Pitino on the state of recruiting

[RuffRuff]

Honestly we have no idea what Gaffney would’ve been if we never brought in RJ Cole and just gave him the keys. But it’s a deep hypothetical that’s not worth getting into too much.

Cam was a perfect pickup and match regardless.

To be clear, I’m not saying teams shouldn’t recruit portal talent over freshman when they have a need for big starter minutes. Cam being brought in to give young guys time to develop like last year is fine. Mahaney being brought in to put Nowell on the bench completely and take opportunities away from a sophomore Ross is not. I will also not be happy if some of our sophomores and freshman walk this summer for some transfers to replace them.

You’re making it sound like whoever we recruit we should commit and live or die by?

I’ll tell you what, we’d suck if Gaffney started. So you’re saying we should swallow that pill for the sake of development? .

These are some weird takes.

 

[RuffRuff]

Going all in on high paid NIL upperclassmen transfers is a risky proposition. It can work. But it can also blow up in your face pretty quickly. Take a look at Kansas State and Indiana as downside of this strategy.

Ideally, you have a mix of homegrown players for culture development and then supplement with a few NIL transfers to fill holes. I don't think a full on transfer strategy is going to be successful in too many cases.

Right now if you look at top teams it feels like what is working best is multi year portal guys, mixed in with senior portal gets and a splash of top frosh.

The fresh/soph that’s shown they could play at the college level heading into the portal is nice find as it rubber stamps they have the goods, but then you get 2+ more years out of them. Haggerty was a gold mine. Let’s see if Hard can keep him now.

 

[Deleted at users request]

You’re making it sound like whoever we recruit we should commit and live or die by?

I’ll tell you what, we’d suck if Gaffney started. So you’re saying we should swallow that pill for the sake of development? .

These are some weird takes.

The basis of a lot of your transfer portal takes are with the assumption that development guys will suck and transfer players will automatically be successful. Neither are true.

With Gaffney, he had a great freshman year and seemed prime to step into a starter role and carry that momentum of how we finished the COVID impacted season after a year of learning from Vital and Gilbert. That didn’t happen though so we don’t know what the case may have been. RJ Cole didn’t lead us anywhere either so it’s not like we replaced him for great reason.

Also, rules don’t need to be changed. But whatever coach is smart enough to realize the old school way of developing good recruiting classes is the best way long term will see lots of success.

Even though they should go back to one transfer per school for sure.

 

[uconnric]

Going forward I can’t imagine many freshmen, outside of 5 star players, getting much playing time on the biggest teams. Might actually help mid-majors by getting better recruits even if they are 1-2 year and gone.

This is already impacting football recruiting. Coaches are recruiting proven transfers rather than high school freshman. A lot of talent is falling into G5 schools. If they develop, they'll move on after a year or two.

 

[RuffRuff]

The basis of a lot of your transfer portal takes are with the assumption that development guys will suck and transfer players will automatically be successful. Neither are true.

The suggestion is that after year two it’s apparent you’re not cut out for the program, you move on. All coaches should know what they have in a player after their sophomore year, whether it’s potential or already contributing.

This is why I say your goal with HS recruits are kids that you know can contribute off bench year 1, start year two. Otherwise save it for the portal. I don’t want to be clogging up my roster with long term development projects in today’s world.

 

[superjohn]

The basis of a lot of your transfer portal takes are with the assumption that development guys will suck and transfer players will automatically be successful. Neither are true.

With Gaffney, he had a great freshman year and seemed prime to step into a starter role and carry that momentum of how we finished the COVID impacted season after a year of learning from Vital and Gilbert. That didn’t happen though so we don’t know what the case may have been. RJ Cole didn’t lead us anywhere either so it’s not like we replaced him for great reason.

Also, rules don’t need to be changed. But whatever coach is smart enough to realize the old school way of developing good recruiting classes is the best way long term will see lots of success.

Even though they should go back to one transfer per school for sure.

Good lord...

We know Gaffney, Diggins, Akok, Gilbert, Brendan Adams, Brown-Ferguson, Hasson, Romoglou weren't good enough at this level. They went to lower levels. We brought in guys like Tristen, Cam, Joey C, Diarra, Alleyne who were integral parts of us winning national championships. RJ Cole was damn good here (first team Big East) as was Tyrese. Transfers have been incredibly good for us and have brought us more national championships.

I don't know why you keep doing this to yourself in thread after thread.

 

[RuffRuff]

611 is either a glutton for punishment or nostalgic to a fault.

 

[Huskyforlife]

The basis of a lot of your transfer portal takes are with the assumption that development guys will suck and transfer players will automatically be successful. Neither are true.

With Gaffney, he had a great freshman year and seemed prime to step into a starter role and carry that momentum of how we finished the COVID impacted season after a year of learning from Vital and Gilbert. That didn’t happen though so we don’t know what the case may have been. RJ Cole didn’t lead us anywhere either so it’s not like we replaced him for great reason.

Also, rules don’t need to be changed. But whatever coach is smart enough to realize the old school way of developing good recruiting classes is the best way long term will see lots of success.

Even though they should go back to one transfer per school for sure.

You’re taking this way too far with this Gaffney stuff. I’m with you generally that Dan could be more loose with his freshmen, especially when the older players aren't getting it done. But gaffney was an okay freshman (at best) on a team with no aspirations, go back and look at his averages, if we committed to a player like that now, it would be malpractice.

He was also clearly not a good player at any point in his career, serviceable backup is being too charitable. He didn’t improve after moving down a level his final 2 seasons.

Hard committing to Gaffney would’ve cost Dan his job, and our program 2 championships, minimum.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

611 is either a glutton for punishment or nostalgic to a fault.

Great stat. And, without any research, I would guess that most of those are 5 stars…would love to be wrong

 

[Deleted at users request]

611 is either a glutton for punishment or nostalgic to a fault.

Nobody ever talked about freshmen being starters. This is a stupid post and narrative being pushed.

There are plenty of freshman who are contributing to these same teams in some fashion which will prepare them to have bigger roles next year.

 

[Deleted at users request]

You’re taking this way too far with this Gaffney stuff. I’m with you generally that Dan could be more loose with his freshmen, especially when the older players aren't getting it done. But gaffney was an okay freshman (at best) on a team with no aspirations, go back and look at his averages, if we committed to a player like that now, it would be malpractice.

He was also clearly not a good player at any point in his career, serviceable backup is being too charitable. He didn’t improve after moving down a level his final 2 seasons.

Hard committing to Gaffney would’ve cost Dan his job, and our program 2 championships, minimum.

I’m not going back and forth on the Gaffney stuff. It’s my opinion that people’s career can change when they have ideal situations.

I saw in real time Gaffney help us go on a run that COVID year as a starter in a Shabazz like role. We rewarded him by bringing in someone else to start over him killing his confidence. Who knows what happens if we build on that momentum and hand him the keys. Again, it’s not like RJ Cole won big with us. I’m not judging how the rest of his career elsewhere goes after having his confidence killed here. That stuff matters.

Even in terms of fit for that 2021-2022 season having a past first PG with built in chemistry with Boutknight would’ve made more sense than RJ Cole’s shoot first mentality. Would’ve also gave us room to get Diggins feet wet. But all that went down the drain for someone who never got us out the first round.

But I don’t expect people to agree with me there and that’s fine.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Good lord...

We know Gaffney, Diggins, Akok, Gilbert, Brendan Adams, Brown-Ferguson, Hasson, Romoglou weren't good enough at this level. They went to lower levels. We brought in guys like Tristen, Cam, Joey C, Diarra, Alleyne who were integral parts of us winning national championships. RJ Cole was damn good here (first team Big East) as was Tyrese. Transfers have been incredibly good for us and have brought us more national championships.

I don't know why you keep doing this to yourself in thread after thread.

I had to look up Gaffney because I wasn't sure if I had him confused with someone else.

 

[87Xfer]

You had more fun watching those guys than Kemba and Shabazz?

you missed the "just about" part

 

[caw]

Of the hundreds of players I've watched play at UConn I had more fun watching Cam and Tristen "than just about any of them." Only guys I can think of I enjoyed at the same level or more are Rip, El-Amin, Okafor, Ben, Bazz, Kemba, Donovan. I'll throw Caron, Ray, and Donyell in there as well even though they never won a national championship.

The point is they are two of my favorite players who ever played here despite being transfers who only played here 2 seasons and 1 season.

No Jackson, or Sanogo?

 

[Huskyforlife]

I’m not going back and forth on the Gaffney stuff. It’s my opinion that people’s career can change when they have ideal situations.

I saw in real time Gaffney help us go on a run that COVID year as a starter in a Shabazz like role. We rewarded him by bringing in someone else to start over him killing his confidence. Who knows what happens if we build on that momentum and hand him the keys. Again, it’s not like RJ Cole won big with us. I’m not judging how the rest of his career elsewhere goes after having his confidence killed here. That stuff matters.

Even in terms of fit for that 2021-2022 season having a past first PG with built in chemistry with Boutknight would’ve made more sense than RJ Cole’s shoot first mentality. Would’ve also gave us room to get Diggins feet wet. But all that went down the drain for someone who never got us out the first round.

But I don’t expect people to agree with me there and that’s fine.

Giving Gaffney credit for that run is pretty silly, we also don't know where or how that run would've ended. He started 10/11 games to end the season, he averaged 6 points and 3 assists, on 32/22/77 or a TS% of 43. All he did was stop Gilbert from shooting us out of a chance of finding a better shot.

He didn't have confidence because he was pretty bad most of the time, that's not the staffs fault, they gave him 3 years in the rotation to figure it out, and he couldn't. He played for a second creative offensive coach, who could only get a solid backup season out of him in year 5. I doubt Dan Hurley and Dusty May both just couldn't figure out Gaffney, some guys are just limited.

We would've missed the tournament in both of Coles seasons if Gaffney was in his role.

 

[RuffRuff]

Giving Gaffney credit for that run is pretty silly, we also don't know where or how that run would've ended. He started 10/11 games to end the season, he averaged 6 points and 3 assists, on 32/22/77 or a TS% of 43. All he did was stop Gilbert from shooting us out of a chance of finding a better shot.

He didn't have confidence because he was pretty bad most of the time, that's not the staffs fault, they gave him 3 years in the rotation to figure it out, and he couldn't. He played for a second creative offensive coach, who could only get a solid backup season out of him in year 5. I doubt Dan Hurley and Dusty May both just couldn't figure out Gaffney, some guys are just limited.

We would've missed the tournament in both of Coles seasons if Gaffney was in his role.

He came off the bench at FAU, not a keeper by any means.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Giving Gaffney credit for that run is pretty silly, we also don't know where or how that run would've ended.

Not credit. He just handled it well for a freshman and did his job of feeding our weapons.

He was not bad his freshman year. That starting stat line is actually not far off from Shabazz’s who averaged 8 pts 3 asts on 37/32/77. Not saying he could’ve been Shabazz.

We have differences on what role you have impacting your development. I think him being a starter would’ve been great for his confidence and caused him to play better, like we saw with Hawkins and like some are arguing for Reed.

You don’t think a players role impacts their play or development and that’s fine. Agree to disagree

 

[CTBasketball]

I’m not going back and forth on the Gaffney stuff. It’s my opinion that people’s career can change when they have ideal situations.

I saw in real time Gaffney help us go on a run that COVID year as a starter in a Shabazz like role. We rewarded him by bringing in someone else to start over him killing his confidence. Who knows what happens if we build on that momentum and hand him the keys. Again, it’s not like RJ Cole won big with us. I’m not judging how the rest of his career elsewhere goes after having his confidence killed here. That stuff matters.

Even in terms of fit for that 2021-2022 season having a past first PG with built in chemistry with Boutknight would’ve made more sense than RJ Cole’s shoot first mentality. Would’ve also gave us room to get Diggins feet wet. But all that went down the drain for someone who never got us out the first round.

But I don’t expect people to agree with me there and that’s fine.

Gaffney had some pretty big mental defensive lapses especially his freshman year, and also couldn’t shoot from 3 or 2 his entire career.

RJ Cole helped lead us back to the NCAAT, national rankings, and was BE 1st Team.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Gaffney had some pretty big mental defensive lapses especially his freshman year, and also couldn’t shoot from 3 or 2 his entire career.

RJ Cole helped lead us back to the NCAAT, national rankings, and was BE 1st Team.

You don’t think we would’ve made the tourney in that shutdown year?

 

[RuffRuff]

You don’t think we would’ve made the tourney in that shutdown year?

 

[Deleted at users request]

View attachment 107157

 

[yungdowork]

You don’t think we would’ve made the tourney in that shutdown year?

Even if we did, Gaffney was averaging 4/2 over 20 minutes while shooting 40% from 2 and 26% from 3. In the final game vs Tulane, he was arguably the worst player on the court.

In his first two years here, he averaged 19.2 and 19.4 minutes respectively. Despite Castle and Cam coming in, Diarra got exactly 19.4 MPG last year and was 6th man of the year. Jalen could have done that same thing in spite of the RJ Cole transfer but he didn't. It wasn't because he wasn't given an opportunity.

 

[CTBasketball]

You don’t think we would’ve made the tourney in that shutdown year?

Without Cole and Gaffney as our lead guard? No.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Without Cole and Gaffney as our lead guard? No.

You’re talking about the wrong year.

I thought the board was in agreement that the 2019-2020 team was hot and ready to make a run. But maybe people will change their answers for the sake of saying I’m wrong lol

 

[CTBasketball]

You’re talking about the wrong year.

I thought the board was in agreement that the 2019-2020 team was hot and ready to make a run. But maybe people will change their answers for the sake of saying I’m wrong lol

We would’ve needed to win the AAC Tournament and get thru Tulane, Wichita State, Cincinnati, then likely Houston.

Probably not happening. We had zero chance of an at-large.

 

[RuffRuff]

Rick weighs in on the Indy job

 

[Scoe]

We would’ve needed to win the AAC Tournament and get thru Tulane, Wichita State, Cincinnati, then likely Houston.

Probably not happening. We had zero chance of an at-large.

I think they should just simulate the rest of the 2020 season and make it official, yes it would be watered but hey it's better than nothing.

 

[REB1094]

2023:
PG - transfer
SG - 2nd year 4*
SF - 3rd year 4*
PF - freshman 4*
C - 3rd year 4*

2024:
PG - 2nd year transfer
SG - transfer
SF - freshman 5*
PF - 2nd year 4*
C - 2nd year 4*

Skipping this down year, but next year I’m assuming we will have:
PG - transfer
SG - 3rd year 4*
SF - freshman 5*
PF - either transfer, 4th year 4*, or 3rd year 4*
C - 2nd year transfer

UConn both develops its recruits and plugs holes with transfers. That has been a pretty successful formula. The bar is incredibly high in a Dan Hurley system, but if you meet it, your role is secure

 

[RuffRuff]

2023:
PG - transfer
SG - 2nd year 4*
SF - 3rd year 4*
PF - freshman 4*
C - 3rd year 4*

2024:
PG - 2nd year transfer
SG - transfer
SF - freshman 5*
PF - 2nd year 4*
C - 2nd year 4*

Skipping this down year, but next year I’m assuming we will have:
PG - transfer
SG - 3rd year 4*
SF - freshman 5*
PF - either transfer, 4th year 4*, or 3rd year 4*
C - 2nd year transfer

UConn both develops its recruits and plugs holes with transfers. That has been a pretty successful formula. The bar is incredibly high in a Dan Hurley system, but if you meet it, your role is secure

Nice layout.

There are distinct differences between where we are now and where we were when we recruited Ajax and Sonogo that will likely change the template, but do agree it makes sense to identify 1-2 players that can keep continuity into their upper class years.

The 4 spot is a real wild card for next year.

I also think we need a 3rd transfer combo that is versatile and can defend, if we can find it. Maybe solo makes the leap, but I want an insurance plan in place to get minutes in the event he doesn’t as that team up there looks potentially awful defensively again.

 

[6Nattys4Us]

A lot has been said here, so summing this up is like a 3 Body problem.

This is so dynamic I will take a stab:
1. Highly recruited 5* players like Castle/McNeeley are OAD so you need a replacement player of same caliber, transfer, or 4* you have who is expected to get better.
2. Mid high 4* players can develop like Solo between Freshman and Sophomore year but typically Sophomore to Junior year.
3. Point-in-time need trumps everything else: We need to replace AK and HD next year and while we have Nowell we need to see more of him to declare him the starting PG as a Sophomore. Possibly Stewart can be a 4 because we have 3s galore: Stewart, Ross, Abraham, +Furphy next year. So we will either get a more classic 4 in the portal or move Stewart there.
4. Compounding this is the NCAA sanctioned CBB scholarships count rising from 13 to 15. Our coach likes 12 of 13 so will probably like 13 or 14 of 15. Our math heading into next year is something like -4 for AK, HD, SJ, LM +4 frosh so even which fits, but we have to see if anyone leaves into the portal or declares based on BET or March Madness campaigns (e.g., if Ball or Stewart go nuts). Thus if the portal exits and NBA declares are conservative, we have +1-2 coming in via the portal and our needs are PG and PF.