Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
I think Scott Richey on illini podcast (whatever it's called) said that he didn't think he would reclass. Wanted to mature and grow into his body and skills a bit more before taking a leap. Who knows?
One of those teams is not like the others
. and did they dust off that Syracuse trophy before giving it to him? they haven't been relevant in years.You know what’s awesome to see is Brady in the comments of practically every big-time Illini recruit.
I still think Arizona is the slight lead for Wabbington but we are right there. Pettigrew I feel good about as of now.
This is one to watch.
Melo 2003, one lucky run. Generally seen as one of the 3 worst champs since 2000, but a title is a title.One of those teams is not like the others
I do think McNamara could do something there.
Not sure why he didn't have more impressive suitors as a kid ranked top 10 by On3.
AZ has been leading on Wabbington for a long time, but I think Brad's system is more favorable to how he wants to play. The one thing I've heard is that Lloyd may promise to play him at the 4 if they get this Awaka kid to play the 5.
Florida, UConn, MSU, UM also in on Awaka. UConn would seem like a program any big wants to play for as they've sent two bigs to the first round, in recent years, have another first rounder on their roster now. Who knows though.
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I don't think Scheyer is dumb - he's young, the guy is 38 and has been head coaching for 4 years.
We should all be afraid if he figures it out. I think this team is very good, and the landscape is not quite as good. There is no Flagg or Boozer, but it's got a ton of depth and it's far more versatile, will not be dependent on one player.
Scheyer figuring out a template/MO & XO's that works for him or Hurley grabbing two+ 5 stars is what we need to avoid.
Is it me, or does this guy look a "little" like Trent Frazier at times? Especially in that Providence pic?
I do agree with you that the idea that Scheyer is "due" doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as being "due" for a championship. Plenty of examples of guys who got close to a championship and never got over the hump.
At the same time I don't think it's fair to write off Scheyer's chances based on his failure to get there by year 4 of his head coaching career. Krzyzewski's legendary status is based on winning 5 championships over the course of a 42-year run with Duke. That's one championship every 8.5 years. Scheyer had been there 4 seasons.
The way I judge best coach, is which program is likely to have the most success over the next 5 years? That defines how good your program is.
Scheyer is at worst #2 in that regard (to Dan Hurley). He's had an excellent start to his career. The dominance of the program is even more significant than where Coach K left the job.
If you're Duke in this NIL climate, it's easier. You don't have to rebuild, for one.
They're no longer restricted to just their HS recruits. It's very difficult to compare this climate to anything mature portal/NIL era. They have such an advantage based on their brand and NIL.
You have to look at it this way, a team like Duke has almost a card punch into the S16 these days as a slam dunk for a 1 seed. Once it squeezes down to 16, that's when they have to show up. It's really a 4 game tourney for them with there being such a drop off at that 25-30 team point.
This cohort of players they have right now
This has been a weird summer. The mixture of opinions on NIL/portal era and super teams and the hyperbolic 'season is already in the books' type of viewpoints re: UConn/Duke and the inability of the remainder of college basketball to escape the fatalism of Hurley's mastermind 4D chess or Duke's ability to acquire talent.
Lot of chatter about Super Teams™ and such but the last 4 champions were 7th, 21st, 6th, unranked in the preseason AP poll. That's zero champions in the AP preseason top 5, two of them outside the top 20 and one that wasn't even ranked to begin the year. The SuperTeams™ are formed over the course of the season, not over the course of the offseason.
I definitely think experience is the ultimate currency now, and agree with what others have said the last page or so that maturity beats draft pedigree in a single-elimination tournament (though that maturity also must possess talent to a degree, experience alone doesn't just trump overall talent).
Hurley is a phenomenal coach, no doubt. If he moves to what we're calling the Scheyer model of 5 star freshmen, is his hard-nosed coaching style, complex systems and hyper-intense culture fundamentally incompatible with a 'one-and-done' model? I think he'll need to adapt a bit. I also kind of disagree with the sentiment that him landing uber-talented kids is something new. I can forget where some of them were ranked, but Stephon Castle and Liam McNeeley were both top 10 recruits. If he abandons what has been working for him and shifts to a model where he makes those type of players his staple in recruiting, I'm unsure I could see that as a huge positive for him.
On Duke, they need a star to emerge. I don't see one on their roster (I'm not talking about a guy has to average X number of points; not how I am defining star here). I see a collection of 12 players who are either (1) incoming freshmen who aren't Cooper Flagg/Cameron Boozer or (2) transfers who aren't Lendeborg/Newton/Clayton Jr. The quietest killer of championship teams is rotation dissatisfaction and I think they'll have a ton of it this year with 12 guys who've never seen a DNP-CD next to their names, ever, and now 3-4 of them will be for the entire season. Has Scheyer shown the type of program and player management skill to handle this kind of unprecedented roster depth? Will a number of guys be checked out and have their camps be looking toward the portal halfway through the season?
This is why college basketball is so much more interesting to many than other sports: the volatility of the single-elim tournament. I think its been 20 years since the preseason #1 actually cut down the nets.
Lot of chatter about Super Teams™ and such but the last 4 champions were 7th, 21st, 6th, unranked in the preseason AP poll. That's zero champions in the AP preseason top 5, two of them outside the top 20 and one that wasn't even ranked to begin the year. The SuperTeams™ are formed over the course of the season, not over the course of the offseason.
I definitely think experience is the ultimate currency now, and agree with what others have said the last page or so that maturity beats draft pedigree in a single-elimination tournament (though that maturity also must possess talent to a degree, experience alone doesn't just trump overall talent).
Hurley is a phenomenal coach, no doubt. If he moves to what we're calling the Scheyer model of 5 star freshmen, is his hard-nosed coaching style, complex systems and hyper-intense culture fundamentally incompatible with a 'one-and-done' model? I think he'll need to adapt a bit. I also kind of disagree with the sentiment that him landing uber-talented kids is something new. I can forget where some of them were ranked, but Stephon Castle and Liam McNeeley were both top 10 recruits. If he abandons what has been working for him and shifts to a model where he makes those type of players his staple in recruiting, I'm unsure I could see that as a huge positive for him.
On Duke, they need a star to emerge. I don't see one on their roster (I'm not talking about a guy has to average X number of points; not how I am defining star here). I see a collection of 12 players who are either (1) incoming freshmen who aren't Cooper Flagg/Cameron Boozer or (2) transfers who aren't Lendeborg/Newton/Clayton Jr. The quietest killer of championship teams is rotation dissatisfaction and I think they'll have a ton of it this year with 12 guys who've never seen a DNP-CD next to their names, ever, and now 3-4 of them will be for the entire season. Has Scheyer shown the type of program and player management skill to handle this kind of unprecedented roster depth? Will a number of guys be checked out and have their camps be looking toward the portal halfway through the season?
This is why college basketball is so much more interesting to many than other sports: the volatility of the single-elim tournament. I think its been 20 years since the preseason #1 actually cut down the nets.
I think that if he's allowed to stay the Duke coach for another 5 years with the same resources he will definitely win one. The likelihood of him getting a good draw and just out-talenting his opponents is high. He's a better coach than someone like Kevin Ollie, I just wouldn't say he's great.
The Coach K comment is apt since they're both talent merchants. E.g., K had 30+ top 10 recruiting classes in his 42 years, including 5 #1 classes in his last 8 alone, if you count his 6 missed tourneys as 13/17th seeds he averaged a 3.5 seed. I've seen that in aggregate he outperformed his seed in the tourney, but I also think it's wild that a guy with such a talent advantage averaged being the 14th best team...
I heard that too. The podcast, Inside Illini Basketball, is very dry but there is usually some good content. Scott Richey and Jim Rosso from the News Gazette banter back and forth with a sarcastic tone, yet the knowledge they share is almost always worthwhile, to me. My son (29 years old, huge Illini fan) can't listen to it, finds it too sluggish and dull, but for me, it's the perfect podcast to accompany yardwork or laundry. It's never exciting but it's always informative in some way, I listen to ir every Monday.
Just offering my two cents on the Scheyer thoughts.
1. You can bet your beach house he is as smart and knowledgeable as any coach. He was also a player we wanted badly.
2. Virtually all but a couple of other coaches would sell their first born to have the results he has produced. (Hear that Tyler?)
3. He is the one ultimately responsible for creating results for a team of kids working at a task that produces total and unpredictable chaos every few seconds...what could go wrong?
4. He is a great fit at Duke...as is BU at Illinois. Both high quality people.
I shake my head at air-headed criticism of opposing coaches and players who have done things far beyond what any of us can imagine simply because they are or have been successful. At some point we have to move beyond 3rd grade thinking.
But of course that comes with a caveat....it is always acceptable to state any lowly or derogatory remarks about Michigan...they work hard every day to earn that.
1. You can bet your beach house he is as smart and knowledgeable as any coach. He was also a player we wanted badly.
2. Virtually all but a couple of other coaches would sell their first born to have the results he has produced. (Hear that Tyler?)
3. He is the one ultimately responsible for creating results for a team of kids working at a task that produces total and unpredictable chaos every few seconds...what could go wrong?
4. He is a great fit at Duke...as is BU at Illinois. Both high quality people.
I shake my head at air-headed criticism of opposing coaches and players who have done things far beyond what any of us can imagine simply because they are or have been successful. At some point we have to move beyond 3rd grade thinking.
But of course that comes with a caveat....it is always acceptable to state any lowly or derogatory remarks about Michigan...they work hard every day to earn that.
Interesting player! He’s got some beef to him but also bouncy. Feels like the kind of tough matchup/mismatch player BU loves
Torvik says Coach K was 0.2 wins below computer expectations and 3.2 wins below seed expectations over 21 tournament appearances, so I'd call that a wash. Scheyer is 0.8 wins above computer expectations and 1.6 wins above seed expectations over 4 NCAATs, but that's a small sample size. This doesn't account for how they were ranked/seeded relative to their talent though.
He doesn't know anything nor is he keyed into what's going on behind the scenes in recruiting. He is just guestimating at this point. I highly doubt he ends up being correct...
My impression as well. His highlights reminded me a little of TSJ. The aggression when getting downhill, and the athleticism on the blocks were elite
Apparently THIS is how Scheyer is able to load his bench with Five Stars. He fails to mention he can pay them all starter money.
Anyone telling me Jon Scheyer can develop might as well be trying to tell me the earth is flat. He is doing as much developing as John Calipari. I've yet to see him take one kid that wasn't a 5 star and turn him into anything. He pushes 5 stars out that don't work for him and recruits over them.
Anyone telling me Jon Scheyer can develop might as well be trying to tell me the earth is flat. He is doing as much developing as John Calipari. I've yet to see him take one kid that wasn't a 5 star and turn him into anything. He pushes 5 stars out that don't work for him and recruits over them.
I don’t really disagree. But it got me thinking.
Is there any examples of 5-stars, at any program, not just Duke, that you point to and say “oh. Great player development.”?
It seems to me if they’re great, you get no credit for development. But get the blame when they don’t work out or go pro right away.