Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
Plan C or D, replete with the slow play, for the turtles, or Plan A for us? Might not be that difficult of a decision.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (September 2018)
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Plan C or D, replete with the slow play, for the turtles, or Plan A for us? Might not be that difficult of a decision.
Obelix, I think that the true quality of a recruiting class is somewhere between the two measures. Obviously, class rankings where the size of the class is taken into account is biased towards big recruiting classes. But, if you bring in 6 kids, it is hard to beat a class average rank of a team that only needs to bring in three. Class average is biased against big classes, as you don't need all the players to pan out. to have had a successful recruiting class. Ranking based upon the average of the top 3 recruits might be a better indicator.
Any worthwhile ranking has to be an apples-to-apples comparison. In any given recruiting cycle in college basketball, that's impossible. However, every team only gets 13 schollies total. What would be an interesting ranking would be the high school rankings of the total roster composition at any given time, including now-older recruits and players who transfer in or whatever.
247 has the data to do this easily, I'm surprised they haven't. Some enterprising poster here could do this just for the Big Ten maybe?
I think determining the true quality of a recruiting class can only happen about 4-5 years after.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I'm actually going to go ahead and say that, given how bad we have been and how irrelevant we are on the court of late, we actually remain surprisingly relevant in recruiting (finishing as a bridesmaid implies more relevance than being left out of the top 5, for example) and in the media ... just my take.
I do not disagree with that, but it is also important to look at positional gaps, overall gaps, player attrition, etc. I think the most disappointing thing for me last year was striking out with too many players in the Fall, going into desperation mode having too many holes in the Spring, and ending up with significant gaps in the frontcourt. That is why I think it is important to have a very strong Fall recruiting class this year that addresses frontcourt, to build on what I consider current strength (our backcourt).
That's true but it's not like current rankings aren't a pretty good measure of success. You can add more variables to the equation, but it's not rocket science that getting higher ranked players puts you a better position to succeed on the court. Anything on top of that gets convoluted and mixed with hindsight that isn't that valuable either. For example, its easy to say that Wisconsin has been able to win with lower ranked recruits, but that doesn't mean they would have had more success with better ranked players. It's impossible to know really but it's likely considering that even those programs target 4 and 5 star guys. It's not like Bo Ryan preferred 3 star guys over top 100 kids.
Since 1 year ago, we had 6 kids leave early. A year ago, no one expected us to have as many holes in the roster as we do. That changes things. That said, you're right. This could be a successful recruiting class, it could be a failure. We have to see what they do on the court to make that determination.
That would be a talent level ranking, but by ranking based upon top 3 of each class, you are getting a class balance factor cooked in as well. To be correct, th3e value of the class would have to take into account positional needs, etc. But for a simple "class ranking" I still like top three average (works out to 12 schollies over 4 years while a team has 13 total). Top 4 could be argued to take into account the likelihood of transfers.
And then throw in the Illinois curse. I kid, but while I of course agree with you in general, just for the sake of discussion, I think there's something to be said about recruiting to the system vs by rankings. I hate bringing up Weber, but didn't he say that in retrospect he should've recruited the guys he wanted vs the guys he felt he was supposed to recruit? I remember that he was fairly successful at SIU which I imagine was due to recruiting to his system. Then, at Illinois, he got relatively highly ranked guys who basically didn't pan out. My memory isn't what it used to be so maybe I'm off here.
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The average stars for each team are shown on Verbal Commits by conference. Still does not tell the complete story however as no evaluation of balance.
Are we out on Kofi Cockburn? I remember there being a lot of hype a while ago and people thought we might have a shot. I haven't heard him mentioned recently
Alright, the flattop is back. I think I may still have a partial can of Butchwax around here somewhere.
FeelYourPaign
- So Cal
In the tweet from Walker, he asks how he looks (in his Fighting Illini jersey).
I hope that he is hearing MARVELOUS from a lot of Illinois fans.
1m4tr
Cliffmas
Attachments
#metoo
We're arguably his best offer, so hopefully he has a great visit and we get the commitments rolling.
I hope you are right
I do not think anyone was expecting Antigua to be pulling recruits like he did at Kentucky but I was definitely expecting (and still expecting) more success on the recruiting front. Antigua has a great reputation, HS/AAU coaches speak highly of him, but the HC is also a huge factor independent of the work an assistant puts in. In general, from my own interactions with coaches, Orlando indeed has a very strong network and coaches know/respect him. Chin is mostly known within clusters in Illinois/EYBL. Walker may have Illinois/Missouri area connections but he has less visibility of the national scene.
I'd be surprised if he is not. He knows Jason Smith (Brewster Academy HC) very well, he had signed Malik Fitts from Brewster at USF and he has recruited multiple players from Brewster in his career including Lukas Kisunas (Illinois), Thomas Robinson (Kentucky), etc.
+1 any news?
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