People have to understand its hard to recruit to Syracuse. Sometimes the better recruiters are not able to solidify verbals. We have to keep winning.
Did we have sustained success leading up to 1987? I think we’re all overselling the win factor here just a bit. We need to flip Beatty from Maryland NOW. Monroe can’t do it all by himself. We need closers.
1987 was over 30 years ago. Things have changed. Harder to hide kids now with social media, hudl film, 7v7 events, recruiting sites and camps. Kids are not restricted to a few channels. They see a lot of winning teams and systems. That makes it easier to be influenced by the bright lights and teams that consistently win. The kids these days want immediate gratification.. They want to play with winners. If you don't think consecutive winning seasons don't play a huge part then I don't know what to tell you. We lose recruiting battles with teams that consistently win. We lost our influence in NJ and other kids to rutgers when they started winning. Taken Dino 4 years and It took Mac five years to get 87's results. You don't think the success of that team led to them getting better recruits?
Of course 87 was pivotal. All I’m saying is Dino and swag daddy are not enough if we want to see higher rated classes. If we’re ok with classes in the 40s and 50s and hoping our S&C make up the difference that’s fine if you want our ceiling to be top 25. I want to shoot a little higher.
I am as critical as anyone when the staff lose out on a kid. I also know its not easy recruiting kids to snowy Syracuse. I can tell you that Monroe is not the only good recruiter. Reno, Lustig and Reynolds are good. Ward is solid. Lewis was a big loss. Beatty is not going to change the dynamics of our recruiting. He will also be expensive. He might be able to convince a few more DMV kids to come but we can get them anyways if we consistently win. When we won 9 games 3 years in a row ( 95-97) we were able to get some big time commits from parade All Americans like Morant, Mungro and Spotwood.
My stance is that you always try to get more of the best. Get as many of the best coaches, recruiters and players you can get. I agree, thats how you have sustained success. Don't forget you need money to get and keep great recruiters. Good coaching and a established philosophy can win you a lot of games vs teams with more talent though. Lets not act like that can't happen either.
