Pouring all of our resources into Ngongba and Flagg and getting neither
I had similar concerns leading up to this outcome. With that said, it made sense to go hard after Flagg since he's from New England, showed interest in us and would have been a good program fit. As for Ngongba, we were on him for quite a while, got a commitment from his cousin, was a good fit for a big need.
With that said, you play with fire when all of your eggs are in the same basket with the top blue blood programs. UConn's success has been built on the backs of under-ranked recruits who end up better than where they were ranked coming out of high school.
It seems to make sense for Hurley and the staff to have kept some irons in the fire with players ranked between 25 and 75, though that may be a challenge when those type of recruits see the program also going after players at the same position who would likely take their playing time or that program dropping them once they secured a commitment from the higher rank player.
One would think that after coming off a national championship we'd have a lot more top 100 interested recruits. Is where we stand right now the result of the staff not pursuing those type of recruits or a lack of Interest or recruits not seeing a path with top 20 competition being pursued a lot harder than them.
My inclination is Hurley and his staff might want to work a little harder recruiting the middle of the top 100 in addition to going after one or two top recruits that they have a shot at. Maybe this is lesson learned. We did land one of the top guards (Nowell #30) already, but landing multiple top third players in the same class is not something that has happened often or ever at uconn. Note that we did not secure any fall official visits except for Flagg and Ngongba. Maybe casting a wider net next time around is a lesson learned.
There's still the transfer portal, international pool and recruits that are either uncommitted or shake loose next spring to fill whatever needs they might have.