Why can't Ollie recruit any good players to Uconn?

[boog204]

2 freshman, 5 sophomores on our roster who all are part of our rotation. Thats got to be the biggest factor.

VCU has all soph's, a stud freshmen in Larrier, and 4* 2g, and a 3* sf incoming all at the 2 and 3 so that clearly didn't bother Mack. And UNLV has two 5 star freshmen in Vaughn and Morgan at the 2/3 so Jones didn't seem to be too worried about that either.

 

[Gurleyman]

VCU has all soph's, a stud freshmen in Larrier, a 4* 2g, and a 3* sf all at the 2 and 3 so that clearly didn't bother Mack. And UNLV has two 5 star freshmen in Vaughn and Morgan at the 2/3 so Jones didn't seem to be too worried about that either.

VCU starts four guards/wings and one big. Larrier will basically be a 4 in their system, to the degree that they have a 4 (same way Scott Burrell was our 4 when we played that style). There's room there - their two top perimeter guys (Graham and Weber) are both seniors, so the roster situation looks appealing to a wing (the same way Boat being a senior probably made us appealing to Adams). Any wing we got was looking at being the third string as a freshman (unless they could beat out a senior Omar) without much room to slide the lineup around. Sophomore year would open up for them, but that requires patience.

Having seen Hamilton, there's more of a risk that he'll be gone after this year than I thought back in preseason (freshman mistakes against the press notwithstanding). Ollie obviously knew that it was a risk and went after wings a little harder than our roster situation might dictate. If the signing period was in December, we might have had more of a chance to convince those guys that Hamilton wouldn't be at UConn very long. Back in October, he was a highly regarded non-Burger boy who was likely a 2-3 year college player (in most people's eyes). Not many recruits outside the top 5 in each recruiting class are considered sure bets to leap after a year.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

The football board is on suicide watch
The CR board is almost dead.
Now the BB board fresh from an NC has joined the wake.
The BY is in serious need of counciling

 

[Durks07]

They just win the National Championship, and the only 2 recruits we get, are two kids that grew up Huge Uconn Fans?

something doesn't add up.
does being in the AAC, really make recruits not want to come here?
Diamond Stone coming here is a Pipe Dream.

 

[CAHUSKY]

If Adams and Enoch were from California and Texas people would be hailing Ollie as a recruiting genius. Instead, they complain he can only recruit local kids forgetting that one is arguably the best PG in the country and the other a 4 star kid who tore up the summer circuit.

 

[Gurleyman]

If Adams and Enoch were from California and Texas people would be hailing Ollie as a coaching genius. Instead, they complain he can only recruit local kids forgetting that one is arguably the best PG in the country and the other a 4 star kid who tore up the summer circuit.

Don't get the locals deserve an asterisk attitude. Izzo's title was built with "Flintstones". Doesn't count less. If the best fit for what you need is a local kid, go lock him down.

Plus Hamilton is from Ca, Purvis is from NC, and Brimah is Florida by way of Ghana.

 

[pnow15]

Ollie, hot from the tournament, tried to parlay that into five star recruits. He went everywhere and talked to a lot of players who listened because he is Ollie. He has not been as successful as he thought he would be. He lost Prince Ali because he tried to recruit above him rather than assure Ali he would be the man at the two for this class.. He has had a lot of first dates. Ollie is learning. I think he will be a bit more selective on who he tries to recruit in the future. I also think he should try for guys like Facey and Brimah who haven't been on the AAU circuit for years. Personally, I think you win more with guys who stay three, four years. I would rather have a three, four star guard for three years than a five star for one unless we're talking a Magic-type player.

 

[jibsey]

KO has to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. Recruits from every level change their minds so not recruiting 5 stars is not the way to go. Every blue moon we're gonna land one. For all of our titles KO is recruiting at a disadvantage with the conference. New training center, best young coach, 4 titles? The conference is an albatross that would hurt coach K if he were here. You can say well Calipari recruited fron Conference USA, but why isn't he still there?

 

[jazyj]

why is this thread still up tho

 

[Gurleyman]

We're trying to project macro issues into a micro problem. We're two deep at every position next year (3 deep at the 4). If we can't sign talent in the Class of 2016, particularly on the wing where we may lose Hamilton, Calhoun and Purvis in the next two years (Calhoun definitely, Hamilton more than likely, Purvis perhaps), and with bigs (losing definitely Nolan, and probably Brimah) we can make more sweeping generalizations. We need to replenish scoring talent (around Adams) and we can recruit from a position of strength ("we need you to step in and score for us from day one").

It may happen that we miss out on our top targets in 2016 as well when we have more playing time to offer, in which case, I'll listen more to the conference problems and/or recruiting "closer" problems (which we may indeed turn out to have). At this point, it's too soon to tell what systemic issues we may have, based simply on what Clarke and Mack decided with Hamilton here as a freshman in front of them.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

That just sounds like kicking the can down the road.

I have a hard time imagining that depth of existing talent is scaring kids off. I think we as a fan base are overrating the talent level on this team, particularly when much more talented rosters don't seem to face this problem.

 

[joober jones]

Anyone who's followed UConn basketball knows that it's not always the most heralded recruits who have great potential. Some guys named Emeka Okafor, Hilton Armstrong, and Donny Marshall would have a little something to say about that.

 

[NotADimeBack]

nobody wants to play in the aac it seems.
but i don't see why a few top guys don't sign already and try to turn things into a dynasty in this league, like kansas with the big 12

 

[SirHypeAlot]

Ah good ol HFD

 

[NotADimeBack]

But honestly nobody wants those kinda easy road seeking, one and dones in storrs anyways
I bet KO recruits a lot of those top 15 guys for the sake of it…

 

[pj]

2015 we have Jalen Adams Rivals #25 and Steve Enoch Rivals #60, and we're still recruiting
2014 we had Daniel Hamilton Rivals #14 and Sam Cassell Jr Juco All-American
2013 we had Amida Brimah, Kentan Facey, and Terence Samuel -- 2 frontcourt starters as sophomores plus a serviceable backup guard.

Basically, we have been getting two players per year who have the skills/talent to be 3-year starters. If we do that every year, even with a few early departures we'll have 6-8 outstanding players on the team at a time.

Those recruiting results, if they can continue, are good enough to put us among the top 10 teams in the nation routinely.

I don't get the angst. Do we have to be national champions every year, in order to be successful? Are we failures if we lose the last game of the season?

 

[Gurleyman]

That just sounds like kicking the can down the road.

I have a hard time imagining that depth of existing talent is scaring kids off. I think we as a fan base are overrating the talent level on this team, particularly when much more talented rosters don't seem to face this problem.

Daniel Hamilton is simply a better basketball player - by recruiting rankings or frankly by the eye test - than Chris Clarke or Tevin Mack, and he plays the same position. Sure, one of them could possibly beat out a senior Omar Calhoun to be Hamilton's backup, but even that's not a given. Omar will have four years in the program at that point.

There's not a ton of roster flexibility, either. Slide Hamilton or Mack/Clarke to the two? Purvis (an older McDonald's All-American) is there, with Cassell (a JuCO A-A who is 4 years older than any recruit we bring in) backing him up. Slide Hamilton to the four? That lineup can work in spots, but not on a regular basis, and we have Facey there with two guys competing to be his backup already.

It doesn't take much imagination to see wings questioning where their immediate minutes are going to come from. Would be nice if they would think ahead to their sophomore year, but many don't. They want to play now.

The depth of talent situation is not a problem for someone like Stone, who comes in and beats everyone else on our roster for minutes. The issue with Stone is the hometown pull (and perhaps the fact that Wisky can point to Kaminsky as a big they developed into a lottery pick).

 

[KhalidElAmida]

Boat was easily the least heralded recruit from the 2011 class. Who was a better get for the program- him or 5 star Drum?

Shabazz and J Lamb were both 2-3 star recruits until well after they committed. Who was a better get for the program- them or top-30 Roscoe?

Oriahki and Ater Majok were both 5 star recuits. Coombs-McDaniel and Omar were both top 40 recruits. The list goes on...

R-E-L-A-X

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Daniel Hamilton is simply a better basketball player - by recruiting rankings or frankly by the eye test - than Chris Clarke or Tevin Mack, and he plays the same position.

.

No kidding, but Clarke and Mack are kids we convinced ourselves we were into because we had no shot with better players. If your point is that guys like Hamilton are chasing off the kids that we lose to places like VCU and V Tech, then fine. But I'm more concerned as to why we we can't get more traction with the tier one guys, and I don't think the depth of talent on the roster is the reason.

Someone's now going to say "UConn has never gotten 5 star guys..." which, despite being untrue, gets repeated ad nauseam so it doesn't need to be said again.

Or Upstater is going to list all the class of '17 guys who have UConn "on their list."

 

[DOZE860]

....anyone got any good pizza joints they been to lately?

 

[mets1090]

....anyone got any good pizza joints they been to lately?

There's this local joint called Domino's that opened up a little while ago. They deliver and everything.

 

[huskymagic]

No kidding, but Clarke and Mack are kids we convinced ourselves we were into because we had no shot with better players. If your point is that guys like Hamilton are chasing off the kids that we lose to places like VCU and V Tech, then fine. But I'm more concerned as to why we we can't get more traction with the tier one guys, and I don't think the depth of talent on the roster is the reason.

Someone's now going to say "UConn has never gotten 5 star guys..." which, despite being untrue, gets repeated ad nauseam so it doesn't need to be said again.

Or Upstater is going to list all the class of '17 guys who have UConn "on their list."

Your post is very true and it will bother people. However, I agree with your premise and believe we have a problem with getting elite recruits lately outside of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Not being able to get ONE Mickey D All American last 4 years is proof of our lack of traction with top tier recruits. If top recruits were scared off from our talent of Omar, T-Sam, Nolan, Facey, Purvis, Boat, etc they wouldn't be committing to Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas etc where the talent level is the same if not higher.

The main reason is perception of UCONN as a hard nosed blue collar earn your way school which doesn't resonate with top guys. They want to be fawned over and guaranteed minutes and limelight. With our success we shouldn't have to settle so much and still not get guys we really didn't want but still felt compelled to recruit(Mack, Clarke). I love the guys we get but we need to close out on kids we want better. Now lets get that W tomorrow over Texas and all will be right again in the world.

 

[Gurleyman]

No kidding, but Clarke and Mack are kids we convinced ourselves we were into because we had no shot with better players. If your point is that guys like Hamilton are chasing off the kids that we lose to places like VCU and V Tech, then fine. But I'm more concerned as to why we we can't get more traction with the tier one guys, and I don't think the depth of talent on the roster is the reason.

Someone's now going to say "UConn has never gotten 5 star guys..." which, despite being untrue, gets repeated ad nauseam so it doesn't need to be said again.

Or Upstater is going to list all the class of '17 guys who have UConn "on their list."

Fair point, although if you go by stars and recruiting rankings, Adams-Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah is very similar to El-Amin-Moore-Hamilton-Freeman-Voskuhl (with Freeman admittedly getting a distinct edge over Facey). We just likely won't keep this group together long enough to do the same things. Alas, Hamilton the second isn't likely to be here three years (and we are still just speculating/hoping that Adams is El-Aminish).

Replacing Boat was our biggest need and we found a tier one guy there in Adams - the place we had need, we got exactly what we needed. Enoch wasn't a tier one, but hopefully a top-50/top-75 type guy who can develop into the stretch four role that Daniels and Giffey left behind.

 

[Gurleyman]

Your post is very true and it will bother people. However, I agree with your premise and believe we have a problem with getting elite recruits lately outside of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Not being able to get ONE Mickey D All American last 4 years is proof of our lack of traction with top tier recruits. If top recruits were scared off from our talent of Omar, T-Sam, Nolan, Facey, Purvis, Boat, etc they wouldn't be committing to Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas etc where the talent level is the same if not higher.

The main reason is perception of UCONN as a hard nosed blue collar earn your way school which doesn't resonate with top guys. They want to be fawned over and guaranteed minutes and limelight. With our success we shouldn't have to settle so much and still not get guys we really didn't want but still felt compelled to recruit(Mack, Clarke). I love the guys we get but we need to close out on kids we want better. Now lets get that W tomorrow over Texas and all will be right again in the world.

Daniel Hamilton was maybe one of the last 2-3 guys below the cut off for McDonald's All-American and clearly he should have made it. That's splitting hairs if you don't think he's top tier (or Purvis, who really was a McDonald's All-American). They are from California and North Carolina, respectively. Adams should be one, wherever he happens to be from.

Why is it that we don't count our recruiting successes as successes due to some sort of strange variable we put on ourselves?

Kentucky didn't have anyone backing up the Harrisons and Young last year on the perimeter (7 minutes of Hawkins and that was it), so they haven't always had depth. This year they do, because guys stuck around unexpectedly.

 

[champs99and04]

No kidding, but Clarke and Mack are kids we convinced ourselves we were into because we had no shot with better players. If your point is that guys like Hamilton are chasing off the kids that we lose to places like VCU and V Tech, then fine. But I'm more concerned as to why we we can't get more traction with the tier one guys, and I don't think the depth of talent on the roster is the reason.

Someone's now going to say "UConn has never gotten 5 star guys..." which, despite being untrue, gets repeated ad nauseam so it doesn't need to be said again.

Or Upstater is going to list all the class of '17 guys who have UConn "on their list."

I guess to the extent we're not getting traction with tier one guys is relative. Those guys are obviously few and far between, and in the last two years, we've managed to secure two of them (Hamilton and Adams) in addition to a tier one transfer (Purvis). Not to mention, we're still in the thick of a tight race for Stone, even if it looks like we might be starting to fall behind. There are only a handful of schools who are able to secure one tier one kid, and the schools that get multiple can typically be counted on one hand. Even assuming Stone opts for Wisconsin, our recruiting of upper-echelon players is right in line with programs like Syracuse, MSU, etc., and really only behind Duke, Kansas, Arizona, and Kentucky. If Stone commits here, that'd vault us right into the discussion with those four.

To this point, our class this season has mirrored the one from last year; two nice gets in the early signing period, followed by a lot of frustration after that. It'll be disappointing if we can't string together a killer class fresh off a national title, but if signing one top 25 kid, an additional top 50, and a couple other complementary pieces becomes the norm, I'm OK with that.