Diamond Stone (Committed to Maryland)

[husky99]

Easy solution. . Do not open the thread...

 

[johnhuskies95]

I bet if you poll the ESPN Top 100 recruits and ask them, "Who won the National Championship last year?" I would bet over 50% would not say Connecticut. You would be surprised how quickly a national championship can be spoiled by a horrid season, let alone two down years. Not spoiled for the fans, the program, but spoiled in the minds of recruits.

Recruits think in the now - they really don't care what happened in 2011. And come 2016, they won't care about what happened last March/April.

Good lord that's a ridiculous thing to say. Maybe there are other things they care about more, but I think they all know who won it all.

 

[uchusky32]

Who's he?

 

[Durks07]

Who's he?

Not sure, but I think he works for De Beers or something like that

 

[tzznandrew]

Easy solution. . Do not open the thread...

I can't not keep being reminded of what we missed out by his name being at the top...even if I don't click on it. And then, I click on it hoping there's been some change of heart.

Not as simple as some of the other threads, though I take your point.

 

[Towney007]

My boss is on the Wisconsin boosters board. Apparently Stone to Wisconsin is pretty much done minus a second set of ACT scores. Take my SOURSEZ~! for what you will - but I'd put UConn a distant third to Wisconsin and Maryland at this point...

 

[jleves]

60% of the time it works every time!

 

[husky99]

http://m.jsonline.com/sports/preps/...-down-to-riverside-b99403421z1-285002941.html




Second time I think

 

[HooperScooper]

http://m.jsonline.com/sports/preps/...-down-to-riverside-b99403421z1-285002941.html




Second time I think

This article is from December 7. I knew there was something wrong when it said Dominican improved to 2-1.

 

[husky99]

This article is from December 7. I knew there was something wrong when it said Dominican improved to 2-1.

Sorry. Missed the date. Say it in Twitter

 

[CallMeBruce]

You act like landing two top-100 kids is disappointing just because they're from closer to UCONN than most?

I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. Look at the Rivals150 for this year and count up the New England kids. There are a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them every year, which means that we won't be able to get an Adams/Enoch duo quite so easily. Combine this with the fact that this should have been a dominant recruiting year with Ollie's extension, winning a championship, and opening a brand-new facility all at once. With all of this in our favor, we were able to get two kids who had always wanted to go to UConn anyway. We haven't won a single recruiting battle despite having more ammo than we're going to have again in a while. If that isn't disconcerting to you, then you're being deliberately obtuse.

 

[superjohn]

I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. Look at the Rivals150 for this year and count up the New England kids. There are a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them every year, which means that we won't be able to get an Adams/Enoch duo quite so easily. Combine this with the fact that this should have been a dominant recruiting year with Ollie's extension, winning a championship, and opening a brand-new facility all at once. With all of this in our favor, we were able to get two kids who had always wanted to go to UConn anyway. We haven't won a single recruiting battle despite having more ammo than we're going to have again in a while. If that isn't disconcerting to you, then you're being deliberately obtuse.

New England is absolutely loaded nowadays, there are a lot of them every year.

 

[Stainmaster]

I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. Look at the Rivals150 for this year and count up the New England kids. There are a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them every year, which means that we won't be able to get an Adams/Enoch duo quite so easily. Combine this with the fact that this should have been a dominant recruiting year with Ollie's extension, winning a championship, and opening a brand-new facility all at once. With all of this in our favor, we were able to get two kids who had always wanted to go to UConn anyway. We haven't won a single recruiting battle despite having more ammo than we're going to have again in a while. If that isn't disconcerting to you, then you're being deliberately obtuse.

The problem with your point of view is that it suggest that no actual work was put into their recruitment. KO and staff still had to meet these kids, interact with their families and coaches, and persuade them to come here against a bunch of other coaches doing the same thing. Adams had Kansas and Louisville coming in, which are two programs with a history of strong success on the recruiting trail. Enoch's prep coach has a history of uneasy relations with UCONN, and that probably took work too. It's easy for we message board posters to think that all KO has do to to recruit is press a few buttons on an XBOX controller. It's not.

I'm not disconcerted, nor am I obtuse thank you very much. To expect Ollie's recruiting to go from 1 5-star, one 2-star PF with no other offers, and a JUCO G to 5-6 Top 100 guys within the span of a year is ridiculous, NC or no NC. The current 2015 class as it stands is Ollie's best one yet. This is what you get when you hire a young HC without a ton of experience. No matter how likeable or knowledgeable KO is, he is going to be at a disadvantage at first simply because he hasn't been around as long as the Selfs, Izzos, and Donovans of the world. He will improve.

 

[Stainmaster]

New England is absolutely loaded nowadays, there are a lot of them every year.

And we've been missing out on them big-time in previous years. In 2014 alone, Okonoboh, Malik-Abu, Joseph, Chukwu, and Terrell were all top-100 guys. 2013, Vonleh and Selden. 2012 Dunn, Noel, Layman, Niang, Tarczewski, and Ledo. We have had a bad past few years of recruiting New England. If KO re-establishes our pipeline, especially in the NEPSAC scene, this could be very beneficial to our program in the long run. The NE prep scene is one of the few constants in HS BB.

 

[CallMeBruce]

The problem with your point of view is that it suggest that no actual work was put into their recruitment. KO and staff still had to meet these kids, interact with their families and coaches, and persuade them to come here against a bunch of other coaches doing the same thing. Adams had Kansas and Louisville coming in, which are two programs with a history of strong success on the recruiting trail. Enoch's prep coach has a history of uneasy relations with UCONN, and that probably took work too. It's easy for we message board posters to think that all KO has do to to recruit is press a few buttons on an XBOX controller. It's not.

I'm not disconcerted, nor am I obtuse thank you very much. To expect Ollie's recruiting to go from 1 5-star, one 2-star PF with no other offers, and a JUCO G to 5-6 Top 100 guys within the span of a year is ridiculous, NC or no NC. The current 2015 class as it stands is Ollie's best one yet. This is what you get when you hire a young HC without a ton of experience. No matter how likeable or knowledgeable KO is, he is going to be at a disadvantage at first simply because he hasn't been around as long as the Selfs, Izzos, and Donovans of the world. He will improve.

At no point did I say that there was no work involved in getting Enoch or Adams. I said that they were going to be particularly easy gets because they were both already UConn fans and local kids. I'm sure Ollie is working very hard with the other kids, but it's not working, and that's a concern to me.

New England is absolutely loaded nowadays, there are a lot of them every year.

I count 13 New England kids in the 150 for the class of 2015, and 7 for the class of 2016. That's the difference between getting Enoch/Adams and getting just Enoch.

 

[Stainmaster]

At no point did I say that there was no work involved in getting Enoch or Adams. I said that they were going to be particularly easy gets because they were both already UConn fans and local kids. I'm sure Ollie is working very hard with the other kids, but it's not working, and that's a concern to me.

Being a UCONN fan doesn't necessarily have it easier. Tremont Waters of South Kent has made similar statements, but I'm predicting that his recruitment will be a dogfight - kid will have every big-time program and their mother after him by the time he's an upperclassman.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Being a UCONN fan doesn't necessarily have it easier. Tremont Waters of South Kent has made similar statements, but I'm predicting that his recruitment will be a dogfight - kid will have every big-time program and their mother after him by the time he's an upperclassman.

I don't think that Waters is a guarantee to end up at UConn (though I still think we're the favorite). But if the only players we can get were guys who, all else equal, wanted to go to UConn anyway, we're not going to do very well in the long term. At some point, Ollie needs to change some minds.

 

[johnhuskies95]

I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. Look at the Rivals150 for this year and count up the New England kids. There are a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them every year, which means that we won't be able to get an Adams/Enoch duo quite so easily. Combine this with the fact that this should have been a dominant recruiting year with Ollie's extension, winning a championship, and opening a brand-new facility all at once. With all of this in our favor, we were able to get two kids who had always wanted to go to UConn anyway. We haven't won a single recruiting battle despite having more ammo than we're going to have again in a while. If that isn't disconcerting to you, then you're being deliberately obtuse.

New England has been pretty loaded with talent for at least 5 years now.

 

[Matrim55]

New England has been pretty loaded with talent for at least 5 years now.

Seriously. New England - and specifically the greater Boston area - is in an absolute renaissance in terms of producing top talent. Noel, Vonleh, MCW, Bazz are all first round picks from the past couple of years. Ledo, AO are second-rounders. Selden and a few others have the look of draft picks, at the very least. Expand it to all of New England and you get guys like AD, Dunn, and then hopefully guys like Adams, Enoch, maybe Heron. Kaleb Joseph over at Syracuse, and Paschal Chukwu at PC are promising freshmen etc etc etc. Even a guy like John Papale at BU is a college player of note (though he obviously doesn't have an NBA future).

Since about 2008 New England basketball has been better than New York basketball. If we can dominate our back yard recruiting-wise, then we'll be in plenty good shape.

 

[HooperScooper]

Sorry. Missed the date. Say it in Twitter

Sorry, I don't know how to speak Twitter.

 

[superjohn]

If we could just lock down New England recruiting and get most of the top kids, our recruiting would be off the charts. New England is much more fertile recruiting grounds than NYC these days.

 

[Bazzketball14]

The only thing holding back our recruiting right now is our conference, plain and simple. There is no other logical explanation. Recruits are noticing our conference and how bad it is right now. This would be the logical reason why we are no longer in contention for Stone, if that is in fact the case.

 

[Stainmaster]

Something also worth considering: didn't KO have to spend an inordinate amount of time babysitting Hamilton in order to ensure that his non-LOI-reinforced commitment remained strong? He could've been on the trail building up relationships with 2015 kids and putting himself in a much better position to land them than he was this past fall.

 

[sammydabiz]

And we've been missing out on them big-time in previous years. In 2014 alone, Okonoboh, Malik-Abu, Joseph, Chukwu, and Terrell were all top-100 guys. 2013, Vonleh and Selden. 2012 Dunn, Noel, Layman, Niang, Tarczewski, and Ledo. We have had a bad past few years of recruiting New England. If KO re-establishes our pipeline, especially in the NEPSAC scene, this could be very beneficial to our program in the long run. The NE prep scene is one of the few constants in HS BB.

A lot of those misses were due to a combination of: 1) Calhoun's impending retirement 2) the APR post season ban & 3) a lot of unknown about how well Ollie could coach (not to mention negative recruiting)
So a bunch of those misses are understandable due to the timeframe you referenced

Kudos for Ollie & staff landing Adams and Enoch, but let's not overhype the accomplishment by referencing misses while the program didn't have a leg to stand on.