Tweet
Oh, is that it? We need more 4 and 5 star guys? I'll be sure and let Gregg know next time I see him. Didn't realize it was that easy.
-
-
While I don't agree with some of the stuff on here, I don't recall (and not going to look back) that anyone was talking 5* players, Doc.
However, to compete regularly at the top tier of the American, a higher % of 4*s is legitimate. That said, it's much easier to fill 2-3 spots with high quality guys than it is 9 spots. We were late to the table this year on some needed recruits due to AR and Lomax and, to a lesser degree, Shamet, so a lot of the best choices were gone. I do not think this year of throwing so many newbies to the wolves is a good representation of what some in this class can become.
-
-
This is one of the dumbest threads on this forum. My IQ went down a couple of points just by reading this trash. Of course, this team would be better if we could successfully attract the five of the Top 50 players. Those are no brainers and easy to project.
The freshmen that are now Shockers all have warts, and reasons for not being recruited. However, Jamarious, Eric, Dexter, IPB, and Udeze all have talent and while they will not all continue to start, they all will have important roles going forward. Probably only one of them should probably be a starter on this team, but because of extreme need, several of them have started already. This is not their fault, and my only concern is that with the continuing negativity from the fan base (and I'm sure other negative things that happen everyday in young men's lives), some of them may get discouraged enough to decide to move closer to home so we start over.
I'd rather not go back to 1990-2005Comment
-
Comment
-
I think it's fair to discuss recruiting, the same as it's fair to discuss anything else.Originally posted by Shockm View Post
You could just as easily dismiss every other thread on this forum by saying, "Of course, this team would win if we scored more points than the other team."
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.Comment
-
#11.1
captain commented
1 hour ago
100% correct. On a player by player basis, you can find inconsistencies, but judging groups of players against other groups becomes much more telling.I can't like this enough. Unfortunately, rankings are exactly an evaluation of the tools that they are bringing to campus. Now, I don't believe that rankings are determinative on a player-by-player basis, but they are very illustrative on a team-wide basis. You can miss on a 4*, but it isn't that likely that you are going to miss on four 4* players.
Marshall has said on numerous occasions that "we don't get the _ _ _ star players". I've always found that comment puzzling unless he's saying it to highlight his own accolades which would make sense.
A separate issue that Marshall will always face when recruiting out-of-the-box talented players is getting them to commit to a system that will be very hard on their bodies. Play Angry basketball is an attempt to game the college basketball system through little more than out-efforting everybody else. It's not rocket science and it may have a very short shelf life (we'll see). But players coming out of high school with a legit shot at the NBA are not keen on rolling around on the floor like common men.
T
...:cool:Comment
-
The premise of this thread's creation is clearly evident in the title. We are not debating the merits of recruiting better players, we are discussing (at least I am) any possible trends which have become evident. One trend I noticed was that our composite VC team rating has gone down. I remember it being higher in the Valley and hoping that someday we could break the 3-star average "glass ceiling" that around 53 D1 programs currently enjoy.Originally posted by Shockm View Post
Right now we are at 2.444 and likely barely in the top 100 of D1 school rankings (at least from VC's point of view).
T
...:cool:Comment
-
I quickly went through a bunch of conferences and it appears that there are at least 106 schools with a better current composite than our own - two are in the Valley.
Anybody checked to see if Marshall is out of Gillette razor cartridges? I'm KIDDING........................................... .......................................... :\
T
...:cool:
-
-
Yeah, what a short shelf life of 21 years. RIP Play Angry, we hardly knew ye.
It’s amazing he’s never adapted the “hey guys, just take it easy and don’t play too hard” approach like Coach K, Bill Self, Tony Bennett, or guys like that. If only, then we could pull in all the stars we need!Comment
-
I think the better question is what attributes are we focusing on when we go after a three star or four star guy?
Are we emphsizing size, athleticism or skill.
Whaterver our water level, I would start with skill... get the biggest, quickest, athletic dudes you can that HAVE Basketball Skills.Comment
-
I think Marshall is going for athleticism and length first. As he said in his show, "we're not changing anything from the way we've been doing things". His M.O. has always been: athletes with long arms. I like to compare it to Gene Stephenson in how he always went for the fast guy over the power guy. That bit him in the ass once his recruiting breadth started to suffer.
T
...:cool: -
Besides long, athletic players, Marshall also wants players that are well-rounded human beings. -
You are 100% correct 1979Shocker. "Good kids" with "good parents".
T
...:cool:
-
-
I don't believe that the "Play Angry" mindset of relying on outworking the other team (with 2* and 3* players (with maybe a 4*)) will deliver consistent success at the levels we have become accustomed to. To me, it is a model that provides the opportunity to be in the tournament every 3-4 years as the core develops and matures. During our recent run of success, we were fortunate to have our 4* players at the PG position, which elevates the core and masks potential issues. Maybe this will happen again with ET, but I am not overly optimistic. This is because we were also fortunate to be in the MVC, where our talent (relative to the rest of the MVC) allowed us to win a lot of games, get into the tournament every year, and have the chance to go on runs. This is no longer the case in the American. Our season has effectively been extended to cover the entire year (without the ability to coast through conference play), and talent disparities are more likely to be exposed.
As I stated in another thread, look at how Gonzaga has been able to build on their on-court success in the recruiting arena. For whatever reason, while this staff has been able to do so many good things, this is unfortunately not one of them.
I don't like to be critical of individual players. They are working hard, seem like great kids, are doing the best they can do, and many will likely grow into valuable contributors. However, success in college basketball is largely driven by NBA-type players. We are case-in-point. While I don't have the data, I would assume that the odds of having such a player greatly increase with the number of stars (again, we are case-in-point, except for RB). I am not expecting a team full of 4* (or any 5*) players. That is not a reasonable expectation. However, I do think that it is reasonable to expect us to be within sniffing distance of Gonzaga and most upper-American programs (understanding that a few of those programs have definite recruiting advantages).
Comments from many on here suggest that I may be off with my expectations. If you believe that the inability to increase the overall talent level of the team will not prevent us from falling into a 3-4 year cycle, then great. I absolutely hope that you are right - but I don't think that it is unreasonable to raise the issue. I appreciate the fantastic roll that we have been on, and really don't want to see it end.Comment
-
I don't attribute our past success to being in the MVC, but I do think that it helped some.
I also don't believe that conference affiliation will help us much in recruiting if we are not in the top 1/3. What should have helped with recruiting is what ShockTalk said - top coach, engaged fanbase - and most importantly, an incredible run of success. I do think that it is fair to compare ourselves to Gonzaga and what Mark Few has been able to build in the WCC. -
Fair enough. I guess the point I was trying to make is that we were top 2 in the league last year with a team that a few posters deemed a disappointment or not up to the standard of past teams. If that group of Play Nice two and three star jokers (sarcasm) took second, surely many of the teams preceding them would have faired even better.
Which leads me to believe that we have a decent chance to compete for American championships again in the near future when this freshman class matures and we continue to bring in (hopefully) more talent. Ideally while maintaining class balance so we’re not replacing so many players at once, although part of that was exaggerated by the early departure of Shamet and transfer of Reaves.
Judging the future prospects of our team based on the average number of stars they received from some questionably accurate website that aggregates star rankings from other websites, without ever watching even a highlight reel seems unreliable.
-
OK, so it’s my understanding that the hypothesis is we should have more 4 stars in our program. Or at least our recruiting has declined or at least better when we were in the Valley?
Of course the stars are subjective depending on what recruiting service you look at. So, because I don’t feel like looking at our multiple players and comparing the various services, I’m keeping it simple and using ESPN as reference. (Good or bad, it’s just easier.)
What’s interesting is as of March of last year we thought the Shockers had 4 star MM (sr), 4 star LS (jr), 4 star AL (fr) and 4 star CM (fr). (Admittedly, I didn’t realize ESPN had CM as a 4 star.)
Of note: ESPN’s website has IPBC as a 3 star, but VC says ESPN has him as a 4 star. VC didn’t show an ESPN star rating for CM, though as I’ve already mentioned, ESPN is showing him as 4 star. (So, I’m not sure about the validity of VC’s composite scores.)
The bottom line is at worse, we were thinking our team would have 4 – 4 star players (MM, LS, AL, CM) and 5 – 3 stars (CJ, RB, IPBC, UM, ES), 1 – 2 star (AR) and 3 – NRs (SHJ, ES and AM – though VC gives them an auto 2 star rating). All these players were recruited and had signed to play for WSU. Without doing any research, I will contend that strictly on “star rating”, this was the most “talented” team GGG has ever had recruited at WSU. So, I’m not sure if the hypothesis that our recruiting has gone down is proven. I will argue the opposite.
(Again, I’m only stating it would’ve been the most talented strictly based on STARS, since that is the subject of this thread! Whether it would’ve been the most talented on the actual basketball court is very debatable.)
What compounded our inexperience going into this year is that 2 of those 4 stars we had in March left (1 for the NBA and 1 to play for a coach that’s been his mentor since grade school). This led to the staff scrambling to fill those voids extremely late in the recruiting season. We also had to replace a 3 star (CJ) and a 2 star (AR). What we got were 2 – 2 stars (DD, JB) and 2 – NRs (RT and TA). In addition, we lost an additional 4 star (CM) during the season. Obviously, all of this will downgrade our “star ratings”.
Now you could argue that next year we only have 2 – 3 stars and a NR coming in for 2019 and no 4 stars. I’m not willing to say that next year’s class proves we’ve downgraded our recruiting. After all, if you look at our offers over the last few years, we aren’t only going for 2 and 3 stars anymore. We’ve at least had our names on many 4 and a couple of 5 star recruits. We didn’t land them. Neither did the other 20 schools offering each of those players. I’ll also surmise that the change over of our Assistant Coaches this summer hurt our efforts for the 2019 class. I expect better results for 2020 and on as the staff will have more time to develop relationships w/ those targeted recruits.
I guess my point after this rambling post is that we ARE recruiting UP compared to just a few years ago. However, we aren’t going to land every 4 star recruit, no matter how simple some of you think it may be. Again, if you look at where we were March of last year, on paper, the staff had done a very solid job in our recruitment! This spring (specifically LS and AL) upset the apple cart.Last edited by jrschh; January 9, 2019, 07:11 PM.Comment
-
I am not sure anybody thinks landing the four star guys is easy. In fact, my point is that it is really hard. Unfortunately to compete in the American for a NCAA bid we will need to get there. I think we screwed ourselves when it comes to yearly trips to the NCAA in exchange for more entertaining regular season. I hope to be super wrong about the outcome. I would have made the same move, but this was always the trade.
-
People, we are seeing the results of Donny Jones recruiting.Comment
-
I am assuming 3G’s level of recruits increased from Winthrop to WSU. Likewise, I would expect he’s able to chase a higher level recruit since we joined the AAC. It was, afterall, one of the things mentioned as an advantage to joining the conference.Comment
-
If Shamet had not left so early and Lomax was here there wouldn't be any of this bs "we're not recruiting enough talent" talk. We're recruiting just fine. Unforeseen schitt happened .Comment
-
Unprepared?? I'm sorry I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or if you actually mean what you said.
I'll go w/ sarcasm as I have no idea how anyone knew that his RS sophomore would turn pro after his second year, something that has NEVER happened at WSU let alone under GGG. Many of us, to include myself, were thinking he'd might test the waters after his junior year, but never his sophomore year. Hell, I bet LS didn't know he would go pro prior to the start of his sophomore year. (Obviously, he made a great decision.)
Additionally, how does a coach "prepare" for the chance that your 4 star PG recruit's mentor would get hired at Memphis that Spring and then want released so he could go play for that mentor?
So, again, I'm assuming your statement was sarcasm. -
Pinstripers is saying that Marshall knew Shamet was going to attempt to leave almost a year in advance and didn't get a suitable (top 100) replacement. Nobody could have predicted Lomax or Austin's departure.
T
...:cool: -
Pin, you're posting a lot more (than when we were winning) and making less and less sense.
-
-
Well, Oubre has a nice career going in the NBA compared to Shox you mentioned above so I wouldn't call it pure BS. Cotton and Brown certainly outplayed Oubre in that game though!Originally posted by top20shock View PostComment
-
I was just using VC as a barometer without taking into consideration any other recruiting services. Every service rates players differently. But unless VC has changed their methodology or has started to neglect updating all the teams, it might serve as a rough lagging indicator. Many, many variables come into play when discussing the direction of a program's recruiting. The only real measurement that matters is what's accomplished in the post-season - and even that can come down to luck.Originally posted by jrschh View Post
I'm not really complaining about the recruiting. There are a lot of players that I like. I will sometimes pose an insincere question or defend a ludicrous argument in order to milk the collective brain trust. I drop little bombs like "we are regressing" in order to stimulate the natives into passionate, biblical-text-worthy posts such as yours, for everybody's (but mostly my) edification. You made a fine contribution sir; I thank you!
T
...:cool:Comment
Comment