There has been much discussion on this Message Board over the past 7 years about player evaluation and development under Coach K. For discussion purposes, I have listed below all of Coach K's Recruiting Classes, including Year 1 (2010-11), which I can't remember who were his recruits and who were Gene Cross's Recruits. Who do you think were the biggest surprises, biggest disappointments, most improved, least improved, etc?

2010-11
Delino Dear
Reece Holiday
Hayden Humes
J.T. Thomas
Anthony Wright (Transfer)

2011-12
Juice Brown
Dominique Buckley (Transfer)
Curtis Dennis (Transfer)
Ryan Majerle
A.J. Mathew
Rian Pearson (Transfer)
Matt Smith (Transfer)

2012-13
Nathan Boothe
Josh Lemons

2013-14
Justin Drummond (Transfer)
Zach Garber
Jordan Lauf
J.D. Weatherspoon (Transfer)
Aubrey Williams
Jonathon Williams

2014-15
Angel Aparicio (Transfer)
Kurt Hall
Stuckey Mosley

2015-16
Taylor Adway
Luke Knapke
Nate Navigato
Nick Rogers
Jaelan Sanford
Chandler White

2016-17
Lucas Antunez (Transfer)
Daniel Dzierzawski (Transfer)
James Gordon IV
Justin Roberts
Steve Taylor (Transfer)

Aubrey Williams and James Gordon are head scratchers for me. 2011-12 easily the best. Last year's may be number two. This year's Senior class (2013-14 recruits)of Lauf and Williams is small but has had an enormous impact!

Oh, I predicted Deer would be MAC DPOY by his senior year, so...biggest disappointment so far. Juice and Boothe the two best as Seniors. Taylor not far behind.

By my count 14 did not complete their eligibility at UT.

(02-09-2017 03:32 PM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  By my count 14 did not complete their eligibility at UT.

That's a big number. Take away the transfers, and Juice, Boothe and Jon Jon were his only high school recruits that turned into high performing players (so far). When your program isn't built on getting quality high school recruits, there will always be a sense of turmoil within the program as transfers move in and out every few years.

The guys who developed were guys who were already quite good to start with (Boothe, Juice). We haven't had many guys who came in not ready to contribute who later developed into solid players. A lot of people thought that Adway, after not playing his freshman year, would develop into an impact player. That has not been the model with K, though, and there is no sign that it will happen in Adway's case. The model has been that the players who don't contribute right away end up leaving the program. From the outside looking in, it seems that K does a better job with his stars than he does with the rest of the roster.

(02-09-2017 04:17 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  

(02-09-2017 03:32 PM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  By my count 14 did not complete their eligibility at UT.

That's a big number. Take away the transfers, and Juice, Boothe and Jon Jon were his only high school recruits that turned into high performing players (so far). When your program isn't built on getting quality high school recruits, there will always be a sense of turmoil within the program as transfers move in and out every few years.

Actually, it's not a big number. The entire NCAA D1 averages 2+ transfers out per year. So teams are averaging 2+ transfers in per year. It's not just a UT "problem".

He does a great job identifying and recruiting transfers. Hit and miss w frosh. Aparicio was a frosh, btw. Seems to be a good Judge of character, most of the transfers out were very good students just not great players. Seems to excel as a coach w good players who need to fine tune their game, guys like weatherspoon Taylor Boothe juice pearson

Seems to me Dale Brown and Jerry Tarkanian built successful basketball programs with juco's.

Good thing for transfers or we would 0-122. That's hard to believe we have won with those classes...

(02-10-2017 07:40 AM)UT! Wrote:  Good thing for transfers or we would 0-122. That's hard to believe we have won with those classes...

Juice and Nathan could have played with any other three non-transfer recruits of their time and beat NW Ohio. So, 2-120.

So I count 34 scholarships. I don't really include transfers into the program as recruiting, right?Please correct me if I'm wrong. Just like the NFL you might see teams spend a lot on free agents win a year or two, but it's usually the teams who build through the draft and home grow their players who have the most long term success.

I'd translate that to NCAA basketball as well. For the long haul, recruiting freshmen and building a program is the best way to go. Of those lists I'd only say that Juice, Booth, Navigato, Sanford, Jon Jon and Lauf have made any true contributions or are DI players. I'd add Holiday to that list because he played his guts out. Wish he would have stayed his last year. The rest of the non-transfer recruits are marginal DI players at best. I see a lot of DII-DIII players on that list or who never made a single impact in our win percentage or never lasted to see senior night. I wonder how many of the transfers out, actually continued playing basketball or even saw the court on their new teams.

Coach K has gotten passes because he replaced a true dufus, and saved us with his Green Bay transfers, but in the long run he's not recruiting DI players that can help us win the MAC. They may be good citizens and students, but they are not getting it done on the court.

(02-10-2017 09:47 AM)emanoh Wrote:  So I count 34 scholarships. I don't really include transfers into the program as recruiting, right?Please correct me if I'm wrong. Just like the NFL you might see teams spend a lot on free agents win a year or two, but it's usually the teams who build through the draft and home grow their players who have the most long term success.

I'd translate that to NCAA basketball as well. For the long haul, recruiting freshmen and building a program is the best way to go. Of those lists I'd only say that Juice, Booth, Navigato, Sanford and Lauf have made any true contributions or are DI players. I'd add Holiday to that list because he played his guts out. Wish he would have stayed his last year. The rest of the non-transfer recruits are marginal DI players at best. I see a lot of DII-DIII players on that list or who never made a single impact in our win percentage or never lasted to see senior night. I wonder how many of the transfers out, actually continued playing basketball or even saw the court on their new teams.

Coach K has gotten passes because he replaced a true dufus, and saved us with his Green Bay transfers, but in the long run he's not recruiting DI players that can help us win the MAC. They may be good citizens and students, but they are not getting it done on the court.

I would add Jon Jon Williams to that list of non-transfer recruits who have made a contribution and are a DI player

JonJon is clearly is D1 player. Knapke should also turn out to be a real player by next season.

(02-10-2017 07:40 AM)UT! Wrote:  Good thing for transfers or we would 0-122. That's hard to believe we have won with those classes...

Actually, he's 35 games over .500. Even with that 4-28 first season.

(02-10-2017 10:07 AM)Rocket75 Wrote:  JonJon is clearly is D1 player. Knapke should also turn out to be a real player by next season.

Correct, missed Jon Jon. I'll update my post above.

E-

So that is 6-7 players out of 34 (not including transfers) that he has correctly evaluated talent. So about 20% of his scholarship offers have contributed (not including transfers). I know every school gets an average of 2 players transfer every year, but that percentage is ugly IMO. Maybe it's not an apples to apples argument since those transfers have contributed.

Not sure how transfer recruitment works. Do they choose us or do we recruit them? I'm guessing the kid reaches out either while thinking about transferring or after he's asked to be released from his scholarship. Coach K's phone rings, the kid finds out if we have a scholarship avail, possibly the reason for transferring, closer to home, style of play, etc. Coach K probably had the kid on his radar at some point and goes back to his files. If he's not familiar with the kid, he makes a few calls to his HS coach, maybe his old college coach, his Sunday school teacher, etc. If he checks out he offers a schollie.....and crosses his fingers. This year has been a huge wiff from the point guard position. talk about not doing your research.

I'm more concerned about players who transfer out because they get here & find that they can't really compete at this level. Guys who transfer for other reasons--playing time, not a good "fit", homesick, academic issues, etc...--those things happen anywhere. But we seem to bring in 1 or 2 guys almost every recruiting class with TK who make me scratch my head & wonder who watched them play in high school or on film and thought they were a MAC-level player. A coach can afford a miss like that every now & then, but they start to add up.

All it would take is one big time recruit to rocket this program to the next level. Just one...and Coach K hasn't come close to that one. I'm talking about about a 4 or 5 star recruit with a multitude of offers across the nation, but ends up choosing the Rockets. I realize how difficult it is to snag a top level recruit because they all seem to go to the Dukes, Kentuckys, UCLA's of the world. But if we could just snag one, it could do wonders. So I'll ask again, do the Rockets have a legitimate chance at signing Jacob Epperson, son of Toledo's all-time leading scorer & rebounder? He's taking his OV this weekend.

(02-10-2017 02:55 PM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  All it would take is one big time recruit to rocket this program to the next level. Just one...and Coach K hasn't come close to that one. I'm talking about about a 4 or 5 star recruit with a multitude of offers across the nation, but ends up choosing the Rockets. I realize how difficult it is to snag a top level recruit because they all seem to go to the Dukes, Kentuckys, UCLA's of the world. But if we could just snag one, it could do wonders. So I'll ask again, do the Rockets have a legitimate chance at signing Jacob Epperson, son of Toledo's all-time leading scorer & rebounder? He's taking his OV this weekend.

IMO?

No.

But it would be awesome on more than one level, that's for sure!