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[QUOTE="Brooky03, post: 2011312"]
USA bball helps you get your foot in the door but doesn't help you close.  Duke and Kentucky (and a handful of other schools) have more attractive pitches for the elite recruits than we do.

That's my guess.  Syracuse's climate alone hurts us.  The Melo center is awesome but can be/is matched by other elite programs.  The Carrier Dome holds a lot of people but there are other small arenas with just as much history that get pretty loud on game days.  Our zone probably turns away some dudes.  Our location isn't anything special, even for Philly/DC/NYC recruits.  Boeheim is nearing the end.  NCAA sanctions.

I don't see any one thing that we clearly have an advantage in over the elite schools landing elite recruits.  OAD is also something you recruit for.  Coach K only recently started cutting into Cal's share of the OAD market because K decided to put his focus there.  JB is on record as saying he'd prefer not to do that.

It's probably also worth noting that we've had arguably 2 top 5 Syracuse teams of all time since '06 and at least 4 teams in the top 10 all time.  So, roughly a quarter of JB's career here has produced half of his top 10 teams.  That's not too bad.  I don't know if there's any connection to team USA in there but I know the program has played some of its best basketball ever during the Team USA years.
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