each year, and when we get him, we say, 'Oh, well, he would be ranked so much higher if he committed to X,Y,Z,' or 'He's only ranked #90 because he was out of the country,' etc. We've been doing that for 10 years and we have an ACC record to match.

I have no idea what the top 10-20 kids are expecting now, in terms of 'bags' or NIL. I think we ought to be players in that arena, though.

Bottom line is that, until we do start signing higher-level talent, we're going to be where we are. But, there will still be a contingent here who will say, "oh, it's cool, because (even though we're not ranked in the top 25), we beat Duke one out of three tries, and then we made the Sweet 16." And that's not a standard i am happy with. Everyone is entitled to their own standard. That will never be mine, though.

I've said it before—a lot, actually—that what we expect from our program may be very much dependent upon what it was like when we first arrived at it. My introduction was my freshman year of 1985. We had Pearl—who had been a national high school star. We had Seikaly. We were a power in the conference. And my soph year, we beat Carolina and went to the NC. Then we got Coleman. Then Owens... We were a force. Maybe that 'spoiled' me, but it was who we are and it was all i practically knew of who we were. A power.

And now, we're all up in arms about how Duke can basically have our backyard 4-star, just for the asking. I don't like that. It's not "fine."

Dude, what kind of lunatic jag are you going on and on about? You’re generalizing like crazy. Michigan State, Nova and UConn are absolutely the kind of steady tier 2 programs we have been peer programs of for decades and hopefully will continue to be. There’s nothing all that unique about Villanova’s situation that’s much different than ours, other than Jay Wright is 20 years younger than JB. And your math is way off. If you’re a top 80 kid, you’re going to be among the top 16 players at your position. Not the 35th best at your position.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Dude, what kind of lunatic jag are you going on and on about? You’re generalizing like crazy. Michigan State, Nova and UConn are absolutely the kind of steady tier 2 programs we have been peer programs of for decades and hopefully will continue to be. There’s nothing all that unique about Villanova’s situation that’s much different than ours, other than Jay Wright is 20 years younger than JB. And your math is way off. If you’re a top 80 kid, you’re going to be among the top 16 players at your position. Not the 35th best at your position.

Where did i say we weren't on a similar level with Michigan State, Nova, and UConn? In terms of national rankings, maybe? Yeah, i'll stand by that in two and a half of those cases.

re: Nova—20 years and not having announced a retirement is a pretty significant difference.

Top 80—i'm off by 5-15, depending on the recruiting service. There are kids in the 75-100 range who are in the 20-25th players at their positions. So, yes, as i said—i wasn't speaking about any one particular player. Generalizing. Concepts. Right. That doesn't really change the point, though. If you're a conference .500 team, and you're fighting to get players ranked nationally at 16-25 in their position, is that enough of a talent impact to get you into the top 4 of your conference? That's the question. If you think so, then say so—this isn't an argument. It's supposed to be a respectful, friendly discussion of a difference of opinion re: perspectives. And, if you look closely, i'm the one recognizing there are multiple valid perspectives. Was it really necessary to label it/me as "lunatic?" It's that kind of BS that takes an adult conversation into football board territory.