Bleacher Report on Jalen Adams

[Tenspro2002]

More important than this year's record is next year's recruiting class.

That is where Ollie will be judged.

I largely agree with this.

Another s****y year on the court will be more easily forgiven than another fart-balloon of a recruiting class.

 

[3rdbass]

More important than this year's record is next year's recruiting class.

That is where Ollie will be judged.

Well they are related. If uconn keeps losing I don't expect uconn to get a great class.

 

[RJScootin]

More important than this year's record is next year's recruiting class.

That is where Ollie will be judged.

So he gets a pass this year?

 

[David 76]

Conference realignment?

More like an ill-prepared staff. That's the reality many can't fathom. The conference is a curse no doubt, but our staff hadn't even been able to maintain its relationships with the kids who have committed to them. There's more to this problem than just the AAC. I predict UConn basketball will look very, very different in one calendar year.

One year he could not maintain his kids. One. We had 1 more transfer than the average NCAA team.
Plus we had a decommitt and I know that no other team had that problem.
We are in a bad place but it is hard to take you seriously when you go over the top, ignore injuries, conference, crazy parent and put it all on the coaching. Then be 100% confident the coaches will have learned nothing from the past.
Personally, I think Ollie has already begun to straighten things out. I guess I predict that the coach who could coach the hell out of his team his first two years, makes progress and returns.

 

[David 76]

UConn is a major business in a sense that if they want someone gone, they will get rid of them no matter how big or long their contract is. They would come to a mutual understanding as no one wants to be around somewhere where they are not wanted.

Ollie just needs to get it done this year. We have enough with Adams, Vital, Terry, Alterique, Kwin and Mamadou. Plenty of talent there to make the NCAA tournament. I've been one of the biggest and loudest proponents of going to the Big East, but with the addition of Wichita State, this conference is good enough to get at worst 3 NCAA tournament teams every year and as high 5 or 6. No excuses we need to see results on the court and on the recruiting trail.

PS: USC out of nowhere is now becoming a major destination for basketball talent again with minimal success at best nationally. UNLV keeps getting 5 star recruits yearly it seems including Brandon McCoy this year. West Coast Huskies same thing. LSU keeps getting good players despite having zero basketball success. Alabama and Auburn both moving up in this direction as well. No rational person seeing this can be happy with our recruiting.

This year

 

[upstater]

So he gets a pass this year?

The future is more important than the present.

Did Villanova get rid of Jay Wright when he strung together a few bad seasons? No. If you have the potential for a good future, you don't get rid of a guy that won a national championship 4 years ago.

On the other hand, if he doesn't kill it on the recruiting scene, there is no future, and he is done.

 

[Guapo]

How many more months do we have to have this discussion? The season can't come soon enough...

 

[MSGSeven]

This is exactly right. The blown leads and slow starts all point to a profound lack of preparedness on the part of the team and, thus, the coaches.

Imagine how differently the last couple years would be viewed if we didn't blow big leads or stumble out of the gate only to have our roaring comeback fall short?

I still maintain that the 2015 team had at least Sweet 16 level talent and should have never been in position to face Kansas in the second round.

I agree with the slow starts and blown leads being a problem but the 2015-2016 team was not very good. Their best wins of the year were a banned SMU team in Hartford and Colorado in the first round of the NCAAT. It took a miracle 65 foot heave just to make the tournament.

 

[KingAG]

I agree with the slow starts and blown leads being a problem but the 2015-2016 team was not very good. Their best wins of the year were a banned SMU team in Hartford and Colorado in the first round of the NCAAT. It took a miracle 65 foot heave just to make the tournament.

Why do people keep repeating the lie that "the shot" got us in the tourney?? It did not. TULSA MADE THE TOURNAMENT!! We should ban that dumb statement

 

[Hi-Low]

If we stumble through another mediore-to-awful regular season and have another class of nobodies and misfits lined up for 2018, AD Dave will pull the plug regardless of money. He just can't let a situation like this fester without any evidence that things are improving.

I agree the 2017 class is not stellar but another class of nobodies and misfits is out of line. Polley is a 4 * just outside the top 100 & Carlton is a borderline 4* top 140, they deserve more credit than nobodies. What top 150 in the nation list have you ever been on? Just a few spots higher and suddenly they are acceptable to you right?

Does anyone really know the difference between getting 2 recruits ranked 95 & 98 vs 2 recruits ranked between 100 -140?

 

[MSGSeven]

Why do people keep repeating the lie that "the shot" got us in the tourney?? It did not. TULSA MADE THE TOURNAMENT!! We should ban that dumb statement

Like you know what were you on the selection committee? We were a bubble team and the consensus opinion was UConn needed to beat Cincy to get in the NCAAT. We had like three quality wins that year Michigan (neutral), Cincy (home) and SMU (home) and none of those three were anything special. Whether we would've made it if Cincy beat us no one will ever know. The bottomline is that team wasn't very good.

 

[Huskyforlife]

I agree the 2017 class is not stellar but another class of nobodies and misfits is out of line. Polley is a 4 * just outside the top 100 & Carlton is a borderline 4* top 140, they deserve more credit than nobodies. What top 150 in the nation list have you ever been on? Just a few spots higher and suddenly they are acceptable to you right?

Does anyone really know the difference between getting 2 recruits ranked 95 & 98 vs 2 recruits ranked between 100 -140?

When guys like polley and Carlton are highlighting a UConn recruiting class, there's a problem.

 

[RJScootin]

The future is more important than the present.

Did Villanova get rid of Jay Wright when he strung together a few bad seasons? No. If you have the potential for a good future, you don't get rid of a guy that won a national championship 4 years ago.

On the other hand, if he doesn't kill it on the recruiting scene, there is no future, and he is done.

The present is attached to the future. If the team isn't good in the present it will have a direct affect on recuiting next season. Similar to this off season. Who could have predicted losing three guys and a top recruit.

For me the present season is more important than future. Future is so uncertain espically in college BB the way the kids leave early for NBA and are quick to transfer (add injuries).

The team has enough to be good and contend for AAC title. Ollie needs to turn this around and exceed expectations for a change THIS year.

 

[KingAG]

Like you know what were you on the selection committee? We were a bubble team and the consensus opinion was UConn needed to beat Cincy to get in the NCAAT. We had like three quality wins that year Michigan (neutral), Cincy (home) and SMU (home) and none of those three were anything special. Whether we would've made it if Cincy beat us no one will ever know. The bottomline is that team wasn't very good.

I repeat Tulsa with less quality wins, worse in conference record, worse overall record, and a horrible RPI made the tourney. There was no way we miss the tourney. Thats not me guessing thats logic. And that was the concensus before Tulsa got an at-large bid, after that anyone with half a brain knew that game didnt get us in


Edit:Tulsa had a better conference record....that's it

 

[champs99and04]

Why do people keep repeating the lie that "the shot" got us in the tourney?? It did not. TULSA MADE THE TOURNAMENT!! We should ban that dumb statement

It's not dumb. We finished with an RPI of 35 and that was with beating Cincinnati, Temple, and Memphis. Flip the Cincinnati game and you're probably looking at an RPI south of 50 with only two top 50 wins. At the very least, that places us in dangerous waters - we'd have been a combined 3-8 against teams that finished ahead of us in the league. For as much of a joke as it is that Tulsa got in, they did fulfill a greater percentage of the committee's arbitrary requirements and nobody would have felt bad for a UConn team that finished sixth in the American.

 

[KingAG]

It's not dumb. We finished with an RPI of 35 and that was with beating Cincinnati, Temple, and Memphis. Flip the Cincinnati game and you're probably looking at an RPI south of 50 with only two top 50 wins. At the very least, that places us in dangerous waters - we'd have been a combined 3-8 against teams that finished ahead of us in the league. For as much of a joke as it is that Tulsa got in, they did fulfill a greater percentage of the committee's arbitrary requirements and nobody would have felt bad for a UConn team that finished sixth in the American.

Match up Tulsa's resume to ours it would have been a national crime if they got in and we didnt. You have tie yourself into quite a knot trying to explain tulsa getting in and us not. I mean Tulsa had an RPI of 70...20 spots lower than our worse case scenerio

 

[champs99and04]

Like you know what were you on the selection committee? We were a bubble team and the consensus opinion was UConn needed to beat Cincy to get in the NCAAT. We had like three quality wins that year Michigan (neutral), Cincy (home) and SMU (home) and none of those three were anything special. Whether we would've made it if Cincy beat us no one will ever know. The bottomline is that team wasn't very good.

To be fair we also won @ Texas (though we got swept by Cincy).

 

[husky429]

I repeat Tulsa with less quality wins, worse in conference record, worse overall record, and a horrible RPI made the tourney. There was no way we miss the tourney. Thats not me guessing thats logic. And that was the concensus before Tulsa got an at-large bid, after that anyone with half a brain knew that game didnt get us in

Seriously that wasn't a bad season. Revisionist history here imo.

I wish it were more of a low-average uconn year, instead of a better one. But getting a tourney win and losing to a final four team isn't BAD. It's not great, but it's certainly not contributing to a lack of recent recruiting success.

If Jalen was a year older, I could see that team having 25 wins, easily. The stopgap of Gibbs was a tough spot for us at guard. Gibbs was a good player, but not a pg

I loved Shonn Miller's game.

I'm on the fence about how this season will be for JA. On the one hand, he won't have to literally play 40 minutes a game. On the other hand, he is a ball dominant player, and who knows how he and Alterique will mesh on the court together. So many variables involved. I could see him averaging 12/5/4 or 20/6/8 and not really be surprised by either.

 

[jibsey]

Agreed completely. The conference doesn't help, but it only doesn't help because the program is making itself irrelevant all on its own.

If you're an elite program, nationally relevant, it doesn't matter how crappy your conference is. You'll get big-time recruits and positive press. See Gonzaga.

The only way conference affiliation can help you is if you're a bad program trying to sell recruits on competing against the best (e.g. the very early Calhoun years). What keeps UK, Kansas, Duke, UNC at the top isn't that they play in P5 conferences, it's that they're consistently good-to-dominant all year, each and every year.

The conference is just an excuse. If we're performing to the expectations of this program, what conference we're in matters zero.

Tens I have to disagree with this. Those teams you cited are highlighted and promoted to death on ESPN daily with bigger tv exposure than us. From their preseason tourneys to the NCAA they dominate the conversation. If you are a 5 star recruit you want the biggest tv and national sports media hype you can get, and that ain't us. KO should recruit and coach better no doubt. I don't think Gonzaga gets the same level of recruit that Duke and a Kentucky get, they have a terrific coach so yes that is an example that you give but let's not pretend that getting players is as easy as when we were in OBE. And it's mostly about the players.

 

[champs99and04]

Match up Tulsa's resume to ours it would have been a national crime if they got in and we didnt. You have tie yourself into quite a knot trying to explain tulsa getting in and us not.

Not if we're following the committee's logic historically. If we had lost to Cincinnati, we'd have been 2-6 against the top 50. Tulsa would have been either 4-5 or 3-4 depending on whether we fell out of the top 50. They also went 8-8 against the top 100 whereas we would have been 6-9.

I don't agree with it - everybody knew UConn was the better team. But it absolutely could have happened.

 

[KingAG]

Not if we're following the committee's logic historically. If we had lost to Cincinnati, we'd have been 2-6 against the top 50. Tulsa would have been either 4-5 or 3-4 depending on whether we fell out of the top 50. They also went 8-8 against the top 100 whereas we would have been 6-9.

I don't agree with it - everybody knew UConn was the better team. But it absolutely could have happened.

Sure it could have. Not very likely tho IMO. I mean a 70 RPI is bad

 

[champs99and04]

Seriously that wasn't a bad season. Revisionist history here imo.

I wish it were more of a low-average UConn year, instead of a better one. But getting a tourney win and losing to a final four team isn't BAD. It's not great, but it's certainly not contributing to a lack of recent recruiting success.

If Jalen was a year older, I could see that team having 25 wins, easily. The stopgap of Gibbs was a tough spot for us at guard. Gibbs was a good player, but not a pg

I loved Shonn Miller's game.

I'm on the fence about how this season will be for JA. On the one hand, he won't have to literally play 40 minutes a game. On the other hand, he is a ball dominant player, and who knows how he and Alterique will mesh on the court together. So many variables involved. I could see him averaging 12/5/4 or 20/6/8 and not really be surprised by either.

They under-achieved. It wasn't a disastrous season, but to finish sixth in the AAC with the talent we had - granted Brimah missed some time to injury - is tough to explain. Credit to the staff for having them playing their best basketball in March, it just took too long.

 

[BUConn10]

Why do people keep repeating the lie that "the shot" got us in the tourney?? It did not. TULSA MADE THE TOURNAMENT!! We should ban that dumb statement

The power of ESPN, media, and public perception.

If the public thinks it, it's true.

 

[champs99and04]

Sure it could have. Not very likely tho IMO. I mean a 70 RPI is bad

Tulsa's RPI was 60, but I take your point.

Syracuse finished with an RPI of 68th, which I think was the worst to ever make it. You could argue that makes it likely UConn was in, but I thought it simply demonstrated the committee devaluing RPI (which wouldn't have worked in UConn's favor) in term of other metrics.

Guess we'll never know.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I agree the 2017 class is not stellar but another class of nobodies and misfits is out of line. Polley is a 4 * just outside the top 100 & Carlton is a borderline 4* top 140, they deserve more credit than nobodies. What top 150 in the nation list have you ever been on? Just a few spots higher and suddenly they are acceptable to you right?

Does anyone really know the difference between getting 2 recruits ranked 95 & 98 vs 2 recruits ranked between 100 -140?

To be honest, getting two guys ranked 95 and 98 wouldn't be good enough either. Still wouldn't have much of an impact.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Tens I have to disagree with this. Those teams you cited are highlighted and promoted to death on ESPN daily with bigger tv exposure than us. From their preseason tourneys to the NCAA they dominate the conversation. If you are a 5 star recruit you want the biggest tv and national sports media hype you can get, and that ain't us. KO should recruit and coach better no doubt. I don't think Gonzaga gets the same level of recruit that Duke and a Kentucky get, they have a terrific coach so yes that is an example that you give but let's not pretend that getting players is as easy as when we were in OBE. And it's mostly about the players.

If we were in the ACC or B10 we still wouldn't get that level of exposure or hype. If we were a perennial contender, we'd get the same exposure in the AAC as in another conference.

Gonzaga and WSU are just a few examples.

 

[Hurleyman216]

To be honest, getting two guys ranked 95 and 98 wouldn't be good enough either. Still wouldn't have much of an impact.

I think the character of the kids coming in matters a lot too. There are a lot of guys ranked 100-200 that end up being stars either because they were underrated or they just outworked the guys who were rated above them once they got to college. Vital is a perfect example of this. I'll take 8 guys like him who are going to stay 4 years and WORK their tails off for our program over the one and done guys that Kentucky gets. We just need to mix in those guys with an occasional top 25-50 (i.e. Jalen, Alterique). I personally don't think we need a starting lineup of all top 25-50 kids to win championships. That hasn't been the case in the past and I don't think it will be the case going forward either.

 

[MSGSeven]

I repeat Tulsa with less quality wins, worse in conference record, worse overall record, and a horrible RPI made the tourney. There was no way we miss the tourney. Thats not me guessing thats logic. And that was the concensus before Tulsa got an at-large bid, after that anyone with half a brain knew that game didnt get us in


Edit:Tulsa had a better conference record....that's it

Even though champs put you in your place let me pile on. I was wrong about the Cincy win so exchange that win with a win against a 20-13 Texas team (away). Tulsa had better quality wins Wichita State (home), SMU (away) and Cincy (home) plus they beat Temple during the regular season something UConn didn't do. If UConn loses to Cincy for third time they end up with almost identical records. In my opinion, the committee could have easily left UConn out and put Tulsa in. Your opinion is UConn was in regardless because Tulsa got the nod. Breaking down both teams resumes accurately we find it could've gone either way for UConn but don't try to act like you know for sure UConn was in when you didn't even know Tulsa finished ahead of UConn in the conference and had better quality wins.

 

[intlzncster]

If you're an elite program, nationally relevant, it doesn't matter how crappy your conference is. You'll get big-time recruits and positive press. See Gonzaga.
.

But Gonzaga historically didn't get big-time recruits for the most part. Few is a hell of a coach. And is great at identifying under the radar talent. Only in the last couple of years has he had good classes. And those aren't even Top 5 types.

He also didn't start out of the gate this way. He's built what he has over a large number of years. And make no mistake, the program's about Few, not about Gonzaga as an institution.

In 2016, Few had a Top 15 class. KO had a Top 5 class. You have probably heard about it now, but the Gonzaga recruiting class of 2016 will go down as the best in team history. Scout.com recently named it the No. 14 class of 2016 in all of college basketball.


KO's problem, as mentioned ad nauseum, is keeping and developing guys, and coaching over the course of the season. He's had trouble getting guys of late as a result of these three things, not because of a lack of recruiting ability.

 

[KingAG]

Even though champs put you in your place let me pile on. I was wrong about the Cincy win so exchange that win with a win against a 20-13 Texas team (away). Tulsa had better quality wins Wichita State (home), SMU (away) and Cincy (home) plus they beat Temple during the regular season something UConn didn't do. If UConn loses to Cincy for third time they end up with almost identical records. In my opinion, the committee could have easily left UConn out and put Tulsa in. Your opinion is UConn was in regardless because Tulsa got the nod. Breaking down both teams resumes accurately we find it could've gone either way for UConn but don't try to act like you know for sure UConn was in when you didn't even know Tulsa finished ahead of UConn in the conference and had better quality wins.

I stopped reading at champs put me in my place. There RPI was 70 ours would have maybe been 50. But for arguments sake say its true that we don't know if they would have gotten in. How could you then claim we were a miracle shot away from missing the tourney? You can't claim both, its a contradiction. Either you know or you don't. Play by your own rules. And their loss to a 12-19 oral Roberts cancels out the Wichita st win. We didnt suffer a loss half as bad