2023 Recruiting: Youssouf Singare Commits to UConn

[shizzle787]

This is all so duck___ dumb it almost hurts to read. You know you don’t HAVE to keep advocating for a position when it becomes farcical?

Brendan Adams was a three star recruit who was the first player Hurley convinced to come here almost exclusively for his toughness, leadership, and work ethic, because Hurley wanted him to be a model for the culture he was trying to inculcate. No one expected him to dominate the Big East - he was a bridge to a time when better players would replace him, which is what happened. Some slob on the internet calling him a bust irks me.

The position that sub-100 recruits for us rarely pan out. I am 100% right with this. As far as Adams, he transferred to GW because he couldn't cut it here. He was on the bottom end of the rotation. Gaffney transferred to FAU. They didn't pan out. It is okay to admit this.

 

[auror]

The position that sub-100 recruits for us rarely pan out. I am 100% right with this. As far as Adams, he transferred to GW because he couldn't cut it here. He was on the bottom end of the rotation. Gaffney transferred to FAU. They didn't pan out. It is okay to admit this.

Putting 1/4 sub 100 kids in the NBA does not equate to "rarely panning out" to me. When people use the word rarely, they generally mean about 5-10% chance of happening.
.

Either way, past results on a sample size of 4 does not mean anything at all. Literally nothing.

That's why people are disagreeing with you (other than the flat wrong asterisk Martin stuff). Take the opportunity to agree to disagree and bow out.

 

[SixRings]

My whole point is that we historically do not do well with sub-100 guys out of high school. We need to avoid recruiting them if we want to win national titles regularly going forward. People are pointing out Martin as a counter, but I think we need to put a major league asterisk on that due to him getting recruited by Hurley at URI only after he played a post grad year against a better level of competition than high school. If we can get a top-5 class without this kid, we don't need him. It makes a lot more sense to add a veteran college player next year in the transfer portal than a 5th recruit in one class. And his other offers were lesser Big East schools (St. John's, Providence, Seton Hall) and BYU. No other truly major players on the scene. The aforementioned schools are all arguably top-60 programs but none are top-30. If nobody else in the top 30 wanted him, that should be a red flag. I hope this kid proves me wrong but history suggests otherwise. And it's not just him, Jayden Ross is ranked around 130. I think he may struggle.

This not to say that I am po-pooing the whole class. I think there is a real possibility Castle is a one and done, and Solomon Ball will be a really good player, but they are both top 40-50 prospects (Castle top-20) so there is precedent based on ranking that will do well. As one would expect, the higher the ranker generally correlates with better performance, and UConn is definitely no exception.

Is there a program, in particular, that you feel does well with sub 100 guys? Didn’t Dan Hurley and staff get the best they could given the programs circumstances? I get what you’re saying but it seems obvious that sub 100 players don’t pan out as often as top 100 players do. Beyond that I see your point too; why now take a sub 100 guy when your program is able to get a top 100 guy and thus be in a position to have a better chance. Perhaps in this case, with a raw 7‘ guy they see something that they can’t get inside the top 100. I’d give this staff the benefit of the doubt. They found Bouk able to do things he wasn’t ranked to be able to do. JMO.

 

[shizzle787]

Is there a program, in particular, that you feel does well with sub 100 guys? Didn’t Dan Hurley and staff get the best they could given the programs circumstances? I get what you’re saying but it seems obvious that sub 100 players don’t pan out as often as top 100 players do. Beyond that I see your point too; why now take a sub 100 guy when your program is able to get a top 100 guy and thus be in a position to have a better chance. Perhaps in this case, with a raw 7‘ guy they see something that they can’t get inside the top 100. I’d give this staff the benefit of the doubt. They found Bouk able to do things he wasn’t ranked to be able to do. JMO.

I am sure there are mid-major programs that do. Wichita State under Gregg Marshall for one. McKillop at Davidson is another. My point is that it is better to grab a transfer with two years of experience than a sub-100 recruit when you already have three really good recruits coming in including a possibly one and done lottery pick.

 

[navery12]

I am sure there are mid-major programs that do. Wichita State under Gregg Marshall for one. McKillop at Davidson is another. My point is that it is better to grab a transfer with two years of experience than a sub-100 recruit when you already have three really good recruits coming in including a possibly one and done lottery pick.

And we're going to have multiple open scholarships to grab those transfers you want

 

[SixRings]

I am sure there are mid-major programs that do. Wichita State under Gregg Marshall for one. McKillop at Davidson is another. My point is that it is better to grab a transfer with two years of experience than a sub-100 recruit when you already have three really good recruits coming in including a possibly one and done lottery pick.

i see your point but you’ll probably get some pushback from people here. If there’s ever a program that has a history of performIng well with 3 and 4 star players it’s UConn. I know we’re talking about this staff now but they are still young here and you can complain about the lack of tourney success but cannot complain about the trajectory here.

 

[fatlucy]

Agree to disagree. Adams and Gaffney were both busts. The proof of this is that neither were key contributors on Big East teams. They were both on the end of the rotation. Gaffney rarely looked good on the court against high-major competition, and Adams was very inconsistent. They did better when we were garbage in the AAC and even then they weren't very good. Ask yourself this question: outside of the most hardcore Husky fans, who will remember either in 10 years?

With regards to Martin; it is true that Hurley recruited him to URI, but he was partially developed at a prep school for a year and then went to URI for a year. Out of high school, he was getting offers from schools like Central. So he went to prep school, played well and got mid-major offers from URI and others. He was further developed by Cox at URI. By the time he got here and playing, he was already three years out of high school. If you want to count him go ahead, but I would put a major asterisk next to him due to the fact that it is not an apples to apples between him and kids straight out of high school.

You do realize that when you post stupid things, everyone can see it?

 

[maineuconnfan]

I am sure there are mid-major programs that do. Wichita State under Gregg Marshall for one. McKillop at Davidson is another. My point is that it is better to grab a transfer with two years of experience than a sub-100 recruit when you already have three really good recruits coming in including a possibly one and done lottery pick.

Most schools recruit players for depth. They may transfer out. We may have other things on the horizon. none of us know all the conversations Hurley has to help develop the roster. Having serviceable players for depth that could break through is not a bad move... it's not the only move, but the only one we know of thus far.

1/5 of sub-100 recruits went to NBA...and this was in an era in which UConn was trying to return to form. Did not have a lot of options and were still in the AAC for the beginning.

A more accurate statement you could say is "I would prefer that we would only recruit players that are top 100, because the lower the rating, the chance of major contribution diminishes." which is obvious, and it appears that you believe you have discovered some hidden piece of wisdom on recruiting philosophy. Of course, the lower ratings lower the chance of productivity. If we had all sub-100 guys, well, that would be a problem. Recruiting depth and potential is what you do unless you are Duke or Kentucky and you can bring only five and on high 4 star recruits.

oh, and btw, Gaffney, according to ESPN, was actually top 100. and Gaffney was not a bust, he just wasn't a great player. He was mediocre. We do not need to create false dichotomies. Either they are great or a bust...a lot in the middle.

And really statistically speaking, this sample size is small, a very terrible sample size to make predictions off of.

 

[REB1094]

Are we arguing whether it’s good or not that we signed a 4 star athletic raw freak of nature to be our backup C because he’s not an NBA caliber high school player

 

[MilliniumPrince]

FAB 5 > 1....

 

[auror]

Are we arguing whether it’s good or not that we signed a 4 star athletic raw freak of nature to be our backup C because he’s not an NBA caliber high school player

Only one of us.

 

[Waquoit]

Y'know, JC always said when you get a chance to get a 7-footer, get 'im. Good enough for me.

 

[Mike Honcho]

Emeka was ranked #99 out of high school. How'd that work out?

And maybe bone up on this article:

 

[MDHuskFan]

I am sure there are mid-major programs that do. Wichita State under Gregg Marshall for one. McKillop at Davidson is another. My point is that it is better to grab a transfer with two years of experience than a sub-100 recruit when you already have three really good recruits coming in including a possibly one and done lottery pick.

Agree to disagree here, but if you look at the transfer market from last year, the “good” bigs seemed to be strategic with where they went.

Not a lot of great bigs will be knocking down the door to be DC’s backup

 

[NJHoops]

 

[superjohn]

My whole point is that we historically do not do well with sub-100 guys out of high school. We need to avoid recruiting them if we want to win national titles regularly going forward.

You're expecting us to win national titles regularly?

 

[navery12]

Agree to disagree here, but if you look at the transfer market from last year, the “good” bigs seemed to be strategic with where they went.

Not a lot of great bigs will be knocking down the door to be DC’s backup

Not only that, he's on the record that Sanogo is going to stay for his senior year. So he wants a great transfer big to come be the 3rd string C behind Sanogo and Clingan

 

[Samoo]

The position that sub-100 recruits for us rarely pan out. I am 100% right with this. As far as Adams, he transferred to GW because he couldn't cut it here. He was on the bottom end of the rotation. Gaffney transferred to FAU. They didn't pan out. It is okay to admit this.

They weren't recruited by Hurley, but Whaley and Polley were definitely ranked outside of 100 and developed pretty damn well under Dan and his staff.

Alas, I don't think 100% right means what you think it does

 

[CL82]

Emeka was ranked #99 out of high school. How'd that work out?

And maybe bone up on this article:

Apparently it is a white paper

 

[Chin Diesel]

That would be amazing.

UConn has had four classes or groups win national championships. A new class comparing themselves to a group of Michigan players who never won a championship isn't a big wow to me but whatever. If they're having fun with it, let it be. Also great to see the original Fab Five being some type of old school reference.

Final note, comparing this group to the original Fab Five, UConn's highest ranked recruit of the bunch, Castle, would have been the fourth or fifth highest ranked player in the Michigan group. Webber was #1 or #2 recruit that year, Howard was around the top 5, Rose was a top 10-ish recruit. Jimmy King was somewhere in the 20's and Ray Jackson was a bit further down. UM had 3 5-star players, one borderline 4/5 star and a four star.

If I missed the point of your that would be amazing referencing my comment about being able to afford cheeseburgers, yes, that too would be amazing.

 

[CL82]

Also great to see the original Fab Five being some type of old school reference.

Which makes me wonder who actually came up with the concept of re-creating that classic photo.

 

[jibsey]

My whole point is that we historically do not do well with sub-100 guys out of high school. We need to avoid recruiting them if we want to win national titles regularly going forward. People are pointing out Martin as a counter, but I think we need to put a major league asterisk on that due to him getting recruited by Hurley at URI only after he played a post grad year against a better level of competition than high school. If we can get a top-5 class without this kid, we don't need him. It makes a lot more sense to add a veteran college player next year in the transfer portal than a 5th recruit in one class. And his other offers were lesser Big East schools (St. John's, Providence, Seton Hall) and BYU. No other truly major players on the scene. The aforementioned schools are all arguably top-60 programs but none are top-30. If nobody else in the top 30 wanted him, that should be a red flag. I hope this kid proves me wrong but history suggests otherwise. And it's not just him, Jayden Ross is ranked around 130. I think he may struggle.

This not to say that I am po-pooing the whole class. I think there is a real possibility Castle is a one and done, and Solomon Ball will be a really good player, but they are both top 40-50 prospects (Castle top-20) so there is precedent based on ranking that will do well. As one would expect, the higher the ranker generally correlates with better performance, and UConn is definitely no exception.

Yeah of course. Wouldn't it be nice if the first 3 guys off our bench were 2 - 5's and a 4 star like Duke? In the meantime we wait for Hurley to eventually reel in a top ten player which is sure to come down the road, but he's doing quite well.

 

[BlueMAB]

I don't know why shizzle is getting so much heat. Why bring in a 7 footer now, when you might be able to land one later?

 

[ctchamps]

My whole point is that we historically do not do well with sub-100 guys out of high school. We need to avoid recruiting them if we want to win national titles regularly going forward. People are pointing out Martin as a counter, but I think we need to put a major league asterisk on that due to him getting recruited by Hurley at URI only after he played a post grad year against a better level of competition than high school. If we can get a top-5 class without this kid, we don't need him. It makes a lot more sense to add a veteran college player next year in the transfer portal than a 5th recruit in one class. And his other offers were lesser Big East schools (St. John's, Providence, Seton Hall) and BYU. No other truly major players on the scene. The aforementioned schools are all arguably top-60 programs but none are top-30. If nobody else in the top 30 wanted him, that should be a red flag. I hope this kid proves me wrong but history suggests otherwise. And it's not just him, Jayden Ross is ranked around 130. I think he may struggle.

This not to say that I am po-pooing the whole class. I think there is a real possibility Castle is a one and done, and Solomon Ball will be a really good player, but they are both top 40-50 prospects (Castle top-20) so there is precedent based on ranking that will do well. As one would expect, the higher the ranker generally correlates with better performance, and UConn is definitely no exception.

Will Shizzle sizzle or fizzle? Tune in at 11 for the latest!

Here’s my ever so slight contribution to the fizzle side.

It was1999 in UConn’s first NC. One of the moments etched in my memory was Soulemane Wane’s strip of Elton Brand and follow up basket. That play and the look on Brand’s face was priceless. That’s as well as you can do with a sub 100 player. Have a pivotal play in the most pivotal game that was significant in the most important game in UConn mens bb history.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

I don't know why shizzle is getting so much heat. Why bring in a 7 footer now, when you might be able to land one later?

You know the old saying, a bird in the bush is worth a bird in the hand. Or something like that.