KING to decide tomorrow
- Thread starter jcalz88
- Start date
My source is telling me that right after the King announcement there will be posts about how well workouts for the team are going. My source is me.
Not a surprise. I posted that Ohio State was the favorite months ago.
We weren't getting Quinerly or Reid. But we had a great shot at King. GREAT.
Despite everyone's disappointment SHU did a fabulous job with King.
Unfortunately only the bottom line counts in most cases. Nike clearly won out here.
I still think being a finalist is good for business (maybe it gets other recruits to give us a look)... but we cant seem to close this year.
The problem with all of these early signings is - by the time our brand starts heating up and making news (December-March), all of our top recruits will be signed elsewhere. Seems we will need to feast on the late bloomers...
The problem with all of these early signings is - by the time our brand starts heating up and making news (December-March), all of our top recruits will be signed elsewhere. Seems we will need to feast on the late bloomers...
We lost King like we lost every other recruit this year, our staff couldn't close.
Don't worry everyone, we will get King eventually. I know when he picks Oregon today, it is going to cause quite the uproar. Just like when we lost Thompson to Syracuse instead of us. Just like when we lost Sterling Gibbs to Maryland and then to Texas before we finally reeled him in. We surely would have gotten Kyle Anderson back if he had not gone to the pros.
We simply can't recruit as well as these other schools for whatever reasons, whether it is Willard or lack of resource$ (damn you Brennan and Kozlowski for being crooks.) The kids that should have come here, and bomb out at their chosen school always have a home here, and you guys will get excited for sloppy seconds, and I will hope and pray that Mike Rice can bring us some recruits.
We simply can't recruit as well as these other schools for whatever reasons, whether it is Willard or lack of resource$ (damn you Brennan and Kozlowski for being crooks.) The kids that should have come here, and bomb out at their chosen school always have a home here, and you guys will get excited for sloppy seconds, and I will hope and pray that Mike Rice can bring us some recruits.
I don't think Rice is coming because our coach doesn't believe their is a problem recruiting.
Being a finalist definitely helps but you have to strike when the iron is hot. And this is what is concerning me. It's easier to recruit when you are a competitive and potential top 25 team. It's a lot harder to get top talent if you're not a top team.
Reality check.
If the coach truly believes we have no recruiting problems.... He needs a history lesson.
It really is baffling how we missed on all our TOP targets to date.
From what i know we dont have any recruiting commitment so we have missed out not just on our TOP targets, but ALL our targets.
SHU looks about as good as it could ever possibly be at the moment. Trending up. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut.... but nah.
Under Armour has been great, but if we cant recruit guys because of Nike and Adidas is it that good? or is that excuse just poor?
SHU looks about as good as it could ever possibly be at the moment. Trending up. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut.... but nah.
Under Armour has been great, but if we cant recruit guys because of Nike and Adidas is it that good? or is that excuse just poor?
..we've even whiffed on all of our Secondary targets that have announced / trimmed to date (Forrester, Carey). If TT hadn't landed in our lap we would currently have zero new adds for 2018.
That's exactly the point. The "Nike" argument doesn't really hold water in my opinion becuse as jcalz said we have missed on literally everyone. And as shuathlete points out, shu has never looked better and had a lot to offer. So if not now? Then when? We literally can't give away starting positions on a top 25 team that will have made 3 consecutive tournament appearances, recently won the big east championship, sent player to NBA, produced 2 all Americans. Like seriously what the hell is going on?
It's really mind boggling. The entire staff gets an "F" in my opinion for this recruiting class.
It's really mind boggling. The entire staff gets an "F" in my opinion for this recruiting class.
Wow - tough crowd.
Recruiting in this era is selling. But what are the recruiters selling? Every top 100/blue chip recruit is looking to buy the pathway to The League. As unrealistic as those aspirations are, it is the commodity. What does that pathway look like? On the top shelf are Ky and Duke. These kids understand HOF names. They understand who gets kids to the League. They associate lavish facilities with that pathway. They consider basketball not only first but exclusively. They consider one and done to be a failure - and even then not their failure but some one else's failure. Even the next shelf down offers much of the same but just of a different quality. The large state schools who have mortgaged their academic mission and educational ethos for the sake of minor league professional athletics fall into this category. These are the self-anointed Power 5 schools. Their financial resources, often from the purses of the citizens, hire the brand name coaches at a premium, construct the best facilities and create "educational" programs (read UNC here) solely to secure athletes and to win games. All of these schools crown their athletes as royalty. The media fawn over these schools and their players. What teenager wouldn't buy into this illusion.
What does KW and staff have to sell? One of their kids made The League as a 2nd round draft choice and outside of the immediate Metro area has little if any NBA reknown. KW is a good young coach but one who clearly and understandably does not have the juice of a Coach K, Cal, Boeheim etc. Maybe in another dozen years or so. The team has flirted with the top 25 in recent years. The kids have no knowledge or interest in anything that happened in the 80s and 90s. The name Seton Hall just does not have the brand appeal yet of those top shelf schools mentioned above. Will it. Perhaps. Hopefully. Does that happen overnight? Highly doubtful. But being in the discussion for top recruits suggests that the brand is growing. The Hall is a nice place just outside of Newark. I am sure the staff sells proximity to NYC but let's face, it's next to Newark, a city whose brand still has not recovered from the events of the 60s and later. Can/will the Hall ever have facilities like Ky or Duke, ND or the Power 5 schools? Nice campus. Much better than what they were not long ago but nothing like Power 5 schools. The brand is growing and has done so under the leadership of the athletic admin and KW and his staff. All indications are that it will continue to grow. But can anyone ever expect that this medium sized, Diocesan University will ever be able to sell to a kid what Ky, Duke and the others in the Power 5 are selling. Look at what our top recruits and players say about what they like about the Hall. It's size. It's family atmosphere. The skill development from the coaching staff. I think that the Hall kids, while aspiring to play for pay, are much more grounded in reality. They are students. They value education and personal growth. They eagerly work on their game. They play for each other. They get the bigger picture. The Hall is not the right place for everyone. But for those kids for whom the Hall is the right place, their experience and the experience of the school's community, including the fans, is rich. They will be better for it in the long run.
The rankings of the "expert" fuels so much angst in fans. But the real experts are the coaches. The are expert in knowing what kids will fit in best with the Hall and the program. In reality, the difference between a kid at 75 on someone's list and 150 is not very great. A kid's HS ranking reflects a certain point in the evolution of a kid's game. I am confident that a perceptive coach will see if a 150 kid in someone's ranking has what it takes to grow his game over the course of his collegiate experience so as to be an important part of the program. Some do. Some don't. Remember that coaches and those ranking are dealing with teenagers whom adults have assuaged their whole lives.
College basketball is special because a small catholic school can succeed because you don't need to have 85 kids on scholarship and build a stadium that seats 100,000 fans. Basketball for the most part allows for the situation where 5 players who utilize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses and who play as a team/unit will very often beat 5 athletes with superior skills who don't play as a team. That's why Lehigh can beat Duke. Columbia can almost upset Ky. Princeton can defeat UCLA and compete with Georgetown. Penn and Indiana State can go to the final 4 (I know that was a while ago).
I like how the kids play for the Hall. Ish is one of my favorites. He exemplifies what college hoops is about. I cannot stand watching Ky and will root for every one of their opponents.
Time to end the diatribe. The Hall can't offer what many of these top 50 kids want. Nor would it be appealing if they could. Give me kids who have talent and desire, who the coaching staff wants. Kids who show that they can grow their games. I can root for them.
Recruiting in this era is selling. But what are the recruiters selling? Every top 100/blue chip recruit is looking to buy the pathway to The League. As unrealistic as those aspirations are, it is the commodity. What does that pathway look like? On the top shelf are Ky and Duke. These kids understand HOF names. They understand who gets kids to the League. They associate lavish facilities with that pathway. They consider basketball not only first but exclusively. They consider one and done to be a failure - and even then not their failure but some one else's failure. Even the next shelf down offers much of the same but just of a different quality. The large state schools who have mortgaged their academic mission and educational ethos for the sake of minor league professional athletics fall into this category. These are the self-anointed Power 5 schools. Their financial resources, often from the purses of the citizens, hire the brand name coaches at a premium, construct the best facilities and create "educational" programs (read UNC here) solely to secure athletes and to win games. All of these schools crown their athletes as royalty. The media fawn over these schools and their players. What teenager wouldn't buy into this illusion.
What does KW and staff have to sell? One of their kids made The League as a 2nd round draft choice and outside of the immediate Metro area has little if any NBA reknown. KW is a good young coach but one who clearly and understandably does not have the juice of a Coach K, Cal, Boeheim etc. Maybe in another dozen years or so. The team has flirted with the top 25 in recent years. The kids have no knowledge or interest in anything that happened in the 80s and 90s. The name Seton Hall just does not have the brand appeal yet of those top shelf schools mentioned above. Will it. Perhaps. Hopefully. Does that happen overnight? Highly doubtful. But being in the discussion for top recruits suggests that the brand is growing. The Hall is a nice place just outside of Newark. I am sure the staff sells proximity to NYC but let's face, it's next to Newark, a city whose brand still has not recovered from the events of the 60s and later. Can/will the Hall ever have facilities like Ky or Duke, ND or the Power 5 schools? Nice campus. Much better than what they were not long ago but nothing like Power 5 schools. The brand is growing and has done so under the leadership of the athletic admin and KW and his staff. All indications are that it will continue to grow. But can anyone ever expect that this medium sized, Diocesan University will ever be able to sell to a kid what Ky, Duke and the others in the Power 5 are selling. Look at what our top recruits and players say about what they like about the Hall. It's size. It's family atmosphere. The skill development from the coaching staff. I think that the Hall kids, while aspiring to play for pay, are much more grounded in reality. They are students. They value education and personal growth. They eagerly work on their game. They play for each other. They get the bigger picture. The Hall is not the right place for everyone. But for those kids for whom the Hall is the right place, their experience and the experience of the school's community, including the fans, is rich. They will be better for it in the long run.
The rankings of the "expert" fuels so much angst in fans. But the real experts are the coaches. The are expert in knowing what kids will fit in best with the Hall and the program. In reality, the difference between a kid at 75 on someone's list and 150 is not very great. A kid's HS ranking reflects a certain point in the evolution of a kid's game. I am confident that a perceptive coach will see if a 150 kid in someone's ranking has what it takes to grow his game over the course of his collegiate experience so as to be an important part of the program. Some do. Some don't. Remember that coaches and those ranking are dealing with teenagers whom adults have assuaged their whole lives.
College basketball is special because a small catholic school can succeed because you don't need to have 85 kids on scholarship and build a stadium that seats 100,000 fans. Basketball for the most part allows for the situation where 5 players who utilize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses and who play as a team/unit will very often beat 5 athletes with superior skills who don't play as a team. That's why Lehigh can beat Duke. Columbia can almost upset Ky. Princeton can defeat UCLA and compete with Georgetown. Penn and Indiana State can go to the final 4 (I know that was a while ago).
I like how the kids play for the Hall. Ish is one of my favorites. He exemplifies what college hoops is about. I cannot stand watching Ky and will root for every one of their opponents.
Time to end the diatribe. The Hall can't offer what many of these top 50 kids want. Nor would it be appealing if they could. Give me kids who have talent and desire, who the coaching staff wants. Kids who show that they can grow their games. I can root for them.
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I'm not happy with our recruiting results to date either. But you can't criticize the staff for missing on their targets and then say a 4 star player fell into their laps.
Criticize when appropriate but balance that with praise when necessary. If we didn't come in second for TT last year we would not have gotten him via transfer.
Last year's recruitment of TT obviously helped us this year. It's silly to think otherwise. However, it's not a sustainable model to so heavily rely on the transfer market. We need to figure out a way to win recruiting battles for high school seniors.
Really? We are heading into year 8 under Willard. Him and his staff have done nothing but strike out with top recruits for almost a decade now.
It seemed like Willard finally "got it" when he hired Morton and Antigua. That was a smart move. My guess is he thought winning would help bring in some top talent. Wrong.
The reality is top to bottom this staff really sucks at recruiting. They need to hire Rice or another local AAU coach. Is Willard to stubborn to do it? Probably.
There is a great way and Willard did it a few years ago. Hire coaches or the handlers of the top players.
It is an excuse, just like the other posts that pop up on occasionally is the only reason a player went to another school was money or some other dirty recruiting tactic.
Still time to build a decent class, but disappointing that we have missed on so many of the kids we targeted.
This year? Yes, the recruiting sucks. But the staff has been able to bring in some very good recruits in the the past couple years. Powell is great. Cale by all accounts will be very good. Walker will take a year or two to develop that body but he will be great as an upper classman. Sandro was a nice get too, he has some potential to be good.
That's a nice little core right there. Obviously we need more but it's not fair to say the staff hasn't brought in anyone.
That's a nice little core right there. Obviously we need more but it's not fair to say the staff hasn't brought in anyone.
Usually I would agree. But this one really hurts. Until Nike swept in I was VERY confident we had a great chance with King.
Lots of factors not known here were in our advantage. It looked like everything was falling perfectly for the Hall with King. That is until het visit to Oregon changed everything.
Lots of factors not known here were in our advantage. It looked like everything was falling perfectly for the Hall with King. That is until het visit to Oregon changed everything.
I hear you dan but we are never going to be able to prevent kids from visiting other big state schools and thebrecruiting game isn't going to magically become ethical overnight. So the fact of the matter is we need to do a better job.
We knew going into this that he was going to visit schools with better facilities and would offer him more money. So in my opinion we can't use that as an excuse in the 11th hour
We knew going into this that he was going to visit schools with better facilities and would offer him more money. So in my opinion we can't use that as an excuse in the 11th hour
I have thought about our recruiting for this year with our priority targets and one theme keeps coming back over and over and that is " if not this year then when " . I won't repeat all the positives that should have put us in a position to bring in a top ranked class and land some of those priority targets because they've been discussed ad nauseum but the reality is we still don't have a HS recruit committed to us , the only team in the BE in that position and the list of uncommitted players on our screen grows smaller the nearer we get to the early November signing period. Like other posters I don't want to hear any excuses but would just rather accept the fact that we didn't sign the players we wanted and that is not a good thing for this program .
How about hiring the next Kimani Young or Book Richardson, this way you can recruit kids every year?
I'd think almost anyone would be an upgrade at this point.
Willard has done a nice job getting the team to the tournament these last 2 years. That being said, I hope they make a deep run this year and he leaves for a bigger job.
He's not building a program here.
so why is Nike so interested on where a kid goes to college? if they were that interested they would start at the youngest level and have entire top 100 at nike schools if they wanted to. I have a hard time wrapping my head around corporate Nike in a meeting saying "we need king to go to oregon"
I think @simone84 nailed it with:
"My guess is he thought winning would help bring in some top talent. Wrong."
I thought the same -- that success on the court will bring in new recruits... but it seems that:
Inquiring minds want to know.
"My guess is he thought winning would help bring in some top talent. Wrong."
I thought the same -- that success on the court will bring in new recruits... but it seems that:
- Our recent success is not enough. We need more than 2-3 years of it to become a major player.
- We still struggle to compete nationally to lure any 5 stars.. We rather bread our butter with: local top 100-200 kids who want to stay local, international kids, transfers, strategic coaching hires.
Inquiring minds want to know.
I disagree with this, but each year is very important and the holy grail is getting a few tourney wins. If we lose 1st round and dont have anyone recruited for 2018 class (4 year players) then i fear we didnt get over that glorious hump.
It took forever and by hiring a rental goon coach, but this program is pretty much near where my dreams were way back when i was bitching about willard with donniebeisbol. We were in the gutter and i believed it was absolutely possible to be a force year in and year out in the big east with legitimate shots at the tourney every year. Were there. So i cant say he hasnt built anything as our national appearance is that of a "solid" team again. There is, however, that huge hump i just mentioned that is critical to tha autonomous success programs like nova and xavier have. Lets hope for a recruiting miracle and we win some games in the tourney this year.
every player is unique and will prioritize things differently but it's a combination of several factors.
1) playing time
2) coaching staff
3) track record of getting kids to the league
4) winning program/tournament threat
5) facilities
6) $ (and that doesn't necessarily just mean cash. It includes cars, jobs for family members, etc.)
At the end of the day tho if u are a good recruiter you will get players regardless of the situation
1) playing time
2) coaching staff
3) track record of getting kids to the league
4) winning program/tournament threat
5) facilities
6) $ (and that doesn't necessarily just mean cash. It includes cars, jobs for family members, etc.)
At the end of the day tho if u are a good recruiter you will get players regardless of the situation
Oregon was a final 4 team. Hard to compete with that. Can someone explain the role the Nike and UA play in these kid's recruitment? How do the kids benefit?
Bottom line with recruiting, Willard has recruited 2 Top 100 kids in 8 years. (Cale and Powell). Of course the exception is this year's senior class in which jobs were given away to get Delgado and Whitehead.
I don't count transfers as recruiting. TT was great to get this year as a transfer. But could you imagine how good this team would be if he was recruited out of high school? You can't rely on players being dissatisfied with their original school to transfer to SHU. Think about it, Sterling Gibbs and TT are two top 100 recruits that equals the amount of top 100 recruits actually recruited out of high school by the staff. Sorry, this is woefully bad recruiting.
I don't count transfers as recruiting. TT was great to get this year as a transfer. But could you imagine how good this team would be if he was recruited out of high school? You can't rely on players being dissatisfied with their original school to transfer to SHU. Think about it, Sterling Gibbs and TT are two top 100 recruits that equals the amount of top 100 recruits actually recruited out of high school by the staff. Sorry, this is woefully bad recruiting.
On last year’s team we had 2 top 100 players (Angel and Powell) and we were a 9 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Next year we have 3 top 100 players (Powell, Cale, and TT). Going off of high school rankings (which is the focus of so many on here).. Gordon, Walker, and Sandro are ranked higher than everyone else other than KC.
It's going to be ok. Not losing my mind because we didn't land an overall top 17 recruit (per 247). Let's let it playout.
