Basketball recruiting is really strange

[TD_6082]

I really don't follow it all that closely. There very well may be obvious explanations for these that I don't know about, but I found the following really interesting.

...5 of the Top 20 list on Rivals are from the state of Nevada. UNLV landed only one.

...2 of the Top 11 are from the state of Wisconsin, and after the Badgers came so close to winning it all, they don't sign either guy. (one to Marquette and the other to Maryland)

...2 of the Top 15 are from Florida and they are both heading to LSU.

And I'm really glad to see Cuonzo Martin doing well. It was really disgusting how he was treated by that fanbase & I bet he had some good laughs at how it worked out for the Vols and his successor.

 

[mvk112]

1. There are a few big time prep schools in Nevada. I'm guessing most of the top kids aren't from Nevada. I think Zimmerman is, & he is going to UNLV.

2. Those kids committed before the championship I believe. I know Ellenson did, at least.

3. LSU isn't exactly far from Florida. Simmons is actually from Australia, going to Monteverde Academy, which is a prep school.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

If our starting 5 is Jrob, Chris Jones, Jeter, Artis and Young then I am petitioning the NCAA to allow Pitt to leave the ACC for one year and compete in the WPIAL AAAA section 1.. And then I would still be worried because I doubt that lineup could finish above Latrobe, Kiski Area or Penn Trafford..

I really don't follow it all that closely. There very well may be obvious explanations for these that I don't know about, but I found the following really interesting.

...5 of the Top 20 list on Rivals are from the state of Nevada. UNLV landed only one.

...2 of the Top 11 are from the state of Wisconsin, and after the Badgers came so close to winning it all, they don't sign either guy. (one to Marquette and the other to Maryland)

...2 of the Top 15 are from Florida and they are both heading to LSU.

And I'm really glad to see Cuonzo Martin doing well. It was really disgusting how he was treated by that fanbase & I bet he had some good laughs at how it worked out for the Vols and his successor.

Las Vegas has 2 D1 factories, Findlay Prep and Bishop Gorman. Very few of those players are actually "from" Nevada.

I agree with you though that basketball recruiting is really strange, much stranger than football recruiting where kids generally stick to their geographic area. I think this is because most recruiting is done at the spring and summer AAU meat markets where all coaches have access to all players. So while a football player from Wisconsin would probably choose only between the local Big Ten schools, a basketball player may also consider Arizona, Georgetown, Texas, and Florida. For this reason though, I think the lack of a recruiting base for Pitt basketball is overblown. Football ia more where you need the local base because of the volume of players you have to get. In hoops, all it takes is 2 or 3 really good players to make a huge difference.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Prep Schools or in this case, Basketball Factories. Used to be Oak Hill, Fork Union, Valley Forge, etc...were real "prep" schools. Now these ones are just diploma mills and basketball feeder factories. it is rather disgusting.

 

[Delpanther]

I really don't follow it all that closely. There very well may be obvious explanations for these that I don't know about, but I found the following really interesting.

...5 of the Top 20 list on Rivals are from the state of Nevada. UNLV landed only one.

...2 of the Top 11 are from the state of Wisconsin, and after the Badgers came so close to winning it all, they don't sign either guy. (one to Marquette and the other to Maryland)

...2 of the Top 15 are from Florida and they are both heading to LSU.

And I'm really glad to see Cuonzo Martin doing well. It was really disgusting how he was treated by that fanbase & I bet he had some good laughs at how it worked out for the Vols and his successor.

Which is precisely why this talk of Pitt's not being located in a fertile recruiting area being a severe handicap is just false. Kids today go all over the country to play hoops for a school.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

1. There are a few big time prep schools in Nevada. I'm guessing most of the top kids aren't from Nevada. I think Zimmerman is, & he is going to UNLV.

2. Those kids committed before the championship I believe. I know Ellenson did, at least.

3. LSU isn't exactly far from Florida. Simmons is actually from Australia, going to Monteverde Academy, which is a prep school.

2. Diamond Stone committed relatively late, but is heavily tied to Under Armour per the national guys.

3. LSU also hired Ben Simmons' guardian.

Unless you're a blueblood you need to be operating in some kind of a gray area to have consistent success at plucking kids out of their region. That, or a little luck (Cal got Ivan Rabb because he wanted to be close to his mother and was fortunate that Jaylen Brown and him wanted to play together -- I'd imagine Pitt would likely see the Pittsburgh kid leave and play with the other elite player elsewhere).

 

[thebadby2]

Prep Schools or in this case, Basketball Factories. Used to be Oak Hill, Fork Union, Valley Forge, etc...were real "prep" schools. Now these ones are just diploma mills and basketball feeder factories. it is rather disgusting.

Oak Hill? Please. That was the ultimate diploma mill basketball factory that started it all. The combined IQ wattage of their average teams wouldn't light a candle.

I agree with you that the basketball recruiting meat market is disgusting. The players follow the money. That's just the way it is.

 

[Fsgolfdr]

A school like Pitt would benifit greatly from having 4-6 P5 D1 prospects every year from western Pa . Some would leave ,but some would stay. Not being an elite bb school it's hard to compete with the blue bloods and with geographic considerations. Some kids want their parents ,friends ,girlfriends & family close by and you can't compete with that. Your a top 50 kid from outside of WPa Pitt and Duke are recuirting you Duke wins 99.9% of these if not 100% now your from Murrysville Pitt has a chance and if that kid is close to his family and he wants to stay local you have a great chance ,that's the power of what being local gives you.

 

[Harve74]

Oak Hill? Please. That was the ultimate diploma mill basketball factory that started it all. The combined IQ wattage of their average teams wouldn't light a candle.

I agree with you that the basketball recruiting meat market is disgusting. The players follow the money. That's just the way it is.

And a significant portion of those basketball diploma mills require a " donation" just for access to recruit their kids. That's not counting what the player or his handlers are asking. That is the biggest issue keeping Pitt out of signing most big name players.

 

[GolfVolz]

I really don't follow it all that closely. There very well may be obvious explanations for these that I don't know about, but I found the following really interesting.

...5 of the Top 20 list on Rivals are from the state of Nevada. UNLV landed only one.

...2 of the Top 11 are from the state of Wisconsin, and after the Badgers came so close to winning it all, they don't sign either guy. (one to Marquette and the other to Maryland)

...2 of the Top 15 are from Florida and they are both heading to LSU.

And I'm really glad to see Cuonzo Martin doing well. It was really disgusting how he was treated by that fanbase & I bet he had some good laughs at how it worked out for the Vols and his successor.

I really don't follow it all that closely. There very well may be obvious explanations for these that I don't know about, but I found the following really interesting.

...5 of the Top 20 list on Rivals are from the state of Nevada. UNLV landed only one.

...2 of the Top 11 are from the state of Wisconsin, and after the Badgers came so close to winning it all, they don't sign either guy. (one to Marquette and the other to Maryland)

...2 of the Top 15 are from Florida and they are both heading to LSU.

And I'm really glad to see Cuonzo Martin doing well. It was really disgusting how he was treated by that fanbase & I bet he had some good laughs at how it worked out for the Vols and his successor.

Some facts about Martin....
He had a so-so year at Cal year 1, no Dance.
He was NIT at UT his first two years after Bruce.
He was headed for 3 straight NIT births (his last year at UT) when
he was lucky enough UT was picked for a play in game. In that game -
UT came back from being down double digits to force OT. Tennessee won
and then beat Mercer (who upset Duke) and made the sweet 16.

In the weeks before the NCAA selection show, most fans knew we would be lucky
to back into the NCAA Tourney. A petition was started to bring back Bruce Pearl and the media
went wild with it after Tennessee made the Sweet 16.
Not every Tennessee fan signed the petition... the majority did not, lol!

It is also worth noting his recruiting classes were bad, especially the last one he
was about to bring in. He would have been fired the following year (this year)
had he not left for Cal.

So other than him just now signing some bluechip recruits, there is not much
of a success story going on. And the Vols now have Rick Barnes, 16 of last 17
seasons = making it into the field of 64!

 

[TD_6082]

Some facts about Martin....
He had a so-so year at Cal year 1, no Dance.
He was NIT at UT his first two years after Bruce.
He was headed for 3 straight NIT births (his last year at UT) when
he was lucky enough UT was picked for a play in game. In that game -
UT came back from being down double digits to force OT. Tennessee won
and then beat Mercer (who upset Duke) and made the sweet 16.

In the weeks before the NCAA selection show, most fans knew we would be lucky
to back into the NCAA Tourney. A petition was started to bring back Bruce Pearl and the media
went wild with it after Tennessee made the Sweet 16.
Not every Tennessee fan signed the petition... the majority did not, lol!

It is also worth noting his recruiting classes were bad, especially the last one he
was about to bring in. He would have been fired the following year (this year)
had he not left for Cal.

So other than him just now signing some bluechip recruits, there is not much
of a success story going on. And the Vols now have Rick Barnes, 16 of last 17
seasons = making it into the field of 64!

Cuonzo had a better SEC record in his 3 seasons than Bruce did his last 3. He was good stand-up guy that won sandwiched between two sloppy cheaters. Is Alamony's still in business?

 

[GolfVolz]

Cuonzo had a better SEC record in his 3 seasons than Bruce did his last 3. He was good stand-up guy that won sandwiched between two sloppy cheaters. Is Alamony's still in business?

Bruce always made the NCAAs, every single year... even his first year when 6'4 Power Forward Dane Bradshaw had to
lead the team. Not sure about any conference records but that is secondary when it only gets you
NIT bids. Auburn is happy CBP was available. So was ESPN for a year or two.

Martin is a "stand up guy"... but if he doesn't get the job done at Cal... some of their fans
will want a new coach as well. He is on the clock now with the All Americans.

 

[thebadby2]

Bruce always made the NCAAs, every single year... even his first year when 6'4 Power Forward Dane Bradshaw had to
lead the team. Not sure about any conference records but that is secondary when it only gets you
NIT bids. Auburn is happy CBP was available. So was ESPN for a year or two.

Martin is a "stand up guy"... but if he doesn't get the job done at Cal... some of their fans
will want a new coach as well. He is on the clock now with the All Americans.

Given that freshman class at Cal, I think it's a safe assumption that Martin has scrapped that "stand up guy" thing and has joined the cheaters. That type of class isn't possible for the "stand up guys."

 

[Piranha]

Rick Barnes could not win big at Texas when he had the 2nd best player on the planet. He is not going to do much at Tenn.

 

[TD_6082]

Bruce always made the NCAAs, every single year... even his first year when 6'4 Power Forward Dane Bradshaw had to
lead the team. Not sure about any conference records but that is secondary when it only gets you
NIT bids. Auburn is happy CBP was available. So was ESPN for a year or two.

Martin is a "stand up guy"... but if he doesn't get the job done at Cal... some of their fans
will want a new coach as well. He is on the clock now with the All Americans.

Bruce had CJ Watson & Chris Lofton on his first team. He also recruited idiots like Ramar Smith (who seems to love the East Knoxville area) Duke Crews, not to mention the gang that got pulled over and arrested on Alcoa Hwy for guns & weed.

At least Cuonzo probably isn't dumb enough to lie to NCAA investgators about a BBQ & a picture of an assistant's wife.

I want to like Bruce. I really do. But he is a loose cannon who often uses poor judgement.

 

[TD_6082]

BTW, If you want to explain away or minimize Cuonzo's NCAA run his last year, you can also easily minimize Bruce Pearl's run to the Elite 8. They beat San Diego State, Ohio U, then squeaked by a pretty good tOSU team that basically had one elite player on their whole roster (Evan Turner) and very little depth.

The post season was never Bruce's strong suit.

 

[GolfVolz]

And getting into the NCAA tournament is not Martin's strong suit. But he's a nice guy so yay for him.

 

[TD_6082]

Well, he went to the Sweet 16 his last year. I imagine that was a hard situation he took over with the popular coach in NCAA trouble getting pushed out. Tobias Harris bolting after one year and the embarrassing Michigan game in the NCAAs. The program was in pretty bad shape.

 

[Harve74]

And getting into the NCAA tournament is not Martin's strong suit. But he's a nice guy so yay for him.

Well, Volz, at the moment Tennessee has major egg on its collective face for firing a guy who just landed the #5 overall recruiting class and hiring a guy who was landed on with all four feet by the NCAA. You have to fire Pearl for violations and after a very brief test of Martin, you hire Tyndall with his baggage? What were you thinking? Way to do your due diligence!

Maybe Barnes will improve at Tennessee. He has always recruited well. Coaching, well , not so much. Good luck.

 

[GolfVolz]

Well, Volz, at the moment Tennessee has major egg on its collective face for firing a guy who just landed the #5 overall recruiting class and hiring a guy who was landed on with all four feet by the NCAA. You have to fire Pearl for violations and after a very brief test of Martin, you hire Tyndall with his baggage? What were you thinking? Way to do your due diligence!

Maybe Barnes will improve at Tennessee. He has always recruited well. Coaching, well , not so much. Good luck.

Martin was not fired. He left on his own... Was looking around and hired by Cal.

Cal had a pretty good group returning, pre season #5 in the conference. Martin's first year in the pac 12 didn't go so well.

We will so how things go the next few years.
Good luck to Pitt. Big FAN of Jamie Dixon.
I am done with this thread.

 

[Harve74]

Martin was not fired. He left on his own... Was looking around and hired by Cal.

Cal had a pretty good group returning, pre season #5 in the conference. Martin's first year in the pac 12 didn't go so well.

We will so how things go the next few years.
Good luck to Pitt. Big FAN of Jamie Dixon.
I am done with this thread.

Google Gary Parrish's column on CBS Sports.com on Juy 16 "New faces, new places: Cuonzo Martin knew it was time to leave Vols"

Maybe he wasn't exactly fired but when 40,000 fans sign a petition to fire him, and prominent boosters were actively working against him, it certainly was, as Parrish calls it, a toxic situation.

 

[TD_6082]

Thank you Harve74. That's a great note to put this thread to rest.