the fault Dear Brutus is with out top end recruiting

[dasher]

Let's start with this, Our recruiting the last two years has produced 4 excellent player/prospects. We hit it big time with Lydon and Mali. Lydon in the 80's was way under valued. Mali in the 20's, same thing. This year, battle and Thompson were also under valued. 4 starters. The problem is that we have not signed the top 20 recruit in either class. We are a national program. We have the best practice facility in the country. Bar none. We have still a great place to play our games. The Dome and it's 30,000 seats has to be a selling spot. and yet two years running, more really, we have not even been in the game with the top recruits. is anyone confident that things will change this year? I'm not. All of this other talk is blue smoke and mirrors. People want Lydon to be the player he isn't right now. A soph that gets 13 pts a game and 8 and a half rebounds a game is very good. Not to mention 80+ from the free throw line and 40+ from 3. but because we didn't get the guy that should have been the Man, we expect Tyler to be what he isn't yet. We can all debate about our offense scheme or the zone, it's players. We also hit a HR with the two 5th year guys. Can we hope to do as well again next year? Good luck with that. We need a rainmaker on this staff. What's Troy weaver where you need him?

 

[Toga]

Eggs. Basket.

 

[orangenirvana]

Great post dasher. Who or what is to blame for the recruiting failures? Obviously Gerry McNamara is over his head. Why isn't Hopkins the same great recruiter he used to be? Are kids turned off by the fact that Boeheim is so close to retirement and could call it quits at any moment?

 

[raf4488]

Yep, and the point guard position has really determined our fortunes more than any other position

NCAA seed from Flynn's last year through Ennis: #3, #1, #3, #1, #4, #3

NCAA seed since Ennis: banned, #10, bubble

 

[Jack Hall]

Let's start with this, Our recruiting the last two years has produced 4 excellent player/prospects. We hit it big time with Lydon and Mali. Lydon in the 80's was way under valued. Mali in the 20's, same thing. This year, battle and Thompson were also under valued. 4 starters. The problem is that we have not signed the top 20 recruit in either class. We are a national program. We have the best practice facility in the country. Bar none. We have still a great place to play our games. The Dome and it's 30,000 seats has to be a selling spot. and yet two years running, more really, we have not even been in the game with the top recruits. is anyone confident that things will change this year? I'm not. All of this other talk is blue smoke and mirrors. People want Lydon to be the player he isn't right now. A soph that gets 13 pts a game and 8 and a half rebounds a game is very good. Not to mention 80+ from the free throw line and 40+ from 3. but because we didn't get the guy that should have been the Man, we expect Tyler to be what he isn't yet. We can all debate about our offense scheme or the zone, it's players. We also hit a HR with the two 5th year guys. Can we hope to do as well again next year? Good luck with that. We need a rainmaker on this staff. What's Troy weaver where you need him?

Cant be easy to recruit kids from the Northeast but they would play only half their meaningful games in the NE. Not to mention, if they are going to play a bunch of games in south, they can just go to uk, dook, ul , etc and play most of their games in the south and in fact live in the warmer climate of the south. Look at our record since moving to acc, it clearly was not exactly about what was best for bball

 

[PhatOrange]

Need a pg

 

[raf4488]

Let's start with this, Our recruiting the last two years has produced 4 excellent player/prospects. We hit it big time with Lydon and Mali. Lydon in the 80's was way under valued. Mali in the 20's, same thing. This year, battle and Thompson were also under valued. 4 starters. The problem is that we have not signed the top 20 recruit in either class. We are a national program. We have the best practice facility in the country. Bar none. We have still a great place to play our games. The Dome and it's 30,000 seats has to be a selling spot. and yet two years running, more really, we have not even been in the game with the top recruits. is anyone confident that things will change this year? I'm not. All of this other talk is blue smoke and mirrors. People want Lydon to be the player he isn't right now. A soph that gets 13 pts a game and 8 and a half rebounds a game is very good. Not to mention 80+ from the free throw line and 40+ from 3. but because we didn't get the guy that should have been the Man, we expect Tyler to be what he isn't yet. We can all debate about our offense scheme or the zone, it's players. We also hit a HR with the two 5th year guys. Can we hope to do as well again next year? Good luck with that. We need a rainmaker on this staff. What's Troy weaver where you need him?

I'm all for bringing in a good recruiter with absolutely zero ties to SU. We may be better off having an outsider's perspective

 

[BlackSquirrels]

I don't think it's top end talent. SU has had enough hits. I think the problem is the misses have been way, way off. Here are the classes starting with 2013:

2013: Ennis, Roberson, Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh
2014: McCullough, Joseph
2015: Richardson, Lydon, Diagne, Howard
2016: Battle, Thompson, Moyer

Ennis, Richards and Lydon were all hits.

Battle and Thompson may outperform their rankings and become hits.

McCullough is tough to classify but he obviously had a lot of talent that he didn't show at SU.

Then it gets ugly.

Roberson was a contributor but didn't develop as into the player we hoped.

Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh and Joseph were encouraged to transfer. Howard might be as well. Diagne never made it to campus. So we have 5, and possibly 6, guys who never contributed to a winning team.

 

[dasher]

Cant be easy to recruit kids from the Northeast but they would play only half their meaningful games in the NE. Not to mention, if they are going to play a bunch of games in south, they can just go to uk, dook, ul , etc and play most of their games in the south and in fact live in the warmer climate of the south. Look at our record since moving to acc, it clearly was not exactly about what was best for bball

The same stuff was said in the early 200's before Weaver got here. It isn't the weather. This is about basketball. These kids have grown up with snow. I'm not asking us to sign kids from Florida. But kids from Cali used to come here. Salesman sell. We have a lot to sell. The Melo Center, the ACC, the Dome, the school, the history. The right salesman would sell the hell out of this place. I'm not asking for kentucky or Duke recruiting. I am saying that 1 top 20 kid a year should come here. And that hasn't been happening.

 

[dasher]

I don't think it's top end talent. SU has had enough hits. I think the problem is the misses have been way, way off. Here are the classes starting with 2013:

2013: Ennis, Roberson, Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh
2014: McCullough, Joseph
2015: Richardson, Lydon, Diagne, Howard
2016: Battle, Thompson, Moyer

Ennis, Richards and Lydon were all hits.

Battle and Thompson may outperform their rankings and become hits.

McCullough is tough to classify but he obviously had a lot of talent that he didn't show at SU.

Then it gets ugly.

Roberson was a contributor but didn't develop as into the player we hoped.

Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh and Joseph were encouraged to transfer. Howard might be as well. Diagne never made it to campus. So we have 5, and possibly 6, guys who never contributed to a winning team.

It's still top end talent. You don't miss as much with them.

 

[two3zone]

I think the 30k is nice, and while some kids may like that and want that, I don't think it's a big as a deal as we make it.

The Melo Center has been open for 8 years now, it's not outdated but it's not the best, many teams have made improvements the past few years including teams that aren't even in our stratosphere. Again, nice to have and it is awesome, but others have better.

We have hit some home runs with recruiting. Lydon, Battle, Mali but we've also had some bad luck, McCullough, and we've had guys who just didn't develop like Roberson. We've had some guys leave early but all programs of our caliber do, the issue is recruiting and scouting. Is Gmac a guy who should be in the spot he is? Are we hardcore recruiting like a Calipari and other schools? I don't know but will take Francis's word for it, JB doesn't go to high school games. That's a problem.

My question is, why we weren't able to sign one top 100 guy this year when we had 5 spots open? Ok, one guy might be but is Canadian, but one? That's not acceptable and at the point we are at the blind trust we have is wearing thin with a lot of people.

While I can name 100 great things about a basketball player coming to Syracuse, even as a fan I can name some big ones right off the bad about why it would be a bad decision to come here. Our National reputation was probably never higher than it was the year Wes was here up until MCW's final four year. Last year was nice, but in all reality it did nothing but give us something to brag about, it doesn't help that it was mentioned that "it was questionable that we were even supposed to be there" every single game in the tournament. We don't recruit nationally and we're losing guys that are in our wheelhouse and when teams like Nova changing the tide in recruiting it doesn't help. We've had a ton of great Philly guys come through here, fast forward to now, why would a Philly kid want to go to Syracuse over Nova? That hurts, if Nova was what it is now, does Scoop, RJ, and Waiters end up here? Who knows, they may have, but take away one of those guys from the teams they played on and we're in the spot we are now.

I've gotten the reputation around here of being negative and saying that the walls are crashing down but none of this should be a surprise by the way recruiting has gone as a whole the past 4 years. We're targeting guys who had no business being offered, we're recruiting for positions we really don't need more than others and seems like we're picking names out of a hat. Look at it this way, if Howard doesn't come back, we have ONE guard on the roster next season and that's Battle. If Howard comes back, we still need another guard who can play 20 minutes a game and play it well, we know what guard play means to this game, especially our zone.

We can all hope and mark it in pencil that everybody will improve but our recent history shows that we cannot count on that. We're incredibly thin next year and an injury to a guard away from playing walk-ons even if we get another two to commit.

I want to say the future is bright, but right now we need a Melo impact player, a guy who can put his team on his back and carry us to a future, Carmelo did that, if we don't have a Melo like player then we're really going to have to do a almost error free job recruiting.

 

[Jack Hall]

The same stuff was said in the early 200's before Weaver got here. It isn't the weather. This is about basketball. These kids have grown up with snow. I'm not asking us to sign kids from Florida. But kids from Cali used to come here. Salesman sell. We have a lot to sell. The Melo Center, the ACC, the Dome, the school, the history. The right salesman would sell the hell out of this place. I'm not asking for kentucky or Duke recruiting. I am saying that 1 top 20 kid a year should come here. And that hasn't been happening.

Yep Cali and Detroit too; now we only go for kids in NE but our opponents are outside our recruiting zone. Imo Hop is as good a recruiter as Weaver but obviously now there are other extenuating circumstances , id say 2 or 3

 

[cmr27]

It's still top end talent. You don't miss as much with them.

Do you think the coaching transition has caused some recruits to move away from 'Cuse?

It's a high class problem. We've had an all-time great coach but nothing lasts forever and the competition will be looking to take advantage of the transition.

 

[two3zone]

I don't think it's top end talent. SU has had enough hits. I think the problem is the misses have been way, way off. Here are the classes starting with 2013:

2013: Ennis, Roberson, Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh
2014: McCullough, Joseph
2015: Richardson, Lydon, Diagne, Howard
2016: Battle, Thompson, Moyer

Ennis, Richards and Lydon were all hits.

Battle and Thompson may outperform their rankings and become hits.

McCullough is tough to classify but he obviously had a lot of talent that he didn't show at SU.

Then it gets ugly.

Roberson was a contributor but didn't develop as into the player we hoped.

Johnson, Patterson, Obokoh and Joseph were encouraged to transfer. Howard might be as well. Diagne never made it to campus. So we have 5, and possibly 6, guys who never contributed to a winning team.

This is the problem, the guys I highlighted were top end guys coming in. Figure half of them leave early which is kinda true. Problem is the others were either very flawed (TT with his defense) or just stunk. I think BJ could have been serviceable but Patterson, Chinoso, Joseph, and Howard were complete bombs. You can't have that many misses in such a short period especially with early entrants. Jury is out on Moyer but I just don't see him being a huge impact guy. Seems like a smaller 4 and a less skilled Roberson at the same age.

 

[dasher]

Do you think the coaching transition has caused some recruits to move away from 'Cuse?

It's a high class problem. We've had an all-time great coach but nothing lasts forever and the competition will be looking to take advantage of the transition.

Well, it couldn't have been helping.

 

[Jasoncuse]

We have a number of issues right now, some minor, others possibly holding us back. All indications seem to be our recruiters and methods need to pick up. When was the last time JB was out watching kids play (that weren't playing against his own kids)?? Seems like we rarely hear Hop is out looking at guys. The Quade Green fiasco seems more like a culmination of things than an individual miss.

There is absolutely no reason a program like ours shouldn't have a top end PG (or 2) every year. We barely even recruit the position anymore, it seems. Beyond PG, we are desperate for guards every year. What is going on? Do kids simply not want to play 100% zone? Do kids not want to deal with a possible HC change during their time on campus? Are these kids not getting the same love from us they get from other schools? With all that we're losing after the season, we needed a big, talented 2017 class. That seems like a pipe dream, even if we add Ayala and maybe another.
This is definitely a rough stretch for the program but we just don't know when things, if any time soon, will spike up.

 

[RF2044]

Great OP, Dash. The problem isn't easy to define or remediate, because it is multi-dimensional. There isn't a magic bullet. And a lot of this has been discussed throughout the season. In no particular order...

• JB's pending retirement--which hasn't been much of an issue on the recruiting trail until this season--finally became a factor, now that the finish line is finally in sight

• JB also hasn't been as proactive on the recruiting trail

• We've unnecessarily restricted our focus to the east coast

• And we've unnecessarily restricted the targets we've gone after to a handful of targets, while simultaneously ignoring some top notch prospects we had an "in" with who might have been true difference makers and created a "buzz" amongst other recruits [see: Michael Porter]

• We put all of our eggs into a couple of baskets at PG / SG for the class of 2017, and it backfired

• Bringing in 5th year transfers paid off, as both players were all they were cracked up to be, but it took a long time to integrate them defensively

• Players we were expecting to make a sophomore leap, like Joseph and Franklin Howard, busted

• We passed over players that really wanted to come here like Monte Morris [four year starter at ISU] and Jaquan Newton [who burned us today], who would have been better program assets than the players we passed them over for

• Players like Roberson and Coleman regressed

• McCullough got injured, and didn't make much of an impact because of that

• Guys who were brought in to be shooters like BJ and Patterson couldn't hit the broad side of a barn

• The NCAA sanctions scared away a guy we might have landed in Thomas Bryant who would have had a HUGE impact on our interior these past two seasons, singlehandedly shoring up both teams' biggest weakness

• The scholarship restrictions gave us a smaller margin for error in terms of "missing" on the recruiting trail, but we've "missed" at a higher rate than usual in a couple of recent classes

Lots of factors.

 

[Toga]

• • We've unnecessarily restricted our focus to the east coast.
  • And we've unnecessarily restricted the targets we've gone after to a handful of targets, while simultaneously ignoring some top notch prospects we had an "in" with who might have been true difference makers and created a "buzz" amongst other recruits [see: Michael Porter].
  • We put all of our eggs into a couple of baskets at PG / SG for the class of 2017, and it backfired.
  
  Why? Why? And Why?

 

[OrangeXtreme]

We have a number of issues right now, some minor, others possibly holding us back. All indications seem to be our recruiters and methods need to pick up. When was the last time JB was out watching kids play (that weren't playing against his own kids)?? Seems like we rarely hear Hop is out looking at guys. The Quade Green fiasco seems more like a culmination of things than an individual miss.

We're still limited to only two recruiters until the end of May. IMO, Hop/GMac/Red can cover a heckuva lot more ground on a recruiting trip than JB can.

 

[Jasoncuse]

Great OP, Dash. The problem isn't easy to define or remediate, because it is multi-dimensional. There isn't a magic bullet. And a lot of this has been discussed throughout the season. In no particular order...

• JB's pending retirement--which hasn't been much of an issue on the recruiting trail until this season--finally became a factor, now that the finish line is finally in sight

• JB also hasn't been as proactive on the recruiting trail

• We've unnecessarily restricted our focus to the east coast

• And we've unnecessarily restricted the targets we've gone after to a handful of targets, while simultaneously ignoring some top notch prospects we had an "in" with who might have been true difference makers and created a "buzz" amongst other recruits [see: Michael Porter]

• We put all of our eggs into a couple of baskets at PG / SG for the class of 2017, and it backfired

• Bringing in 5th year transfers paid off, as both players were all they were cracked up to be, but it took a long time to integrate them defensively

• Players we were expecting to make a sophomore leap, like Joseph and Franklin Howard, busted

• Players like Roberson and Coleman regressed

• McCullough got injured, and didn't make much of an impact because of that

• Guys who were brought in to be shooters like BJ and Patterson couldn't hit the broad side of a barn

• The NCAA sanctions scared away a guy we might have landed in Thomas Bryant who would have had a HUGE impact on our interior these past two seasons, singlehandedly shoring up both teams' biggest weakness

• The scholarship restrictions gave us a smaller margin for error in terms of "missing" on the recruiting trail, but we've "missed" at a higher rate than usual in a couple of recent classes

Lots of factors.

The most glaring issues you mentioned are the self-inflicted ones. The JB not recruiting, the desire to stick to the east coast, the lack of going after multiple players at the same position at the same time, recruiting for 100% zone play, etc. At a time when we needed to get out and outwork the competition, it appears the staff did just the opposite. That's why our struggles are so annoying. It's not just that we've had a bunch of misses on who we brought in, it's the inability to work to replace those misses.

And this doesn't even include a complete lack of offensive sets and half court focus.

 

[Toga]

We're still limited to only two recruiters until the end of May. IMO, Hop/GMac/Red can cover a heckuva lot more ground on a recruiting trip than JB can.

How does that work? Only two at any one time - or something else?

 

[two3zone]

We're still limited to only two recruiters until the end of May. IMO, Hop/GMac/Red can cover a heckuva lot more ground on a recruiting trip than JB can.

Gmac may cover ground but does it matter if he misses or his evaluation is way off? Not a good start for the kid.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

How does that work? Only two at any one time - or something else?

No more than two on the road at any one time.

 

[Lowtop]

Quade Green was no fiasco. He got a U.K. offer that gives him as a 6 footer a shot at the league. Kentucky offers a bigger stage and better teammates. It's an easier path to the NBA for a kid who some don't think is an automatic pro.

Just a dose of reality.

 

[Toga]

Quade Green was no fiasco. He got a U.K. offer that gives him as a 6 footer a shot at the league. Kentucky offers a bigger stage and better teammates. It's an easier path to the NBA for a kid who some don't think is an automatic pro.

Just a dose of reality.

The issue was no back up plan.