Totally agree. Graves kind of feels like a more hands-off, West Coast hippie version of Walz - funny and charismatic guy who's a strong tactician but not the world's most determined player development coach, but he attracts enough to talent that that alone is a reason to come, and the talent pushes each other to be better. I suspect that formula works in a world where a lot of recruits come with considerable AAU & Team USA experience and feel they are more fully formed (rightly or wrongly). I guess I kind of feel like if you like the Oregon vibe then Geno is not going to be for you, and vice versa. (You know which style I prefer.
)
And
man, somehow even with Stanford landing 3 top 5 recruits for 2019-2021 (2019-#1 Jones, 2020-#3 Brink, and 2021-#4 Demetre) plus another couple top 20 forwards (Belibi and Prechtel) and a few top 30-40 guards (Jump and Van Gytenbeek), I
still feel like we're barely holding on in the recruiting war against Oregon -- which is insane, because if you took all transfers out of the equation, Stanford has indisputably recruited as strong as any school in the country, and easily the strongest since the Wiggins/Appel/Pedersen/Pohlen/Ogwumike x2 streak.
Those road trips up north are going to be brutal for the foreseeable future...