Most of those guys listed weren't that good and wouldn't be too successful in The B1G.
Frankie Policelli to visit Friday
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Most of those guys listed weren't that good and wouldn't be too successful in The B1G.
The B1G is not better than the Big East when we were in there.
I would like to hear you make an argument as to why the B1G in basketball is superior to the old Big East.
I don't think it's superior it's just different-----like basketball nowadays is different.
BE was a throw it up at the rim and go get it league. Games were decided in the paint.
Big Ten schools shot the ball from outside better as a rule.
Now everyone plays like that------25 to 30 3's per game is normal.
BE was a throw it up at the rim and go get it league. Games were decided in the paint.
Big Ten schools shot the ball from outside better as a rule.
Now everyone plays like that------25 to 30 3's per game is normal.
First,
Please explain how the players you listed above were good BIG EAST or would be good B1G players.
The two fowards you mentioned would get eaten alive by the bigger B1G front lines and the guards just weren't that good. These players had a lot of playing time because we had no one else to play.
First, I'm not going to answer your question until you answer my question.
Second, if these "bigger B1G lines" are so fearsome & incredible, then surely they would have done much better in the NCAA tournament than the OBE.
Thirdly, those players were better contributors than quite a few of the Rivals 150 guys we recruited. Our most star studded recruiting class was also not the one with the best performance at Rutgers.
Our most star studded year (2008-2009) in terms of Rivals 150 players was also one of our worst years on court. We had 7 Rivals Top 150 players. Clearly, according to you & willis that should have been our best year. It was not. It was definitely one of our worst.
Coaching matters a lot in basketball. Getting coachable kids who fit your scheme matters a lot in basketball. Less star studded teams with decent talent did far better under Gary Waters than better "talented" classes/teams under FHJ because Waters could coach circles around FHJ.
You recruitniks are just about tearing down Coach Pike because he's not interested in playing your game.
Monmouth has been much better than us over the past 2 years. They don't recruit with the TOP 150 mentality because they know a kid looking at UNC and Duke is not going to pick Monmouth.
Once we figure out our place on the food chain we have a chance.
Once we figure out our place on the food chain we have a chance.
If we want to be an NCAA tournament team we need to recruit a he'll of a lot better than we've done over the last 25 years. Of course done outside the top 150 players will contribute and do a lot better than their ranking and some top 150 players will perform worse than their rankings. But if you want to be a NCAA tournament team, then you better consistently recruit top 150 players.
The Big East was great at the top of the league, the middle of the league was pretty good and the bottom of the Big East was horrible. The B1G doesn't really have these terrible bottom feeders like the Big East Did, except for us I guess during Eddie's years.
Where you post went wrong is when you named those players as being success stories on non 150 playerd being good. Only Biruta was good for the 2 years he was here and Hill had a good senior year. But both would have been crushed by many B1G front lines and the guards you mentioned would have been firmly planted on the bench of most good high major programs.
That's an odd comment coming from someone whose previous sentence advocated adding to the top 150 list those whom he believes in retrospect should have been included given their later performance for RU but not removing from the top 150 list those whose performance for RU suggested that they should not have been included. You're providing a wonderful example of results oriented thinking. Keep trying.
My point is they were better contributors than quite a few players on the 150 list. Can you disprove that point?
I never advocated they should have been put on the list. Can you please point those words out to me?
Why would I try to disprove it if it's part of my point--and reality. Some recruits perform up to expectations, some worse, some better. But overall, you'll find a much higher rate of success for your team over the long haul when you bring in more highly recruited players, rather than only one or fewer each year. In other words, the risk of having a bad team increases greatly the more you're choosing from the less sought after group of recruits and hoping that you'll find something that most of the other coaches did not want, even though all of those coaches are professionals and highly incentivized to get talented players. Getting highly recruited players increases your margin for error in recruiting. Our staff will have to compete effectively for recruits. I mean, this is obvious stuff.
So to say, hey, some outside of the top 150 performed better than someone in the top 150 is to miss the point and put forward a make-work argument for its own sake. It's staring so intensely at one tree after another that you not only fail to notice that there's a forest but also that it has overwhelmed RU for 25 years.
Again, no matter how you try to slice and dice and stare at trees, RU will still have to vastly improve its recruiting to get to the tournament. It's not complicated.
Please. Monmouth would not win more than three games in the big ten. They would be lucky to win three.
A. Sure. However, it's not a much higher rate of success for your team. Look at the success of teams in the tournament from non-power 5 conferences. Look at the failures of the SEC which tends to do well in the Rivals 150. Look at the success of schools like Utah in the Pac 12. Heck, Iowa in the B1G has built its success off non-150 players. Another great example: Pittsburgh in the old days with our assistant coach.
It's very possible in b-ball to have success with one or fewer Rivals 150 players. It's not unexpected.
Again, in basketball, coaching is very important. More important than who you recruit.
Bad coaching jobs can take good recruits and do nothing with them. Just look at our own history with FHJ. Just look at OSU this year with Thad Matta. You can look at Georgetown too this year. You can look at Washington as well.
It's only obvious to you because you declare it to be obvious.
To you vastly improving your recruiting is grabbing kids in the Rivals 150. That's it. You don't care about anything else, hence why I dub you a low information poster.
And I think he would be a great pickup even though he's not a Rivals Top 150 player. My posts are in defense of a guy like Frankie Policelli, or Mac McClung.
Highly unlikely. Marist? Quinnipiac? Saint Peters? ......Holy Cross? What?
One of the biggest misconceptions out there....that the BIG 10 has teams with huge front lines. Those days are gone. Most teams are playing 3 guards.
You can probably count Iowa and Purdue with teams that have big Center/PF combos. Centers are more mobile these days and a lot of teams are playing 4 players on the outside. Personally, I hated seeing Gettys on the perimeter so much last year.
If you can name these teams with Big front lines I would love to hear them.
The OP, Policelli is good, but, I like his AAU teammate better....Samba Diallo.
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Rutgers problem over the years is not being able to keep an intact roster of returning players from year to year. We hardly ever reap the benefits of talented seniors because we've done our best to chase them the heck out of here, unlike other schools with competent coaching staffs.
Hey, hey, hey! There's a good set of rants going on here. And then you come in and mess it all up with a call for content!
BTW, how did his visit go?
24/7 has a story about the visit. I don't subscribe to that site but I'll guess the visit went well like 99.99 percent of visits.
According to this article -Policelli is now 6-foot-8, 215-pound -
http://www.syracuse.com/sports/inde...li_navigates_college_basketball_recruiti.html
Very nice article, interesting that they didn't mention RU offer unless we offered after June 7th.
Not a chance - maybe, just maybe two, and they better be early in the season because they'll be beaten up after playing five games in the league. Who would the six be anyway. I'd like to hear.
I am jumping into this discussion late only reading some of the previous back and forth. While these two guys are part of what we need, the bottom line is if the program is to make the NCAA the level of recruit will have to be higher...we most certainly need a few top 100-150 sprinkled in there. Its is extremely difficult to do it with just the under the radar guys. Recruiting will have to pick up eventually or the the goal will have to be lowered to being a NIT type program
Some fans still believe that coaching is far more important than recruiting.I don't share that viewpoint based on 27 years without 1 NCAA bid and 11 straight losing seasons.Talent really matters in a power conference.
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No one says talent doesn't matter, but the only basis on talent is an arbitrary Top 150 ranking system, where 35 to 40% of the Top 150, doesn't even come close to their actual rankings.
The reality is coaching is the key, because if you don't have good coaching, you have ZERO shot at winning and good coaching identifies talent and finds pieces that fit into what needs to happen.
Let's just simplify the argument that says "you need better talent" and if it's not Top 150 talent, you cannot win consistently (which frankly and by the stats, is 100% inaccurate, once you leave the obvious Top 30 to 40 kids. In most cases, no one really knows the difference between the two players ranked at 135 and 175.
There are 65+ Power 5 schools plus the a couple at the top of the Big East, plus the AAC, plus the Mountain West and other schools like Gonzaga, Wichita State etc. ...There are only 150 "difference makers" according to those here continuing to only look at the Top 150 bandwagon....
What you usually see is that certain Power 5 schools usually land multiple kids from the Top 150 and in most cases, they tend to be in the Top 60-70 kids every year....Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, UCLA, Arizona, Indiana and to a lesser extent, Villanova, UConn, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State etc.
Those schools significantly shrink the Top 150 to around 80 kids in the Top 150....so you are now talking about 80 kids nationally left for 50 or so schools....in this argument, there is NOT enough of those "Top 150" kids to go around.
The reality is that staff earn their money by landing one or maybe 2 Top 150 kids a year BUT, you have to clearly know what you are coaching and getting beyond the "Top 150", to earn your money.....if there are 3 to 4 kids recruited at 65+ Power 5 schools per year, that means that there are 250 to 300+ recruits that land at big time programs each year.....OR more than half of the kids landing at winning programs that are NIT or NCAA bubble teams are made up of mostly non-Top 150 kids.
If you believe coaching doesn't matter when the pool of players beyond the Top 100 is fairly watered down or equal OR that evaluation of players outside the obvious Top 60-70 isn't important, then not sure how you can ignore the numbers....
To support the argument that coaching is more important and rankings are not as critical, there are more Power 5 schools "stealing" from low or mid-major freshman and sophomores that have shown they can perform or outperform their higher-ranked competition....otherwise, why is North Carolina taking a grad transfer from William and Mary or explain what Oregon is taking a grad transfer from Illinois State....and how did Virginia and Virginia Tech decide they needed to chase a freshman guard from Mt St Marys, to get backcourt help down the road.
If an unrated 2* kid is one year removed from high school and played at Mt St Marys, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart for one year and lands at a Power 5 school, then that tells you the rankings are more flawed........ and coaching and system matters more than recruiting talent....Give me a top flight coach and staff that can identify vs strictly relying on "it's 150 talent or bust" anyday of the week.
No one says talent doesn't matter, but the only basis on talent is an arbitrary Top 150 ranking system, where 35 to 40% of the Top 150, doesn't even come close to their actual rankings.
The reality is coaching is the key, because if you don't have good coaching, you have ZERO shot at winning and good coaching identifies talent and finds pieces that fit into what needs to happen.
Let's just simplify the argument that says "you need better talent" and if it's not Top 150 talent, you cannot win consistently (which frankly and by the stats, is 100% inaccurate, once you leave the obvious Top 30 to 40 kids. In most cases, no one really knows the difference between the two players ranked at 135 and 175.
There are 65+ Power 5 schools plus the a couple at the top of the Big East, plus the AAC, plus the Mountain West and other schools like Gonzaga, Wichita State etc. ...There are only 150 "difference makers" according to those here continuing to only look at the Top 150 bandwagon....
What you usually see is that certain Power 5 schools usually land multiple kids from the Top 150 and in most cases, they tend to be in the Top 60-70 kids every year....Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, UCLA, Arizona, Indiana and to a lesser extent, Villanova, UConn, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State etc.
Those schools significantly shrink the Top 150 to around 80 kids in the Top 150....so you are now talking about 80 kids nationally left for 50 or so schools....in this argument, there is NOT enough of those "Top 150" kids to go around.
The reality is that staff earn their money by landing one or maybe 2 Top 150 kids a year BUT, you have to clearly know what you are coaching and getting beyond the "Top 150", to earn your money.....if there are 3 to 4 kids recruited at 65+ Power 5 schools per year, that means that there are 250 to 300+ recruits that land at big time programs each year.....OR more than half of the kids landing at winning programs that are NIT or NCAA bubble teams are made up of mostly non-Top 150 kids.
If you believe coaching doesn't matter when the pool of players beyond the Top 100 is fairly watered down or equal OR that evaluation of players outside the obvious Top 60-70 isn't important, then not sure how you can ignore the numbers....
To support the argument that coaching is more important and rankings are not as critical, there are more Power 5 schools "stealing" from low or mid-major freshman and sophomores that have shown they can perform or outperform their higher-ranked competition....otherwise, why is North Carolina taking a grad transfer from William and Mary or explain what Oregon is taking a grad transfer from Illinois State....and how did Virginia and Virginia Tech decide they needed to chase a freshman guard from Mt St Marys, to get backcourt help down the road.
If an unrated 2* kid is one year removed from high school and played at Mt St Marys, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart for one year and lands at a Power 5 school, then that tells you the rankings are more flawed........ and coaching and system matters more than recruiting talent....Give me a top flight coach and staff that can identify vs strictly relying on "it's 150 talent or bust" anyday of the week.
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Wow,
That's a lot of words.
Since we've sucked for 25 years let's try something different than what we've done in the past.
Id like to have all top 150 players on our roster. Something tells me we would win more games this way with the same coaches than with a roster of all non top 150 players.
That's a lot of words.
Since we've sucked for 25 years let's try something different than what we've done in the past.
Id like to have all top 150 players on our roster. Something tells me we would win more games this way with the same coaches than with a roster of all non top 150 players.
it is a lot of words, but that's all people are fixated on is Top 150, but it's still 80 kids each recruiting class left for a total of 50-55 schools a year...how many of the remaining left 80 players should each of the 50-55 schools get a year??
It's easy to say 3 or 4 or you can't win, but there are more players outside the 150 that can play just as much as these remaining 80 kids...being disappointed in recruiting because a kid isn't in the Top 150, is not reality for the remaining 50 Power 5 schools and they seem to be doing OK.....because they mostly have good coaches, that's the difference.
talent matters because in the Big 10 everyone can coach. Pikiell is no better than any of the other coaches some who are legends like Izzo and Beilen and some who are young and up and coming like Collins and Pitino. Pikiell isnt going to outcoach the majority of the league. We need talent that all the other schools have
In my opinion, it's clear you need both. Recruits and a coach, but I think a good coach with a good staff is more important. If you have a crummy coach, you can have all the talent in the world and still blow it. We've seen it here at Rutgers with Fred Hill and you can look to LSU the year they had Ben Simmons. Without a guy who can coach, you have a ceiling that isn't the NCAA.
However, there are examples of good coaches who can get underrated talent and develop them into NCAA Tournament caliber players. Wisconsin is the first that comes to mind. I don't believe Kaminsky was a rated prospect when they landed him. However, this isn't easy, and takes a long time to break through. Your margin for error is lower and you really have to players buy in.
Personally, I think Pikiell has to be a combination of both. He can land the Geo Bakers (who I'm high on)--underrated recruits by the services--but I think he has to sprinkle in players like Mathis. Add in some transfers like Kiss and you can start to fill in roles. People can be shot makers. You can have a superstar. And then you have your rebounders and defenders. You don't need a roster full of 150 guys, but you do need some top talent as well.
You can't go from 15-18 to 22-9 in a year. I think you have to go from 15 to 16 to 15 to 18 to 20 and when you get to 18 or 20 hope that big name is ready to jump on board and put the team over the top.
However, there are examples of good coaches who can get underrated talent and develop them into NCAA Tournament caliber players. Wisconsin is the first that comes to mind. I don't believe Kaminsky was a rated prospect when they landed him. However, this isn't easy, and takes a long time to break through. Your margin for error is lower and you really have to players buy in.
Personally, I think Pikiell has to be a combination of both. He can land the Geo Bakers (who I'm high on)--underrated recruits by the services--but I think he has to sprinkle in players like Mathis. Add in some transfers like Kiss and you can start to fill in roles. People can be shot makers. You can have a superstar. And then you have your rebounders and defenders. You don't need a roster full of 150 guys, but you do need some top talent as well.
You can't go from 15-18 to 22-9 in a year. I think you have to go from 15 to 16 to 15 to 18 to 20 and when you get to 18 or 20 hope that big name is ready to jump on board and put the team over the top.
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