Biggest Recruiting Hits?
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nelsonmuntz
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#1 is Nadav Henrfeld and #2 isn’t close. Nadav was the mother of all dominoes to make UConn into the program it is today. If Nadav picks St. Johns, UConn is a bubble team in 89-90, and UConn doesn’t get the 1991 class that brought UConn to the next level. Nadav was the missing piece for the dream season, which got UConn the 1991 class and put UConn in a different category.
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They did the same thing the year before to get Nik Canner-Medley. Played one of those pay exhibition games that was outlawed by NCAA shortly after. Gary Williams was a giant hypocrite whining about it.
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Stephon Castle
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I'm gonna go with Kevin Freeman and Khalid El-Amin. Freeman was a very late signee and I believe he kept rescheduling visits and was unsure about UConn till the very end. I'm sure if UConn had better options or if Langhi had stayed with his commit they would have moved on from him as he was a pain in the ass recruit (meaning waffling back and forth). I think Duke tried to get involved but Freeman was a low priority for them. El-Amin came in very late to the picture as he had been a commit for a long time to Minnesota. I think El-Amin deciding to come was a huge shock at that point as we already had Ricky Moore but Calhoun was really great at just making adjustments to the personnel he had (playing 2 big pgs at the same time or even 2 small pgs at the same time and having a flexible frontcourt options as well). I believe we beat out Kansas and Gtown in the end.
August_West
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Calhoun didn't cheat with that. He was an innovator.
He was the last one to get away with that though. They actually changed the rules concerning that specifically because of the Gay recruitment.
Beltway Ballers. LOL .
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cohenzone
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The Israeli duo, Henefeld and Sheffer are up there.
Of all the greats, the one player I think who hurt himself by staying home was Corny Thompson. Not sure if it was exactly a coup because he liked the idea of staying near home but in hindsight not picking UNC and Dean Smith , his other choice, didn’t help his development.
Of all the greats, the one player I think who hurt himself by staying home was Corny Thompson. Not sure if it was exactly a coup because he liked the idea of staying near home but in hindsight not picking UNC and Dean Smith , his other choice, didn’t help his development.
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Depends how we want define "hits..." Smitty was the original most important recruit. After that, I think it was a HUGE thing when we beat out a major power for a big time guy in Donyell. After that, it's Khalid. Khalid had already committed and decommitted from Minnesota and we came in late to steal him from GTown. He changed our program. Both CV and Daniels were fairly shocking commits as they both were connected to other schools/NBA and then kind of fell into our laps.
On the other side, I don't think anyone thought Okafor or Thabeet would be All-Americans and I don't think anyone thought that Bazz would leave here a two-time champion.
On the other side, I don't think anyone thought Okafor or Thabeet would be All-Americans and I don't think anyone thought that Bazz would leave here a two-time champion.
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Corny Thompson was a great player and an extremely friendly and gracious person to his young fans. His inside game was Emeka and Adama-like... I believe Calhoun could have taken the Thompson/McKay team to the Elite 8 or higher...
cohenzone
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Agree. Seemed like he came in highly skilled - great outlet passer in addition to scoring and rebounding - but kind of plateaued, granted at a level above most. He came in rated maybe #1 in his class, same year as Mark Aguirre who went on to a much more notable career. I think his class at UConn had another pretty good CT kid named Clay Johnson
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Are Terp fans still insisting he got a huge incentive. We heard that for years .
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Clifford Robinson is up there. Not a heralded recruit, but the fact that he was here when Calhoun arrived, academically redeemed and then developed from almost nothing (5ppg as frosh) to a part of returning UConn to a championship (NIT) winning program and creating a successful 18-year NBA career for Cliff was a proof of concept and recruiting tool that kept giving 1988 - 2006/7 (Cliff's last NBA year) and beyond. Cheers to the late great Uncle Cliffy.
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Sick Puppy
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What Dogdeacon said and maybe two other OG's - Chris Smith and Khalid. Not that no one saw it coming, but CS could have gone anywhere. He stayed home, took a shot with UConn and put us on the map. KEA, he was a McD AA top ten player if memory serves, which was a first for us. He brought us to the promised land. Those three. RIP Uncle Cliffy.
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I saw them play many times a big front line . They had some great moments and impressive wins. I don’t know about the tournament but that ( league ) 7-7 1982 team could have competed for the BE title with.
a Big time coach . Their guards were tiny but tough. I’m not saying Dom was a bad coach at the right level but he was overmatched against the sharks in the Big East .
They actually beat a Sleepy Floyd lead GT by 10, a team that lost a heart breaker to UNC in the NCAA finals when Brown passed to a Carolina player by mistake as they were playing for the last shot either down 1 or tied .
They were 8-6 in the league the year before. With the right coach either year could have been double figures.
It wasn’t as much UConn teams got worse it was more like after 83-84 many teams in the league made jumps forward while UConn got left behind.
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That’s exactly why we wanted him. He was dominating everyone in high school. His old man game was way beyond anyone else. I thought the Sanogo commitment was the beginning of the Hurley era. He delivered, but I can’t say big things weren’t expected.
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