will bet you anything you want Edey will get drafted before MM
SIAP - interesting indictment
- Thread starter KJL
- Start date
Correct...but I want Indiana competing for Final Fours and National Titles. Just because we haven't done so in 30 years, doesn't mean our program doesn't have the capacity to do it now. It does. Mike Davis, of all people, took IU to the title game. Think about what a good basketball teacher, operating in a Villanova, Kansas, UConn type of recruiting philosophy...think about what they could do at IU. Every year, picking best combination of Indiana born players, top 100 kids, and the best portal kids...all that fit your style and culture. It would be very successful, to say the least.
Why anyone thinks Indiana should emulate Purdue, or Wisconsin, is beyond me.
There are five stars that a competent independent evaluation would agree-can’t miss cream of the crop. Then there are five stars like we have gotten that are just WTF. CMW gets $4 mill per year to recruit players that will lead to success for IU bball. To recruit from the second group and then take a victory lap for recruiting before they step on the court is outrageous.
haha Kurt! I thought you said you were done betting!?
No, I should rephrase that and say there "could" simply because there is viable reason to believe it could happen. Right now, Edey is projected between 35-60. In early January, SI had Mbagko at #34 but who knows where that is today. Regardless, he needs to continue to finish strong in order to work his way up into guaranteed money (the last game withstanding). He had back-to-back 20pt games prior to PSU and his major deficiency is defense. Incredibly foul prone with minimal defensive stats to justify how that could be.
But again, that's implying Indiana doesn't have talent. IU is one of the most talented if not the most talent rich teams in the B1G. IU is bad simply because they're not being coached. That is the issue at IU, it is not talent. His coaching is making the talent appear worse than it actually is. If your system doesn't generate consistent open shots or defensive takeaways for easy points, then that will affect your teams ability to have open/easier looks and therefore stats will be vastly worse.
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There are five stars that a competent independent appraisal would agree-can’t miss cream of the crop. Then there are the five stars that we have pursued that a competent independent appraisal would conclude-WTF. No one is claiming that there are not good players that are highly rated but only that the coach of a storied program should be able to tell WTF from can’t miss and recruit only those that help build a program going forward. To recruit for star based PR so you can take a recruiting victory lap is inexcusable. If he recruited a good enough player to raise the entire program, bad coaching and all, then different situation then we have. If he had recruited players that looked like they will be good say their junior year then completely different situation now. As it is we suck now and poor prospects for the future.
We have Ware and Reneau and everything else to the very end of the bench is questionable and this at least in large measure due to recruiting focus.
I am not in any way defending coaching but can only hope the next coach recruits based on his evaluation and perceived needs and sorry if someone doesn’t like lack of five stars.
What about it was incorrect? Both the Kansas and UConn rosters were filled with high star rating guys, no?
I think both sides of this are probably overstating their case.
You don't "need" a bunch of actual 5 star kids to win big.
But you can't win big without talented kids. And more often than not, the ratings services will have identified the most talented kids fairly early on, and given them high star ratings accordingly. If Mack had been given a high 4 star rating, instead of a 5 star rating...does he catch as much flack from IU fans? Why did Kansas go all in on Mack? Would they have gotten more out of him than IU is?
I want to expect chances every so often to win National Titles. I want Villanova, UConn, Kansas, type of expectations. And I want for them to not be dusty, ancient, unrealistic expectations. To get back to that...we need a better coach...and we need lots of star rating talent, that fit how that good coach wants to play.
I do agree that some of the bench are travesties of player development
You said they were led by five and high four stars. The performance and acknowledged leader of Kansas was Agbaji (3 star) and Sanogo (not in top 100) performance leader of Uconn so factually incorrect.
Ummm....good reach there.
Both those guys were key players, but using them as examples and singling them out over guys like Hawkins, Jackson, and Newton on UConn's team, to name a few...and Harris, Braun, Wilson, and McCormack on Kansas team... its Sonogo's wingspan level of reach.
I've never once thought of either of those teams, and thought either of those guys were "leaders" of those teams. Maybe Obhaji...I loved him as a player. But the first guy I think of on that team is Jalen Wilson.
UConn was led by their guard/wings... Sonogo was a very good player, but Hawkins, Jackson, and Newton were the unquestioned leaders.
Speaking of fact checking...Wilson was first team all american, not Obhaji. And who's Cole for UConn?
Average teams are made up of good players. Championships teams are made up of great teammates. Average teammates care about each other. Exceptional teammates commit to the success of each other.
Pretty simple, IU has a bunch of good players that are leaderless.
Pretty simple, IU has a bunch of good players that are leaderless.
Right but your opinion of that is based on what you're seeing from a team that isn't being coached. That's truly the entire point. A team that is coached well is going to come off looking like their individual talent is better than a team that truly has better individual talent but isn't being coached well.
Imagine if we had a coach whose scheme put players in the right position to maximize their talents. Suddenly Mbakgo or maybe even Galloway is getting more wide-open shots. Galloway hit them when TJD was able to create open shots for TG based on TJD pulling in every defender. Imagine if we were outrebounding teams to give ourselves more possessions which turns into more ppg for all players. The list of things goes on and on. Yes, CMW team composition seems to lack a lot but it's hard to know what's a mirage and what's a lack of preparation without seeing them actually being coached up.
Anyways, we're in agreement that whatever is going on at IU, needs a restart.
Dude you live in an alternate universe. Here is the all american team for 2022
Consensus First Team
| Player | Position | Class | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ochai Agbaji | G | Senior | Kansas |
| Kofi Cockburn | C | Junior | Illinois |
| Johnny Davis | G/F | Sophomore | Wisconsin |
| Keegan Murray | F | Sophomore | Iowa |
| Oscar Tshiebwe | F | Junior | Kentucky |
Good catch...my bad...I was looking at last years AA team.
And I guess my "bad" on the "led by" comments too... Not that it does anything to prove the point you're trying to make. There's a very established track record of National Champions having a significant amount of 4 and/or 5 star rated players on their rosters.
Its to the point where its so reliable, that until someone wins it without a significant amount of their roster being made up of 4 and/or 5 star kids...I'll say its basically not possible to do it with mostly players that the star rating evaluators saw as lesser players (no stars - 3 stars).
Gene Keady and Matt Painter have been brazenly testing this theory for a combined 40 years. Maybe they'll prove it wrong at some point. Until then, I'll look to others for inspiration.
For UConn you mention Hawkins, Newton, and Jackson. Hawkins and Jackson were around 50th and Newton didn’t even appear on national boards. Cole was a mistake-sorry.
Newton is a great story. He's one of those diamonds in the rough type guys. No stars to becoming a multi millionaire NBA player here in a year or so. There are a lot more of those types of guys on NBA rosters than most would realize. But that's not what this convo is about. It started with comments about "not caring about star ratings" when recruiting, with specific quotes from Painter, and references to Coach Cig.
UConn's roster had "a lot" of collective stars on it. Seems every single Natty winner since...who knows when, has had lots of 4 and/or 5 stars on them. Hmmmm....
I want IU to get back to having periodic legitimate, realistic, Natty aspirations. Unless something majorly changes here soon, you can't do that without what these hack evaluators think are 4 or 5 star kids.
Never said that there were not good players that were four and fives. I do believe the only way to get out of this multi decade mess is to have a coach that can find the value that has been underrated by the ranking services and stay away from the overrated.
That sure seems ironic how that happens. Or.......do we think IU's last 2 coaches have been the reason those players often project to be worthless or take 4 years to develop?
I don't know. The evaluation has been really bad. Some of those kids wound up being productive players but most never materialized at all.
I am like you and wonder how the total sars were calculated. Was Newton included in our total as an example and were stars assigned based on transfer ranking or strictly high school ranking. I believe UConn’s official roster last year was 14 players so average rating from this is 42/14=3 stars.
Actually Sanogo was their leading scorer last year (25.9)in addition to FF most outstanding player.
Brad Stevens seems to be the gold standard coach here so I looked at the stars of the top 5 scorers on his 2010 FF team-
2010
Gordon Hayward 3 stars
Shelvin Mack 3 stars
Matt Howard 4 star
Willie Veasley 2 star
Ronald Nored Not even rated nationally.
I can‘t imagine the reaction here to Brad Stevens‘ recruiting classes prior to the final game appearances.
2010
Gordon Hayward 3 stars
Shelvin Mack 3 stars
Matt Howard 4 star
Willie Veasley 2 star
Ronald Nored Not even rated nationally.
I can‘t imagine the reaction here to Brad Stevens‘ recruiting classes prior to the final game appearances.
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Avila and Swope at ISU are two players poorly ranked out of high school that are playing well. Avila looks like he is an extra from a 50’s era basketball movie.
Brad probably would have recruited different kids at IU vs Butler. And Hayward had a helluva of a late growth spurt that the rankings didn’t catch.
Boy Wonder was 30-4 (won conference) and 26-6 (won conference) before the finals appearances. I think our fans would give him the benefit of the doubt on recruiting. But I get your point.
As for the stars thing: I want a lot of highly rated players because most good teams have highly rated players. But of course they have to fit and be coached well.
Hayward was 6’7” as a senior In high school and 6’7”now. Most have a growth spurt between Freshman and Senior years. Same size as scouted as a senior.
This whole probability/star argument holds if you are selecting players from a hat. You would rather draw from the four star hat than the three star hat. If we continue employing coaches that are effectively drawing from the highest star hat possible rather than busting butt evaluating and attracting talent then this mess will continue with future hires
Different argument. But I agree.
You have to be "right" on whoever it is you're evaluating. They could miss just as easily on a 3 star kid they think will be the right fit, or will outplay his rating.
An IU coach and staff should be evaluating, and then going after, any/all top 100 kids that fit his desired style and culture. At the same time, they should be evaluating any/all the top Indiana/Regional kids that also would fit. At the same time, they should be keeping an eye on ALL D1 kids, and have an established list of kids that would fit their style and culture, so they're ready to pounce if they hit the portal.
There's enough time in the day. They obviously have the resources.
But IU should always strive to have rosters filled with high end talent...they just need to get back to being good at making sure they're a good fit. Zeller's teams maybe the last time we had that. And all the way back to Jeffries teams before that.
I guess that’s fair on GH, he was a miss in the stars which may be your point.
I’ll leave this thread — not sure I even disagree with anyone. Yea I want our staff doing their own independent evals and in general our recruiting should skew with more stars if we are recruiting well but not every star ranking is right.
