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[QUOTE="Niastri, post: 10270, member: 722"]
Duke and North Carolina and Kansas and Kentucky and perhaps a few others all have All American recruits sitting on their bench.  They sometimes run off All American recruits because they have better ones coming in.  Syracuse is going to hit a glass ceiling with recruits, unless it doesn't.  We don't know if we are going to suddenly (and perpetually) be able to draw top 10 class after top 10 class.  But we have been around the top 10 to 15 in class ranking for about 10 years (according to RSCI).  We aren't far, but one hit on a top recruit in a potential down year is the difference between perennial Final Four favorite and perennial top 20 team.  Our short bench isn't going to hurt us, any more than it hurts the other big boys who get top players every recruiting season.  For instance, while we got top players in the last two classes, if we had gotten Demarcus Cousins instead of Riley in the 2009 class, would Syracuse have been playing in the Final Four spring of 2010?  What if our wing recruit in 2007 was Kevin Durant instead of Mike Jones?

[url]http://www.rscihoops.com/[/url]

2011 9th Christmas
2010 10th Melo
2009 20th Riley
2008 1st Greene
2007 19th Harris
2006 12th Devendorf

Going back as far as our Forth, Edelin, Pace and Warrick class, we have had good classes, even great ones from time to time.  Hitting on those one or two difference maker recruits would have been huge... BUT who remembers the guy who was ranked ahead of Cousins at the same position that year?  I was surprised, considering how recently that class came through.

The short bench doesn't hurt us, being just outside the top 5 programs and failing to close on the best of the best in most of our years is what hurts us.
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