PN leaving us off his final list is a bigger diss than anything Flagg did.
Flagg to Duke. Official
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I ended up deleting my post because I'm sick of arguing with these jabronis. But seriously... everything is good here. The recruitment to be upset about is Ngongba, not this one.
Grown men searching for some way to call this a dirty recruitment or Flagg as a bad person are... odd. From all reports, he's a remarkably well-grounded kid despite the hype.
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Being a star athlete in one of the major sports at any high major is much different than being a normal student at the school.
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I don't think that's really what next year's team needed though, which is why we didn't spend a ton of time recruiting the role players in this class. We just brought in a big 2023 class, which usually means a smaller 2024 class aimed at the stars. Now it'll have to come from the portal
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The problem with that is it's most likely going to cost a ton.
I agree we you that we probably didn't need more 4 star freshmen this time though.
I get some of that. But we expected Clingan and Castle to be gone. I had not expected Karaban to leave after next year, which now seems like a possibility. Add in Newton and Spencer being gone too. All of a sudden the roster has more needs. I just generally prefer having kids we bring in and develop as a fan because there is continuity and they also are in the program longer, which usually results in a higher level of play past year 1. The portal undoubtedly can fill needs. We wouldn’t have won the title last year without it. If a portal guy can come in and stay 2 plus seasons, then I’d be more in favor of it I guess.
FfldCntyFan
Texas: Property of UConn Men's Basketball program
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I'm going to apply something I posted in an earlier thread here:
It's time to back away from the ledge.
We are defending national champions. We have a fantastic freshman class and a couple of very good recruits following them. Losing out on a kid who had been a lock for that school in Durham from when he was in fifth grade is not a reason to fly off the handle.
The way I see it, this will make it that much sweeter when we pass Duke for total championships. If things go well, in his one season playing college ball Flagg can watch us pass North Carolina as well.
It's time to back away from the ledge.
We are defending national champions. We have a fantastic freshman class and a couple of very good recruits following them. Losing out on a kid who had been a lock for that school in Durham from when he was in fifth grade is not a reason to fly off the handle.
The way I see it, this will make it that much sweeter when we pass Duke for total championships. If things go well, in his one season playing college ball Flagg can watch us pass North Carolina as well.
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Duke was Flagg’s childhood dream school, so despite the increased chance of UConn landing him, Flagg ending up at Duke shouldn’t be a shock to anyone.
There’s a consolation: a generational local talent had UConn in his final two. That’s gotta help long-term with recruiting, especially parlaying that with our most recent Championship under Hurley.
There’s a consolation: a generational local talent had UConn in his final two. That’s gotta help long-term with recruiting, especially parlaying that with our most recent Championship under Hurley.
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I think your first few sentences are exactly why the portal made more sense this season, at least to me. If Clingan, Castle, Karaban all go to the NBA as seems to be the plan right now we're looking at a likely roster with 1 senior in Samson Johnson and 1 junior in Apostolos Roumoglou. We're already going to be a very young team in 2024-25
The same way Koach Krap got credit for not ruining Laettner, and several others. Kick me for saying this but I hope the kid does well at Duke (despite Scheyer), where I’m worried for Cooper is after Duke.
I see 24-25 as a rebuilding year or a retooling year. I don’t mind being a young team that year. I just hope we don’t take the approach that some NFL teams in the past of putting together enough talent to go “8-8”, or in this case make the tournament, but not be a threat to go deep. I’d have loved to get an Austin Swartz for example and have 24-25 be a developmental year for a player like that. As a fan it’s easier and more fulfilling for me anyway to back a team with some level of continuity where you get to know the players in the community rather than constantly retooling with the portal. It’s terrific to have Newton here two years. I’d take kids like that all day long.
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We can recruit with anyone even if he’s one and done generation type talent. I would never shy away from anyone especially that he’s local.
If Duke cleans up on that class they better win it all.
#1 Flagg (SF/PF/C)
#2 Harper (PG/CG)
#6 Edgecombe (SG/SF)
#15 Knueppel (SF)
#18 Evans (SF)
#25 Ngongba (C)
#60 Harris (SF/SG)
On top of the 2023 class of potentially returning:
#13 McCain (CG/SG)
#17 Stewart (PF/C)
#19 Foster (PG/CG)
#20 Power (PF)
Of course there may be other players staying from 2022 and 2021 classes and potentially COVID players, there could also be early entrants and transfers and there is no guarantee on Ngongba, Harper and Edgecombe but if they get those three and the 2023 class stays, it would an abject failure if they didn't win it all.
You are talking a two deep depth chart of ten five star top 25 players:
PG: Foster / Harper
SG: McCain / Edgecombe
SF: Evans / Knueppel
PF: Flagg / Power
C: Stewart / Ngongba
Poor Harris...he was their first recruit in 2024 too.
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I get that we all have to hate Laettner but this is an odd thing to say about a kid who played 4 years of college basketball and was one of the best college basketball players of all time.
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I thought we had a legitimate chance at him based on two comments attributed to his coach:
-CF asked him to have the media interview other kids on the team instead of always focusing on him, and
-CF loves the game and loves to practice.
He sounded like a hard working, down to earth kid, who loved the game and wasn't seeking hype.
If we had no chance because Duke was his dream school, why did it take so long to announce? You could say the shooting in Maine delayed it, but that happened the Wednesday after his visit ended. If he so loved some school for most of his life why not announce right after the visit to that school?
My bet is he had to pause and think about it to be more sure in his mind. He had seen how the coaches and players at UConn interact with each other and saw their commitment in practice and was so impressed he labored over the decision but in the end went with the safe choice (in his mind), the one he'd been drawn to over the years.
Duke looked like carnival barkers to me. Giving the new coach a six year extension at the time of the visit and having all the players send CF cutesy instagram posts after his visit. That BS would have driven Ray Allen away and I thought CF might react the same way if he was as serious about the game as his coach stated.
So maybe he doesn't dislike the hype as much as Ray did or maybe changing his mind about the school is like changing cell phone providers. If, for example, you know PureTalk uses the ATT system and costs half as much, it sounds like a no brainer that you should change. But you've been with ATT for fifteen years and how do you know for sure PureTalk will be as good?
Intellectually he probably knew UConn was the better fit, but it was hard to change the path he'd always been on.
-CF asked him to have the media interview other kids on the team instead of always focusing on him, and
-CF loves the game and loves to practice.
He sounded like a hard working, down to earth kid, who loved the game and wasn't seeking hype.
If we had no chance because Duke was his dream school, why did it take so long to announce? You could say the shooting in Maine delayed it, but that happened the Wednesday after his visit ended. If he so loved some school for most of his life why not announce right after the visit to that school?
My bet is he had to pause and think about it to be more sure in his mind. He had seen how the coaches and players at UConn interact with each other and saw their commitment in practice and was so impressed he labored over the decision but in the end went with the safe choice (in his mind), the one he'd been drawn to over the years.
Duke looked like carnival barkers to me. Giving the new coach a six year extension at the time of the visit and having all the players send CF cutesy instagram posts after his visit. That BS would have driven Ray Allen away and I thought CF might react the same way if he was as serious about the game as his coach stated.
So maybe he doesn't dislike the hype as much as Ray did or maybe changing his mind about the school is like changing cell phone providers. If, for example, you know PureTalk uses the ATT system and costs half as much, it sounds like a no brainer that you should change. But you've been with ATT for fifteen years and how do you know for sure PureTalk will be as good?
Intellectually he probably knew UConn was the better fit, but it was hard to change the path he'd always been on.
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If you think Hurley & Co. are going to take this approach to 24-25, then you haven't been paying attention closely enough.
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Bridge year then. I am not certain I see the horses in place for that year if Karaban and Clingan leave to make a deep run and be in the top ten all year. A nice team and a tournament team? Sure. But I think the swing and misses in this recruiting cycle have changed the picture for that season. Just my opinion.
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Hurley built this thing back up where we shouldn't have rebuilding years. Obviously not all years will be as good as the last but the goal is always to make the tournament and be able to do damage in it. With the portal there should be no such thing for us as rebuilding years.
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Sweet-16 most years is expected. Past that it's playing with house money for any team.
Jorgensen
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Trilly’s post-mortem recapping what happened step-by-step tells us Cooper verbally committed to Duke on his visit. The crystal balls and Trilly’s own prediction then poured in. As for timing, Cooper announced today and his immediate Instagram post was him on the cover of Slam magazine. He probably was getting all of his ducks in a row. Public commitment was anticipated by Weds or Thursday last week, but got delayed due to the Maine shooting. By the time the shooter was found it was weekend, so here we are early Monday morning with a Flagg to Duke commit. His timeline still is all reasonable whether or not we were part of the picture.
That said I do think we had a (slight) shot and he probably liked what he saw during his UConn visit, but following the Duke visit we were toast. All good, and all expected.
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It’s a little early to hit the portal. We haven’t even played a game this season