I brought up the whole recruiting VA and dmv thing earlier.
It is outrageous to be one of the top institutions in your state and arguably top as far as student college experience goes. Have alum everywhere in the state, good fan following, and still can't get a solid recruit in the area. They don't even sniff the dmv seriously, because of the mindset that they have no connections there. Good coaches come in and make those connections,they hold camps, coaches clinics, make a point to be seen in those gyms even if not getting a recruit. We have not had a impact player from VA in forever. The lack of effort by the coaching staff is just awful. Brady needs to get some assistants from the area or ones who will roll up sleeves and go after recruits in dmv that are a good fit, rather than rac up flight mileage on recruiting trips to hot talent beds like Iceland and Serbia.

Barkers is 100% on target.

The question is, why would the leadership let this dumpster fire spread out of control?

(05-23-2014 11:07 AM)Dukeman Wrote:  Barkers is 100% on target.

The question is, why would the leadership let this dumpster fire spread out of control?

Maybe that is why WVU was on campus this week - giving a seminar on controlling dumpster and couch fires on campus?

If Brady were bringing in great talent, I don't think anyone would be arguing where that talent was coming from. Last season was very disappointing to me and that was the case as soon as I saw the freshman class play. I'm sure they're all great guys, but ultimately basketball success is determined by talent. And I understand that teams, especially at the mid-major level, may have some mix of core and supporting players, of course. In a class of six, however, you have to have several impact players.

I don't like the idea of not using up all your scholarships two years in a row. This team, as I've said, needs all the talent it can get, especially with its best player at risk of being thrown off the team with another drug test failure. If one goes to the verbal commits site and selects ACC, for example, there are two bigs from VA Tech and MD that might be of interest to them that are transferring out. I'm sure that must be the case for power conferences across the country. Not sure what the aversion to transfers is? Any player they sign in the fall will need several years to develop. A transfer could come in and practice with the team next season and contribute the following season. Perhaps it's the APR issue, which I only understand in general terms.

Yes, VA many times has excellent talent and is loaded with high end prep schools like Oak Hill Academy and Hargrave. Even lowly Hofstra with a new coach -- Joe Mihalich -- picked up a big recently from VA that was rated three stars by at least one recruiting service. No question that the recruiting record in VA is weak, especially with so many out of state colleges poaching the talent. Barkers is right, though, in that the DMV and Baltimore areas have excellent talent that's seemingly largely ignored by JMU -- at least based on the results of actual signings.

We'll see in the coming season if the talent that they've brought on is enough for the team to compete for a CAA title. Tough to know really until we see the new guys play, as well as seeing how the returning players develop over the summer. That's true for any program, of course, but after the last recruiting class there's perhaps a fair amount of skepticism that's warranted.