Recruiting has to get better | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Recruiting has to get better

Huskymagic said:
I don't know how anyone can take a look at yesterday's game and not agree with Johns assessment. Other than our 3 top 50 players coming out of high school, everyone else on our roster looked overwhelmed.

This small lineup will not work against good teams as Michigan St showed. They will get overpowered and outclassed.

The reason Gonzaga has been good for so long is because they have high caliber big men every year in addition to decent guards.

PS: Games like this is where we miss Brimah. Our team this year would be even better if we still had Brimah.

Ollie needs to follow Calhouns recruiting model. We need more imposing big guys. The 2012 team was the last imposing UCONN team.
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Amidah would’ve been worse than what we had last night. He would have had 3 fouls and 4 turnovers by halftime. 2 fouls away from the rim. Izzo would have drawn him out anyway and bridges ward and Jackson could care less about him. That board off the missed free throw with a two handed dunk would have been brimahs fourth foul for an and 1.
 
jibsey said:
It’s just a reality check especially for those who just think if we only played harder, because until we faded in the second half our team had a big effort last night. If you looked at the players last night except for O and Carlton for body thickness we look like we’ve been underfed. It’s going to be a decent season with the team being competitive mostly but against the better teams on our schedule we’re going to see this again and again. Making the tourney is a lofty goal but not what we have been spoiled to expect. We like to think if we only just get in anything can happen with a great run. Can’t see that this year. SuperJohn is 1000% correct here but as we sit it’s just a player or 2 holding us back, but those are big pieces. A quality big and a knockdown shooter.
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Beating Oregon was still a big win, and I think we make the Dance this year. I also think It's bye-bye O if we don't.
 
superjohn said:
It's not at all reactionary, I've been harping on how our last several recruiting classes aren't cutting it for a long time. Any time we play any sort of contender the talent gap is greatly exposed. If Larrier and Jalen both leave after this season it will be Alteique and a bunch of compimentary players. We absolutely need to step up our recruiting game.
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You have? On paper we're one year away from the best on paper recruiting class we may have ever had.
 
We can always use better players but with all the newbies on this team this win wasn't going to happen short of a miracle. My biggest concern is that the team shouldn't start every offensive sequence with an iso drive to the basket. It's predictable and lame. Some ball movement would be nice. Maybe a pass. That's when you throw the ball to a teamate I've heard.
 
MervthePurvis said:
Amidah would’ve been worse than what we had last night. He would have had 3 fouls and 4 turnovers by halftime. 2 fouls away from the rim. Izzo would have drawn him out anyway and bridges ward and Jackson could care less about him. That board off the missed free throw with a two handed dunk would have been brimahs fourth foul for an and 1.
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You said all that about Brimah and it could still be argued you're being too kind. Not sure Brimah would have played more than 15 minutes before fouling out against MSU's bigs. Either way, he'd have been a non-factor on the boards or in deterring shots.
 
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Recruiting is trending in the right direction again, thankfully. Wilson, Akinjo, Matthews and Kisunas is a good group to work with and adding Bryce Wills for 2018 would be huge if Jalen does decide to leave.
 
willie99 said:
We've been recruiting better players, some are two weeks into their collegiate careers and some are still in high school

We all acknowledge last year was a disaster, and we all should acknowledge that's not going to be fixed in 6 or 7 months

Although we've obviously made significant progress in that short time frame, we should be happy with the progress and enjoy the ride
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I like the kids we have now and the kids coming in but we simply have to get some 5 star type talents again. I see a ton of complimentary pieces with no real star power or players with ceilings that lead me to believe they can become stars (outside of Gilbert.) If Jalen and Terry are gone after this season, I worry we will be back to square one.
 
Adams belonged on that court.
Gilbert belonged on that court.
Larrier belonged only as a catch and shoot guy.
Carlton looked like he will belong in a year or 2

The rest of the guys just weren’t as talented. David O for example, looked really bad because he shouldn’t be playing big minutes against players who are so much more gifted than he is.

Michigan State just has elite talent. Uconn has decent talent. We should still be good enough to make the ncaa tournament this year.
 
Allbite said:
A lot of guys, like Polley, reached the level of competition at which they could no longer contribute last night.
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Polley got 8 minutes and is 5 games into his freshman season.

Just to give a comparison: Jeremy Lamb as a freshman ALSO played Michgan State in his 5th game. He played 13 minutes, scored 2 points, had 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals. 3 fouls.

Jeremy did not start breaking out until mid-January. He had a string of games in late Dec. and Jan. when he scored 9, 4, 8, 0, 2. Then he broke out for 13, 14, 16.
 
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superjohn said:
I like the kids we have now and the kids coming in but we simply have to get some 5 star type talents again. I see a ton of complimentary pieces with no real star power or players with ceilings that lead me to believe they can become stars (outside of Gilbert.) If Jalen and Terry are gone after this season, I worry we will be back to square one.
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OK, but I'm going to suggest that if Jalen and Terry are gone then we had a pretty good season, and both winning and getting kids to the NBA will help us recruit better

So my silver lining is that them leaving early is probably a good thing for us :), indirectly
 
Every coach wants top 50 recruits. They don't play all 4 years so at any given time there may be, what, 125 in all of college basketball. Yes, it would be nice to have classes like UNC, Duke or Kentucky. The point is most of even the highest ranked P5 schools don't have 1-2 top 50 recruits.

In a better conference, I can imagine KO becoming someone who draws more than his share. Until then, learn to love the process. He just took a diaper front court to war with big men and lessons were learned. I'm happy that they exhibited the desire to match MSU physically, although they didn't have the ability.
 
superjohn said:
A game like this just reinforces that we need better players. Granted MSU is most likely a top 5 team but there is such a clear disparity in size and talent from top to bottom. Our three big time recruits are our only players who look like they belong against this type of opponent. I think Ollie has a better handle on recruiting and what he needs right now but we simply need to land some studs, he has to break through with a couple of big timers.
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Polley Carlton have bright futures but need to be developed. I think Matthews Akinjo and Kinuas will be the same. Where wer in trouble is we need polley and those guys to be ready now after ecverything we loss.

The American conference is looking better maybe we will be able to put something in 2019 together.
 
superjohn said:
I've seen a bunch of people here say we are fine in terms of recruiting and they would take a whole team of Polley's, Carlton's, and Akinjo's and take our chances against anyone in the future. Many of the guys we have recruited the past couple of years can be nice complimentary pieces but that's just what they are, players who are supposed to compliment your stud players. We need more stud players and less complimentary guys.
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Finally a voice of reason.
Our recruiting is vastly substandard and that includes next year's batch of 80 to 200 crew. Period.

Expect nothing more than an at large 12 seed at best. We aren't beating Cincinnati nor witch state at this rate.
 
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Recruiting definitely needs to pick up. I’m still amazed at our struggles to put just one better-than-average player in the front court.

The coaching sabbatical last year was always going to have consequences.

At this point last year, they have MAL and they’re favored for guys like Duke and Reeves. Now, they’ve set Providence up with a top-10 backcourt going forward. That damage is done.

But, they did a good job in recovery mode to recruit kids this year. It’s not a good class by UConn standards, but Akinjo wins and the other two kids look like sleepers - now they need to start landing some top-50 types to actually start competing with these better teams.
 
superjohn said:
I've seen a bunch of people here say we are fine in terms of recruiting and they would take a whole team of Polley's, Carlton's, and Akinjo's and take our chances against anyone in the future. Many of the guys we have recruited the past couple of years can be nice complimentary pieces but that's just what they are, players who are supposed to compliment your stud players. We need more stud players and less complimentary guys.
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Gotcha, losing MAL is really terrible. Obviously missing out on Diallo hurts as well, if the season didn’t fall apart last year with the injuries I truly believe they are in Husky Blue today.
 
Ewekon said:
Finally a voice of reason.
Our recruiting is vastly substandard and that includes next year's batch of 80 to 200 crew. Period.

Expect nothing more than an at large 12 seed at best. We aren't beating Cincinnati nor witch state at this rate.
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Because they recruit better players?
 
August_West said:
Yeah . Come play for UConn , in the juggernaut AAC in front of 5134 in the XL center. Quite frankly it’s a miracle KO gets the players he does.
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Conference affiliation hasn't held back programs like Wichita State and Gonzaga.

If we were winning, attendance and buzz would be there, so it's a bit disingenuous to give KO an excuse on the basis of conditions that he's at least partially responsible for creating.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Conference affiliation hasn't held back programs like Wichita State and Gonzaga.

If we were winning, attendance and buzz would be there, so it's a bit disingenuous to give KO an excuse on the basis of conditions that he's at least partially responsible for creating.
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Where do their recruiting classes fall on the scale compared to ours?
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Conference affiliation hasn't held back programs like Wichita State and Gonzaga.

If we were winning, attendance and buzz would be there, so it's a bit disingenuous to give KO an excuse on the basis of conditions that he's at least partially responsible for creating.
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See I love when someone tees up that equivocation In a recruiting thread

2016 recruit rankings
UConn 8
Gonzaga 20
WSU 72

2017
UConn 82
Gonzaga - not even top 100
WSU - 84


2018

UConn - 37
Gonzaga - 59
WSU - 39


This isn’t about recruiting , this is about getting more out of what we get. That’s the equivocation you can make between those 3 teams.
 
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Kenny11 said:
David O for example, looked really bad because he shouldn’t be playing big minutes against players who are so much more gifted than he is.
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I disagree. I thought he looked serviceable.
 
August_West said:
See I love when someone tees up that equivocation In a recruiting thread

2016 recruit rankings
UConn 8
Gonzaga 20
WSU 72

2017
UConn 82
Gonzaga - not even top 100
WSU - 84


2018

UConn - 37
Gonzaga - 59
WSU - 39


This isn’t about recruiting , this is about getting more out of what we get. That’s the equivocation you can make between those 3 teams.
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It's about recruiting and coaching. Ollie needs to be better in both. That #8 class he brought in was a disaster. He needs to do a better job with what we have, need to make the tournament this year and he needs to bring in some top 50's for 2019.
 
superjohn said:
It's about recruiting and coaching. Ollie needs to be better in both. That #8 class he brought in was a disaster. He needs to do a better job with what we have, need to make the tournament this year and he needs to bring in some top 50's for 2019.
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And what are you going to do if he doesn’t?
 
superjohn said:
It's not at all reactionary, I've been harping on how our last several recruiting classes aren't cutting it for a long time. Any time we play any sort of contender the talent gap is greatly exposed. If Larrier and Jalen both leave after this season it will be Alteique and a bunch of compimentary players. We absolutely need to step up our recruiting game.
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That's the problem. You're a harpy;).

You posit an argument that is obvious to everyone, imply that KO is unaware of what creates success and imply that people in this forum think it's better to not have talented players. In an of itself these points are ridiculous, but you conveniently overlook the two top ten classes KO recruited in 2016 and 2017 that had lots of star power. They just didn't pan out.
Zach Brown, Juwan Durham, Steve Enoch and MAL were all top four or five star players that, had they lived up to their potential and played yesterday, would have been the pieces to go toe to toe with Michigan State. We would not have had to band aid the team with David O., Kwintin W., Cobb and Anderson.

Every bad game you come to this forum and feel the need to blame someone or something for the loss. Worse is you dish it out but don't like the posters who take you to task over it. I understand the rotten feeling of losing and the potential danger of a program never recovering. Does it have to be thrown in people's faces every time?

So I agree with @MadDogRevival that you are Captain Obvious and you are reactionary at least with regards to this program.

One more point: If the players ever exhibited the attitude that some of the posters in this forum exhibit, the fan base would be all over them. And guess which posters would lead the charge?
 
superjohn said:
Dave O looked serviceable last night?
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SJ - we're looking through different lenses!
I respect that we can have different opinions of this team.
I think DO will do fine this year as a serviceable center.
 
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