Recruiting vs. Coaching

[SJHooper]

Just out of curiosity, I looked at Miami's starting 5. I looked up each of their recruitments. They are a consistently very dangerous team that seems to not only beat major teams but demolish them. What I found was surprising.

*3 out of the 5 starters were 3 stars...no superstars or blue chippers
*The remaining 2 were 4 star recruits
*1 of the 4 star recruits was ranked #100 something nationally...really closer to a 3 star
*The other 4 star recruit was #60 nationally

To compare with our #2 class under Lavin we had:

*The 25th recruit (4 star)
*The 39th recruit (4 star)
*The 64th recruit (4 star)
*The 99th recruit (4 star)
*We also got Jakarr Sampson later on, 51st nationally (4 star)

Miami looks Elite 8 good with what they have and Steve Lavin had much more talent to work with, yet barely made the tourney and could not win a NCAA game let alone a BET game with this squad. That just goes to show how awful Lavin was at coaching/player development.

My takeaway:

It has to be great coaching and scouting. Miami on paper should be an ok, not great team. Maybe an unranked 17 win team. Instead, they are playing like a top 10 team. This is what good coaching and scouting can do. What I also love about their recruiting strategy is that they get big, strong guys. I'm sick of seeing these 6'9 165 lb kids. Some say it's conditioning and hitting the weight room, but that's not entirely true. Many of their recruits were big dudes before they even stepped on their campus. Instead of 6'8 165 lb guys they go after 6'8 200 lb guys. I can't remember the last time my Johnnies had anything like that...a handful of physical specimens who can dominate the paint offensively and push people around. They always seem to go to UMIami, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Texas, etc. I also did similar research on Xavier. They have a lot of 3 star guys as well and they are on the verge of being a top 5 team. Mack has done an amazing job there getting the most out of those kids. I truly hope Mullin and his staff can get the most out of our recruits. I really think that you need a few 4-5 star studs who lead the team and some 3 star role players who get coached up to a high level and stay 4 years. That seems to be the recipe. Gonzaga has also operated this way and they add lots of foreign players that go under the radar. I'm glad to see my Johnnies trying the same approach with Mussini, Freudenberg, Amar, etc. Mussini is a small kid but he is tough as nails and once we get our real guards here next year, he will be a dead eye spot up shooter.

I just always think it's interesting to debate...what percent is coaching and what percent is recruiting/scouting? I used to be more of a 70/30 recruiting vs. coaching kind of guy. I think I might be leaning the other way now. Thoughts?

[GumbyDamnit!]

A couple things Hooper. First what you didn't stress enough is the age of the Miami team. They have a handful of 4th and 5th year players. Some kids just need time to physically develop. It makes a difference. Players play 4 years in HS, then prep for a year and then redshirt a year, etc. So a guy like Jalen Reynolds, who is now 23, or some of the Miami guys, get to slowly hone their craft and get stronger. Just because of age and maturity he should be able to do quite well against 18-19 year old 5 star kids.

Seth Greenberg made a very interesting comment on ESPN last night. He mentioned that the average age of the top scorer, top rebounder and top assist person for all teams in the Top 25, was 3.5+ years of college experience (for each). Nova: 3-4-4 = 3.7. X: 2-4-4 = 3.3 OK, Iowa, KU, Nova, UVA, X, Miami are all teams with a wealth of experience on their rosters.

I made mention of this last year when everyone was saying that teams like UK & Duke would always be FF participants b/c of their ability to hand pick the best HS players. I think the way to combat that as a conference is to recruit select 3 & 4 star kids and develop them into 4 year players. Who's really the better front line in 2016: Skai L. at UK & C. Diallo at KU (perhaps the 2 best true HS bigs in this year's class) or Reynolds & Farr at X? I'll take the X players for this year, hands down. So there is definitively a path to combat the one-and-done talent ridden squads of Duke, KU, Arizona, & UK: recruit smart, get a great strength and conditioning coach and coach these kids up.

Lastly I don't get your comment about St. Johns not getting the physically dominant kids. Did you miss Mt. Sima? The kid is a pretty imposing freshman.

[SJHooper]

Good points Gumby, in college hoops experience matters and is usually when teams go on their biggest runs, though there are always the exceptions i.e. UK, Duke, etc. Yes Sima is pretty imposing, but he's still pretty skinny. I think Pitt had that Dixon kid a handful of years ago who looked like a linebacker. Michigan State is full of kids who look like NFL tight ends. It's important not just to have trees with length, but also some meat. Look at guys like Ochefu, Dixon from that Pitt team, etc. I understand part of it comes from 4 years of conditioning, but I noticed the Miami players were already 200 lbs when they got recruited. My Johnnies get lots of wiry, skinny players i.e. Sampson, Sima, Owens, Yakwe, Mussini, Freudenberg (to be announced), etc. But we could really use a 200+ lb stud in the paint.

Just looked up Ochefu. He was 6'11 215 lbs ALREADY when he committed to Nova. Now he's 6'11 245 lbs. So yes, he put 30 lbs of meat on since going to Nova, but he was still massive to begin with. He's 30+ lbs heavier than Sima. Hopefully Sima can hit the weights and get to Ochefu's size. The only players I can think of that we had who were monsters in terms of weight are:

Christian Jones (rides the pine and bad player)
Adonis De La Rosa (never even played for us because he was just fat and out of shape)
God'sgift Achiuwa (rode the pine and was not a good player)

We will have plenty of shooters (Mussini, Freudenberg, Amar, Ahmed) next year and probably some who will get to the paint (LoVett, Ponds). Sima is a solid inside presence, but I think we are one more 6'11 or 7 ft beast away from being a top 25 team next year. I know we won't get him, but a kid like Thon Maker (legit 7 footer and built) wreaking havoc in the paint would make us a frightening team.

[NJRedman]

Good points Gumby, in college hoops experience matters and is usually when teams go on their biggest runs, though there are always the exceptions i.e. UK, Duke, etc. Yes Sima is pretty imposing, but he's still pretty skinny. I think Pitt had that Dixon kid a handful of years ago who looked like a linebacker. Michigan State is full of kids who look like NFL tight ends. It's important not just to have trees with length, but also some meat. Look at guys like Ochefu, Dixon from that Pitt team, etc. I understand part of it comes from 4 years of conditioning, but I noticed the Miami players were already 200 lbs when they got recruited. My Johnnies get lots of wiry, skinny players i.e. Sampson, Sima, Owens, Yakwe, Mussini, Freudenberg (to be announced), etc. But we could really use a 200+ lb stud in the paint.

Just looked up Ochefu. He was 6'11 215 lbs ALREADY when he committed to Nova. Now he's 6'11 245 lbs. So yes, he put 30 lbs of meat on since going to Nova, but he was still massive to begin with. He's 30+ lbs heavier than Sima. Hopefully Sima can hit the weights and get to Ochefu's size. The only players I can think of that we had who were monsters in terms of weight are:

Christian Jones (rides the pine and bad player)
Adonis De La Rosa (never even played for us because he was just fat and out of shape)
God'sgift Achiuwa (rode the pine and was not a good player)

We will have plenty of shooters (Mussini, Freudenberg, Amar, Ahmed) next year and probably some who will get to the paint (LoVett, Ponds). Sima is a solid inside presence, but I think we are one more 6'11 or 7 ft beast away from being a top 25 team next year. I know we won't get him, but a kid like Thon Maker (legit 7 footer and built) wreaking havoc in the paint would make us a frightening team.

Love how you dog a solid player coming off the bench. Too bad for him Lavin never used him or taught him anything. You want to talk about coaching? Look at how Mullin has used him and the two other remaining players and how they became useful contributors and have shown how they have improved from years past. Ali looks like a kid who's gonna be stud when he's a senior. Jones has another year and can be a nice complementary player taking up useful minutes and getting boards and some points. Unfortunately for Balamou Lavin burned his red shirt for like 5 minutes off the bench for a single game.

[stever20]

It's funny- was listening to either TV or Radio with last weeks Iowa St/Oklahoma game- and they brought up this point(which definitely applies to Miami as well). Those teams are like your mid-major teams who have a ton of seniors and make a long run in the tourney. Seems like there are a LOT of those kind of teams out there this season- much more than before.

What'll be interesting to watch is to see if this is just a blip, or if it's the start of a trend.

[ChestRockwell85]

I think where the Big East is going to succeed, and this is a philosophy that Jay Wright has adopted, is instead of wasting too much time going for the Top 25 guys who usually end up at a Kentucky, Kansas, Louisville, UNC, Duke, etc. anyway, spend more time recruiting the guys in the Top 50-125. The solid 4 star players or very high 3 star players who are going to stick around for 3 or in the majority of cases, 4 years, and really help you to build a program. Having a guy who is a Junior who was ranked 80th coming out of High School, is just as good as having a Freshman who was ranked 30th coming out of High School.

I think both Dante Cunningham and Darrun Hilliard were 3 star guys, I don't even think they were ranked in the Top 150, and both developed and are getting paid NBA paychecks right now. Randy Foye was a solid 4 star guy, but certainly not a McDonald's All-American. He stuck around for 4 years and was drafted 7th overall.

I will never look at Kentucky as a real college basketball program. To me it is an NBA factory. These players usually come in for a year or 2, and then they are gone. It is basically an NBA tryout for McDonald's All-Americans. Don't get me wrong, it must be nice to win all the time, but I prefer watching kids coming in and really being part of the program. I just don't see that with kids who are only there for a year or 2.

[bobpp1]

I think it is a combination of both coaching and recruiting. Some coaches have a number of highly rated recruits but can't get them to reach their potential. Other coaches can coach up lesser talent and bring them to another level. Coach Cooley says he doesn't like to recruit garden snakes but only Anacondas. An occasional Kris Dunn and hope a player like Ben Bentil blows up sprinkled in with some 2 and 3 star players and develop them is hard to predict. On the Miami situation Jim Larranaga was like a second coach on the court when he played for Dave Gavitt. I always thought he would end up being successful as a college coach. It takes a little luck to get the right players and hope they mesh into a good team but again I believe it is a combination of both.

[sciencejay]

A few thoughts:

(1) One of the benefits of bringing in non-blue chippers is that maybe they have less of a sense of entitlement and are more willing to immerse themselves in the "program" and sacrifice some of "self" for the team's benefit. That helps teams build chemistry and play better as a team (whole is greater than sum of parts).

(2) The fact that most BE teams have a number of older players helps us in the OOC a ton. The excellent conference RPI generated by our OOC performance the past few years has provided our members with an ability to get RPI-improving wins during the conference season. If one or more blue-chips play for a team early in the season, they haven't played with their new teammates much, so those teams are more likely to have ups and downs that more experienced teams tend not to have. Therefore they have a few more losses and the conference RPI suffers (see Indiana and the B1G). The flip side of this is that later in the season, once the chemistry is built (if it comes at all--see Kentucky this year), the teams with the blue chips have a great chance to succeed in March due to their overall impressive talent load (see Kentucky the past few years). So we may continue to see a tremendous OOC for BE teams and not such great tourney performance. I hope not, but that depends on our coaches.

(3) However, coaching and game-planning can make a huge difference, and I don't think you can do as much opponent-specific planning in one or two days when the bulk of your team is young. For the older teams, players already know the basic philosophy of their coaching staff on both ends, so that can free up more practice time to focus on the opponent that is coming up next. CU-OU earlier this year comes to mind. If you look at talent, the Jays had no chance to compete, but the players executed the game plan well and came close to a win. Does Calipari really worry about the opponent, or does he really worry about getting his guys to buy into his system?

[stever20]

The thing is- if you look at the experience factor with Ken Pom....
Butler 59
DePaul 104
Creighton 147
Nova 208
Xavier 229
St John's 267
Georgetown 268
Seton Hall 325
Providence 329
Marquette 344

So really not the experienced teams that you think. Butler, Creighton, Nova, Xavier, St John's, Georgetown, Seton Hall, PC all had to replace key guys. Also would say the conference RPI is right now 4th, and could easily slip to 5th if the SEC does well in their challenge with the Big 12. And would say some of that is inexperience. See Marquette/Belmont, Georgetown/Radford, UNC Asheville, Monmouth, St John's with a lot of their struggles OOC, Creighton/Loyola just to name a few.

[NovaBall]

Go hard at guys ranked in the 25-150 range that you think fit your program and develop them. That's a gr8 formula.

Josh Hart - ranked in the 90's. Offers from Rutgers, Siena and St. Joe's. He's doing all right.
Darrun Hilliard - unranked 3 star player. He turned out well as an upper classman.
James Bell - ranked in the 70's. Rode pine his first two years, but by his jr year he was very good
Dante Cunningham - unranked 3 star player. Minor contributor early, but main guy on a final four team and still in the NBA as he developed
Randy Foye - ranked in the 70's. Drafted in the top 7 after his senior yr.

A guy ranked 75 as a 23 year old who knows your system, or a guy ranked 12 as 19 year old trying to figure things out. Which is better? Could go either way I guess, but both methods work.

This is why I think it is so crucial for Seton Hall to have some success this year. Get this kids ready for their junior and senior year, get Willard some stability so he can recruit the next wave, and that program can do well.