sacraig
- The desert
In between all the nonsense yesterday this paraphrase of a post caught my eye and made me wonder a little...
"Don't know much about Holyfield's game and I see he's not ranked on the 24/7 transfer page. However, with TT and Kansas being his other finalist he must have skills."
Not attacking anyone, because this mindset seems to be common among at least a few posters, but at what point do we start assuming that the Illinois staff knows what to look for in an athlete and can identify talent? Why is it that an athlete must have offers from blue bloods or other high level programs in order for us to believe that he has skills?
Probably as soon as the current staff has demonstrated the ability to recruit players who turn out to reliably be good college players and translate that into wins. I'd say they are well on their way, given how Bezhanishvili has turned out as an unheralded prospect, but there really needs to be a trend.
Vesel
The trend comment goes both ways. Some players, especially bigs, aren't going to pan out, particularly when they were essentially nobodies when signed. What you'd like to see is that, of the lower-ranked players a staff lands, more of them pan out than not. When that happens, I'd say it's a sign of good evaluation skills.