Nikki actually recruited fairly well at UCLA. I know she got a few top 100 recruits each of the years there and the year she left she was to welcome a top 10 recruiting class but bolted for LSU. At least that's what I remember. When she has the players, and health, I think she is a very good coach. But she has to start winning some recruiting battles, clearly.
top 100 players at a school like UCLA is unacceptable. Look at what the current coach has done. When she arrived there in 2008-2009, the former coach already had top 10 recruit Markel Walker in tow, and she was able to "retain" her. The following year, she got not one single player in the top 100 and the following year got Kacey Swain, and no one else in the top 100. She left UCLA at exactly the right time because she left the team in shambles and the year after she left they went 14-16 with the recruits she had brought on board.
In 2012, LSU Landed top 30 kid Danielle Ballard but like Walker, I'm not sure if that was a Caldwell recruit or not. Either way Ballard was top 30. LSU got no one in the top 100 besides her. 2013 she got top 20 Moncrief, and no one else in the top 100. In 2014, not only did she not land a top 100 kid, but not even a kid who was 4 stars. In 2015 she only landed #70 Ayanna Mitchell.
So in her entire recruiting tenure, at A list schools UCLA and LSU - both who have made numerous final 4's in their history (it's not like she's at Hofstra or ECU), she's managed to recruit exactly 1 top 20 kid and 1 top 30 kid out of the talent-rich south AND west.
Her successor at UCLA managed to land #12 Nirra Fields (2012), #4 Jordan Canada (2014), #8 Lajanna Drummer (2014), #19 Recee Caldwell (2014), #26 Kelli Hayes (2014), #12 Ahsley Hearn (2015) and #16 Kennedy Burke (2015).
In that same time now at LSU she landed only 1 top 20 kid and no one better than top 15. It would not surprise me to see her bolt LSU before the sink to the bottom of the SEC, much like she did at UCLA...