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Message: [QUOTE="Zelda Zonk, post: 3979492, member: 966"] 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 [I]in our context[/I], 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." [/QUOTE]

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