Re: Recruiting At A Glance

[dmuc2000]

DF-
   Agreed, that it is refreshing to have a good intelligent conversation about UC basketball...always interested to hear interesting thoughts instead of the same old Huggs/Zimph.  That being said...I'll add again to this thread.
 
My #6 point should be taken as a result of the first 5, and it's the one you're referring to.  I said that "We put ourselves in emergency situations, instead of planning ahead."  I should have said..."More often than not, we put ourselves in emergency situations because of poor planning."  And this is simply only my opinion, but I try to defend with good evidence.
 
Like I have stated before...I used to live with Mel Levett, and even after he graduated I got to know all the players very well, especially the Logan years.  I got to know K-Satt and let me tell you first hand...regardless of how NBA ready he really was, we were lucky to get him back for a second year...and there was NO way he was going to stay for a third.  I agree that he was not NBA ready...but to a McD All-American and starting PG as a frosh for the #1 team in the country, he thought he was and nothing was going to change his mind.  My point is that Huggs knew this, and so did all the players and assistants.   This is #1 example of poor planning.  (I don't know the answer) But it'd be interesting to see how many MCD AA PG's actually stay for more than 2 years...I bet, not many (even if they aren't NBA ready, bc they are NBA EGO ready).  So for Huggs to "try to convince" him to stay (even though everyone knew he was gone) was simply not a smart choice.  
   To your point, that leaves you with Logan (who to that point was more of a SG) and Stokes (who was always a wing player, not really a PG or SG).  So I think getting a better PG should have had much more emphasis placed on it and wouldn't have caused the emergencies it did.  As a recruit, having the chance to start at PG with Logan as a SG and Stokes as the #3 seemed like a great opportunity!
   As for your argument that even with Satt, it would not be a great place to be for a top recruit...look at the North Carolina's and even the Memphis' and many other schools.  They get top teir recruits to come still, knowing they won't play 35 minutes a game right away.  Another angle is the Villanova way...last year they played 4 guards (which is a huge opportunity) and only 1 was a Senior.  They still got 2 Top 30 guards to come this year.  Point is, if you are that good...they will find a place for you to play.
 
   I understand that recruiting is relationship based more than anything...and in an emergency, a top recruit (especially at PG or C) is very difficult to land.  This leads us to your debate of JUCO player vs. Inferior player. First, I don't know how accurate it is to say that a TOP 250 player (who is not Top 50) is inferior to a JUCO player.  There's a reason that guy is a JUCO and it's usually because he's not that good either or he's had trouble (with law, school or coaching)...and notice I said "usually".  
 
Second, not all the players on the floor have to be a star; they have to be a decent player, and most importantly smart and coachable.  Think of all the guys (especially guards) from the Dayton's and Miami (OH)'s and Northern Iowa's, etc. that have eaten UC up in the past.  Look at the early rounds of the NCAA tourney, where no name teams with no name guys play awesome.  That smart, decent player can be the general of a team of more talented players.  Point being, that you don't have to always have the "best" player available.
 
Third, I would rather take a mid level player as a frosh, more than a 2 year JUCO.  Now I'm going to say that at Guard, you are usually more safe to do this than at the Center position (you might end up with a Souley..yikes!!!!!).  Look at the complete end of the spectrum; Jamal Lucas.  As a non Top 400 and a walk on,in my opinion, he was every bit as valuable as #1 ranked JUCO guard Taron Barker or Michael Horton or Top ranked JUCO guard Shawn Myrick.  Teaching guys a system and to play as a team for 4 years is much better than only 2 years.  Don't get me wrong, a Ruben Patterson or a Pete Mickeal are expections...but generally, I would take a 4 player over a JUCO and especially at PG (where learning the system means everything, and guys don't grasp it to year 2).  I think JUCO's are thought to be more valuable than they really are (again, with the exception of a complete stud).
   Fourth, Huggs strength was coaching to get the most out of his players.  In most years, we had guys overachieving due to our recruiting deficiencies.   So there is reason to assume that by recruiting a decent HS guard over a JUCO guard, that HS guy would have gotten much better throughout his 4 years...been valuable to the Bearcats for a longer period of time and known the system inside and out.
  Lastly, I think Huggs recruited "athletic wing" players far too much, instead of recruiting a more traditional "planned" lineup.  Every year we seem to have an abundance of 6'5" to 6'7" guys who are "slashers", but can't shoot well, don't play in the post well, and at times seem to think they are PG's.  Yet, we hardly ever have PGs, SGs, and Cs.  I think this was a major recruiting deficency of Huggs.  Also, we always recruited transfers (Nick Williams, White) who weren't that good at SG, and tried to make them PGs or we went with JUCO PGs, and we always struggled at PG.  With the expection of NVE, our best PG play always came from High School guys (Durden, Logan, Satt). 
   This is just a small part of my "more often that not, we put ourselves in emergency situations because of poor planning" argument.  Just think how good Huggs could have been if he'd planned a just a little better.  He could coach the hell out of a player and push them to be the best they could be...
 
 
I also would love to move back into the "good recruting" vs. "effective recruiting" debate (bc I can see this touching on that area)...meaning that just because a guy is highly ranked, doesn't mean he's a good recruit.  We had too many guys who didn't even play a single game (Jerome Harper, Banks, Evans, Pilgrim) or guys who had character issues that caused their careers to suffer (Bobbitt, Whaley, Antwan Jones).  I wouldn't consider that "effective recruiting".  You can get the TOP 10 players to sign to UC, but if they all go to the NBA straight out of HS or don't qualify academically, is that good recruiting? Not in my book.  The whole point of recruiting is to build YOUR team with players, not just list the best "rated players by Scout.com".  But we'll save that for another post.

From: dfairchild
Date: 28 Feb 2007 - 08:06 AM EST

DMUC,

Thank you for taking the time to actually think through some of the
important questions. At the end, you make some important observations. One
of your key conclusions, if I read it right, is that Huggins didn't plan
well. That may be true and certainly he made some mistakes. I'll comment
on your conclusions this weekend when I have more time.

I'd like to propose a little exercise to demonstrate how difficult and
complex recruiting is. Let's take the K-Satt situation.

Early signing period: During his sophomore year - UC had K-Satt (soph),
Logan (junior) and Stokes (soph). Satt may or may not leave. If you are a
top recruit - does that look like a situation where you are going to get a
lot of playing time? So, it might be a little difficult to get a top PG
recruit to sign on in the early stage.

Season ends and K-Satt leaves.

Late signing period:
How many HS PGs are available? (Look at the current top 150
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/espn150?&action=login&appR
edirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncb%2frecruiting%2ftr there are
only 6 players available - 1 is a PG). So, we can chase that top recruit
though it is highly unlikely that we will land him since we most likely
don't have a strong relationship with him and it is likely this recruit has
some issue - the reason he is still available. I believe in 2002 Jarrett
Jack was still available and Huggins was chasing him, but wasn't able to
land him.

Now 2 options: JUCO or drop down (Jerry's reasonable suggestion).

So let's look at the HS PGs who are outside of the top 150 -
http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=10&p=9&c=11&cfg=bb&yr=2002&pid=40&iSchoolStateP
rovinceId=-1&iRatingValue=-1&iGetJUCOFlag=0&iCommitFlag=-1&iGroupbyPosition=
0&toinid=-1&iInterestLevelId=-1&iOffer=-1&iRecruitVisitFlag=-1&OrderbyColumn
=RatingValue

Here is the exercise - pick any of the PGs below the 25th ranked PG - Daryll
Hill. Look through the list and choose the one that you think will be the
player who can develop into a solid point guard. Then, I will look up how
well that player actually performed.

Note - this assumes all these players are available, which would not be
true - still for this exercise I think it will add to illustrate how
difficult recruiting is.

Another point to consider - 2002 is during the 5/8 rule, so you have to do a
lot of juggling to make sure you can actually recruit as many players as you
may need in a given year. You also may be cultivating a solid relationship
with a top recruit in 2003 and might risk losing that recruit or not having
a scholarship because of the 5/8 rule.

Finally, do you really want to risk a 4 year scholarship on an inferior
player or is it better to give a 2 year scholarship on a solid but not great
player?

Go Cats!

I hope others find this exercise fun. It moves away from the tiring Huggins
conversation. It raises important recruitng classes. And, it helps to
illustrate some of the important, difficult decisions Mick will be making in
the next month or two.

Darryl
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