I wanted to throw my .02 in here. I think you have missed the SU change in philosophy from 5 years ago. JB is actively taking very talented 2 and dones and meshing them with his program players. I think he is now doing that because circumstances allow it - ie he can get the players now, after years of doing what VA is currently doing.
The uptick in the last 5 years is noticeable, as is the 30 win per year clip. Not a coincidence in my book. Starting with Wes, Fab, Dion, MCW. Ennis didn't come here with 4 years in mind. Neither is McCollough. Battle is isn't being recruited with a pitch of how good he will be in his senior year here - no, I believe discussions of what MCW and Dion did are more likely.
Your reference to a typical SU team consisting of one stud needs updating. IMO, that is not the plan. Looks to me like SU would gladly take Battle, Malachi, McCollough, and Bryant.
There is NO QUESTION that we are recruiting now [i.e., the last 4-5 years] better than we have at any time in program history, save for the late 80s / early 90s. But let's be honest: our data points are currently Dion and MCW--both of whom were talented two and dones.
The poster I was discussing this earlier wanted to use players like Devo, Harris, and Fab to highlight his point about players leaving early for the NBA. Devo and Harris were both interested in returning for their final seasons of eligibility, but weren't invited back [for slightly different circumstantial reasons that are well known]. Fab had eligibility issues that wouldn't have made him eligible to return. To date, two of those players never played one second of NBA ball, and one had a few token minutes before being cut and was voted by one sports publication as the worst player in the league last year.
I also don't think that Wes fits the argument. He was a prep school guy who was a year older when he got to college, then had to sit out a year after he transferred here--he was as old as some college graduates his junior year, which factored into him leaving after one season here. He didn't come here as a one and done candidate. He was a fairly lightly recruited college guy who went to prep, improved his offer list to get to the Iowa State level, and then Murphy had to convince JB to take him on. That he ended up being as great of a fit and as high of a draft pick was partly a happy accident; there's no doubt that JB thought he'd be a good fit / quality player, but I don't think anybody could have expected that he'd be a first team all american who would go #4 in the draft.
I agree that the trend might change, but I don't accept tossing Ennis and Grant out there until their respective stories are written--let alone downstream recruits like McCullough and Richardson, to say nothing of recruits we haven't even landed yet like Battle /Bryant--as evidence supporting the position you're espousing.
And even taking for granted that we land Battle / Bryant to go along with Richardson / McCullough, let's evaluate those players more thoroughly after they get here before automatically assuming that they are one-and-done or even two-and-dones. In the preseason leading up to Coleman's frosh season, there was some speculation that not only was he a strong one-and-done candidate, but that he was one of the most NBA ready frosh that year [Andy Katz made that claim as the court side announcer prior to our season tipoff against SDSU]. Roberson is another guy who I heard similar rumblings in the preseason--he arrived expecting to be a one and done. Obviously, that won't be the case. Coming in, Rak considered himself to be a one-and-done, and then figured he be gone after two years. Now, it looks like he'll be a four year guy who really didn't start coming into his own until mid-way through the third year.
Not that there's anything wrong with that--I'm just pointing out that I don't take for granted that McCullough is an automatic one and done or two and done just because that's what some posters are predicting. It might seem that way now, but maybe he gets here and struggles like several of our big man have and end up staying for 2 - 3 years. Richardson is one of the top prospects in the country, but that doesn't mean that he's a 1 or 2 year college player. Ditto someone like Bryant--maybe he's an undersized 5 who doesn't project well to the NBA and has a 3 or 4 year career arc at SU.
In summary, I absolutely LOVE the direction recruiting is going. I'm pleased as hell that we are landing classes of highly rated players who fit our system. I'm also hopeful that several of these guys pan out and end up being good pros. But I know from paying attention to recruiting for decades that there are LOTS of top 20 rated prospects who never sniff the NBA. So we'll have to see how these guys turn out; just being rated highly doesn't equate to surefire NBA careers. Maybe they will, maybe they won't--but as long as they end up being high quality players for SU, the NBA doesn't really matter to me.
As for needing to update my viewpoint--we'll see how things play out. Two years ago, we had an epic thread on the basketball board lamenting how SU only had 2 players in the NBA [Melo and Wes], and how it might go down to 1 if Wes got cut early in the season when he wasn't getting PT. So you'll forgive me for being semi-conservative when it comes to evaluating the NBA potential on our roster, recent past and present. While it would be nice to produce more NBA talent, although I'm way more concerned about how these guys perform at THIS level than I am about worrying whether they pan out at the next. Like you said--this trend of ~30 win seasons has made for a fantastic experience these past 5 years. THAT'S what I want to see continue. I think some posters would like to see us crank out more NBA talent, like many of the factories that we're legitimately competing against with at the top for these last five years, but we haven't historically measured up on that front.
