No crap it's for his brand, hence the reason why his brand is so damn valuable to his kids. What's our brand? Play in the McDonald's All American game go to Syracuse and feel lucky to get a cup of coffee in the NBA?
I'm not going to sit here and defend Syracuse over UK on what team, brand, and success has been better when it comes to recruiting because it's a foolish argument. There's a reason kids go there whether you want to believe it or not, and it's not (just) because of duffel bags full of money.
I am not trashing Syracuse, our stars mainly come from the middle of the pack in the recruiting ratings and it's because we get MANY 25-75 guys and they're recruited for our system. But right now we're not in the game of top 10 recruits and outside of Melo I'm not sure we have been since the 80s. This is probably the most important year when it comes to recruiting and Washington, Western Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn, Miami, Oregon, Xavier, Virgina Tech, Wake Forest, Georgetown, UConn, Mississippi State, St Johns, Illinois, Georgia, Notre Dame, Iowa State, and Arkansas all have signed top 50 recruits and we're still crossing our fingers we can even put a complete class together.
If we can start getting some commitments I'll start buying in, until then I'll be concerned.
As it stands now (and I know this isn't the final lineup as we will get commits)
PG Howard
SG Brissett
SF Moyer
PF Thompson
C 7'2"
and literally not one person on the bench. I have faith in Howard and Thompson, but that lineup would be lucky to win 10 games next year. We need a legit 2 & 3 and probably 3 guys that are capable of 10+ minutes a game for the bench. That's a daunting task for the staff, we saw them work wonders this off season but they probably have more work cut out for them this year than last. We don't have a Battle coming in and a Lydon returning next season and we hit a home run with White and Gillon. Be optimistic, that's fine, but the roses don't smell great right now.