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

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

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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.
 

Stainmaster

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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.

I hear Josh Pastner recruits well. Let's fire KO and hire him instead.
 

UConnSwag11

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I really, really, hate coming to this board, someone wants attention so they create a thread like this while there's 30 others saying the same thing. It's hard to tell if they're trolling, hfd has several accounts, or they're sincere.
 

RMoore1999

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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.

"does being in the AAC, really make recruits not want to come here?"

Misplaced comma notwithstanding, if this is a sincere question, then its your brain that probably "doesn't add up"...

As it relates to recruiting, the AAC is much more of a negative impact than last year's NC is a positive one...
 
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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.
So you don't think JA or SE are any good? Because your thread is titled "why can't Ollie recruit any good players?" Or did you mean why can't Ollie get every single player he recruits?
 

Stainmaster

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So you don't think JA or SE are any good? Because your thread is titled "why can't Ollie recruit any good players?" Or did you mean why can't Ollie get every single player he recruits?

Agreed. It's astonishing how little some people know about the recruiting process. UCONN isn't the only school that's ever sent players to the NBA, nor is it the only school that wins titles, nor is it the only school with a highly regarded coach.
 
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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.

Because Purvis. Duh.

You're behind the times man. You should start a thread about how we're not going to make the tournament, those won't start in earnest for another week or so - you can be ahead of the curve.
 
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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.

Do yourself a favor and go look over the last 15 years at the list of MCDAA that have come to Uconn,how many were on our title teams,how many top 5 recruiting classes we`ve ever pulled or how how many top 10 recruits we`ve ever had. The numbers are miniscule compared to the other blue bloods. Now go look at what schools have the most national titles over that time.

I remember in `11 people whining about our recruiting class and how we`d be lucky to win 15 games that year.
 

formerlurker

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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.

anY3NXB_700b.jpg
 

CTBasketball

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Pastner ability to recruit well is inflated by the slew of brothers (all ESPN Top 100's) that he just locked up because their father is apart of the program.

And yes, the AAC definitely hurts recruiting. But this was known 2 years ago...
 
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Pastner ability to recruit well is inflated by the slew of brothers (all ESPN Top 100's) that he just locked up because their father is apart of the program.

And yes, the AAC definitely hurts recruiting. But this was known 2 years ago...

He had a well-deserved reputation for recruiting way before those brothers entered the picture.
 
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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.
Interesting perspective............... I have never heard this before.
 
H

huskymagic

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.

Several reasons. One being the American Conference no high school top prospect dreams of playing Tulsa, ECU, etc. Second UCONN's perception despite its success is not very good nationally. Perception matters more than reality in most circumstances. Lastly, recruits want to be fawned over and appreciated meaning guaranteed starter minutes, playing style, etc which UCONN does not do with recruiting for the most part.

I agree with you its very difficult to watch us swing and miss with so many of our top targets several years in a row with the success we have had. We should not be losing recruits to VCU and UNLV. We need to do w/e is possible to get in a P5 conference ASAP or staying relevant will be hard to maintain over the long run without Final Four Runs every couple of years.
 

UCweCONN

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Is it feasible to play as an independent and just play home and away series against good teams and get in as an at large every year? I have to imagine we'd do better with recruits with that approach than playing in the AAC.
 

CTBasketball

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Is it feasible to play as an independent and just play home and away series against good teams and get in as an at large every year? I have to imagine we'd do better with recruits with that approach than playing in the AAC.
Teams don't usually play OOC games past January. Plus winning a garbage tournament every year is an easy way to get in.
 
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huskymagic said:
Several reasons. One being the American Conference no high school top prospect dreams of playing Tulsa, ECU, etc. Second UCONN's perception despite its success is not very good nationally. Perception matters more than reality in most circumstances. Lastly, recruits want to be fawned over and appreciated meaning guaranteed starter minutes, playing style, etc which UCONN does not do with recruiting for the most part. I agree with you its very difficult to watch us swing and miss with so many of our top targets several years in a row with the success we have had. We should not be losing recruits to VCU and UNLV. We need to do w/e is possible to get in a P5 conference ASAP or staying relevant will be hard to maintain over the long run without Final Four Runs every couple of years.


UConn's perception is very good nationally. When I wear UConn garb anywhere in the country it gets tons of comments. However, the brand is not quite where it should be based on results. That probably has more to do with our marketing department than our basketball program. It also has s lot to do with football. Many casual basketball fans are hard core football fans. We need a visible and decent football program to help build market appeal outside of basketball season.

UConn is not getting pimped nationally like UK, Duke and UNC by the brain trust at ESPN. UConn isn't offering anything sketchy that we know of. We aren't hiring parents all over campus, we don't have imaginary classes and we don't treat basketball players like the Pitt/Jolie family when staying at the Ritz (UK).
We don't offer the weather of Arizona or Florida.

What we offer is a legacy of excellence built on hard work and extra effort. Ultimately, young men don't usually appreciate those things until after they've experienced it. Someday, we'll get a great closer on staff and elevate the recruiting from 4* to 5*. Until then, we need to appreciate our coaches' ability to reach 5* results with 4* talent. As long as they keep producing titles, we can't argue that the status quo isn't working. My one big issue with blaming it on the AAC is that We've been in the AAC for two years and won a title in year two. It is kind of hard to really know what it is doing to our recruiting when we brought in some serious talent in recently and our roster is loaded with everything but a pure shooter. We don't look like we have much playing time available on paper. Hamilton and Adams are mega recruits and Stone is still lurking. There are always other guys we aren't aware of that commit out of the blue as well.

I'd stick with my standard answer on this. We need a serious closer on staff and we need to keep winning a lot of games until our call up comes. Those two things will keep UConn in the hunt. I don't think we are seeing the AAC cause us too much trouble just yet. If we have a really rough year or two, it could suddenly become a big issue. For now, we have the horses to fight on and hope that a new conference comes calling.
 
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I think what's disconcerting is not that we are missing on the 5* guys, that's always been a rarity for us. It's more that this year we have missed on every top 50-75 guy that we build this program upon. Adams and Enoch are great prospects, but we are ultra fortunate that they are local kids. We were the purported leader for Jones, Stone, Clarke, and Mack at different points and it looks like all of them have slipped away. We had two signees de-commit; we "replaced" one with Adams but I think in retrospect we'd love to have either one now.

Obviously, you cannot get every kid. But in the past we would have pulled out 1 or 2 of the 4. Is it a conference thing? The lack of that stud recruiter? Gampel ceiling tiles? Dairy Barn has slipped? And we can't just use the "next" argument b/c the trend is for most recruits to sign in the fall. It's slim pickings out there if we are looking for a legit high d1 wing or big man. Otherwise it's Jamal Trice time...
 
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Agreed. It's astonishing how little some people know about the recruiting process. UCONN isn't the only school that's ever sent players to the NBA, nor is it the only school that wins titles, nor is it the only school with a highly regarded coach.
It isn't?
 

UconnU

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2 freshman, 5 sophomores on our roster who all are part of our rotation. Thats got to be the biggest factor.
 
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Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah. All Ollie's recruits. That's 80 percent of our starting lineup. Only Facey is sort of local - but everyone recruits New York.

Would you have preferred Hamilton went to UCLA? That would have been a big help to getting one of our wing targets this year - not having a stud wing who's a freshman.
 
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Per Evan Daniels: Tyus Battle will take a visit to Connecticut on Sunday, his father tells Scout.
 
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