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Message: [QUOTE="Lefty2one, post: 3392361, member: 1001"] Do any fans watch our team and--outside of the freshman--think, "Gee, these guys are so much more talented than other players in the AAC"? Ignore recruiting rankings and use your eyes. I just don't see it. Are they better? Sure. Is it a big enough gap to guarantee wins most nights? Certainly not. Vital, Carlton, Polley, Whaley, Wilson, etc aren't anything special. They aren't too good or too talented for the AAC. They aren't leaps and bounds better than what Tulane is trotting out there. Gilbert is maybe the only KO guy who can stand out: despite his issues his quickness is on another level from other AAC guards and he has the ability, albeit inconsistently, to make plays that most AAC guys can't make. Even more to the point, it is clear as day how different Bouknight and Akok are compared to the rest of our team. These are vintage UConn recruits and they are clearly a leap above the players we've brought in over the last five years, with the exception of Jalen Adams. They also aren't one-and-dones and need time to develop. They won't fix this overnight. Once you get out of the Top 100 there really isn't a huge gap between guys. You'll get a mixed bag whether a kid is ranked 115 or 300. It's a crapshoot. Recruiting analysts don't spend a ton of time ranking guys after the Top 100 anyway, and even the Top 100 is a disaster every year. This was one of the most hotly debated topics towards the end of the KO era: coaching vs talent. For as terrible of a coach as KO was--and he was [I]that [/I]bad--the talent level in this program was trending downward and then fell off a cliff after the 2016-17 season. It's going to take several years to get this program back to Top 25 status. We need more talent. [/QUOTE]

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