As we approach closing time, is staff zeroing in on:
Guards: Lewis/Thomas
Wings: Mullins/Tounde
Bigs: Reibe/Bundalo
Will happily take one of each
One from each would be nice. It doesn't seem that the staff has many backup plan recruits that rank in the 50 to 100 range. Most of the one's they've offered are between 1 and 40.
My guess is Hurley hopes to land at least a couple of these recruits and just fill whatever needs are left next spring with portal transfers and any highly ranked high school or prep recruits that are either uncommitted or have shaken free.
I like when they find a diamond in the rough in the latter part of the top 100 or beyond, like Jayden Ross (#113 per 247). Seems like there is so much coverage nowadays, that late bloomers get moved up in the rankings quickly followed by multiple blue chips jumping on creating lots of competition. So far it doesn't seem the staff has identified and offered anyone who fits that description, and they're just swinging for the fense. With so many big time programs that have huge NIL coffers we're competing with for these targeted recruits, I am a tad concerned that most of them will get picked off without any domino effect landing in our lap.
I would like to believe that a solid NIL offer, our culture of winning, B2B NCs and player development would be enough to win some of these battles over some ridiculous NIL offers. This is uncharted recruiting territory, so let's see how it all plays out. I simple don't have any strong sense that we'll land the ones Hurley wants most. Hopefully that will happen, and our confidence in such in the years that follow will be the new norm. We can't ignore the early results last year where Nowell was the only top 40 fall signee they landed, missing out on the two they wanted who chose Dook. Note McNeeley was a spring pickup who reopened his recruitment. Since most of the top 100 have not committed, there's a lot of time to see how it plays out this fall.
