I know nothing is certain yet, but when was the last time we had a recruiting class that looked this good on paper?

(05-12-2009 07:33 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  I know nothing is certain yet, but when was the last time we had a recruiting class that looked this good on paper?

Since last year when we said the same thing.

(05-12-2009 09:31 AM)insideualr Wrote:  

(05-12-2009 07:33 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  I know nothing is certain yet, but when was the last time we had a recruiting class that looked this good on paper?

Since last year when we said the same thing.

I don't remember thinking the last class was this good, but we're always optimistic. If this class produces more than the Shane Edwards-John Fowler class, we'll be allright.

(05-12-2009 09:34 AM)Dr. J. Wrote:  the Shane Edwards-John Fowler class, we'll be allright.

The most productive juco class I can remember, for sure.

(05-12-2009 09:31 AM)insideualr Wrote:  Since last year when we said the same thing.

+1

I was thinking the same thing.

(05-12-2009 09:37 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  

(05-12-2009 09:34 AM)Dr. J. Wrote:  the Shane Edwards-John Fowler class, we'll be allright.

The most productive juco class I can remember, for sure.

I hope you're right. They may be, at least on paper, but they'll have to produce here first. I'm forever leery of juco's, especially when they come from some of the lesser known and respected schools. The level of competition they had in the juco ranks is important. It seems that several of the schools that this years signees came from, weren't exactly household names.

(05-12-2009 10:09 AM)LRTrojan Wrote:  

(05-12-2009 09:37 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  

(05-12-2009 09:34 AM)Dr. J. Wrote:  the Shane Edwards-John Fowler class, we'll be allright.

The most productive juco class I can remember, for sure.

I hope you're right. They may be, at least on paper, but they'll have to produce here first. I'm forever leery of juco's, especially when they come from some of the lesser known and respected schools. The level of competition they had in the juco ranks is important. It seems that several of the schools that this years signees came from, weren't exactly household names.

I don't really know much about the Juco conferences, so it's difficult for me to judge on that basis. Let's just hope our coaches are good evaluators of talent. That's all we have to depend on.

Fellows, I'm not asking for anyone's firstborn as a guarantee. All I wondered was a gut feel just based on what we've seen and heard so far. Does this seem like a good class?

Something to talk about.

(05-12-2009 12:17 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Fellows, I'm not asking for anyone's firstborn as a guarantee. All I wondered was a gut feel just based on what we've seen and heard so far. Does this seem like a good class?

Something to talk about.

Well, we all know that it all remains to be seen, but as a gut feeling I'd say we're in fantastic shape. While it's all prognosis, it is a fact that we have never had this many recruits with such high accolades coming out of high school or junior college. That's a fact. Last year, it was Jackson, since he was the 13th best recruit in Texas. That's it. But now we've recruited at least two of that caliber in Neighbour and Cicic, plus four recruits that rank higher than anyone we've ever recruited, JC-wise (apparently Freeman was ranked lower than all of these guys?).

The point is, we'll never know until we see them, sure, but we've never had so many highly-rated recruits in one incoming class.

And while it's always good to withold getting one's hopes up, these recruiting analyses aren't just completely blind shots in the dark. If they were, the Top 10 recruiting classes every year would be busts. Have they been? Last I checked, North Carolina, Duke, UCLA, Kansas, and UConn have all been somewhat decent lately...

(05-12-2009 09:44 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  

(05-12-2009 12:17 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Fellows, I'm not asking for anyone's firstborn as a guarantee. All I wondered was a gut feel just based on what we've seen and heard so far. Does this seem like a good class?

Something to talk about.

Well, we all know that it all remains to be seen, but as a gut feeling I'd say we're in fantastic shape. While it's all prognosis, it is a fact that we have never had this many recruits with such high accolades coming out of high school or junior college. That's a fact. Last year, it was Jackson, since he was the 13th best recruit in Texas. That's it. But now we've recruited at least two of that caliber in Neighbour and Cicic, plus four recruits that rank higher than anyone we've ever recruited, JC-wise (apparently Freeman was ranked lower than all of these guys?).

The point is, we'll never know until we see them, sure, but we've never had so many highly-rated recruits in one incoming class.

And while it's always good to withold getting one's hopes up, these recruiting analyses aren't just completely blind shots in the dark. If they were, the Top 10 recruiting classes every year would be busts. Have they been? Last I checked, North Carolina, Duke, UCLA, Kansas, and UConn have all been somewhat decent lately...

Most experts would agree that picking the Top 50 or even Top 100 recruits in the country is a fairly accurate "science". Those are the players that go to UNC, Duke, Kansas, etc. Most will be very good college players, if not all stars. It's much more of a crap shoot with the players we are recruiting. Cicic is the only one ESPN even has a rating on. 4 of our Jucos are rated in the Top 100 (make that 3 without McBride). That does appear encouraging. But like LRTrojan pointed out, we don't really know what their competition was like and they still have to make it to campus. I will be very surprised (pleasantly) if we are better than last year. From what I've been able to find out about our new players, none of the Jucos seem to be as talented or have the scoring ability of Shane or Stevee. We have a couple who seem to fit the mold of John Fowler. Despite his scrawny frame, maybe Neighbor can be a factor in the Belt in his first year due to his other strengths. Maybe Cicic, being a coach's son, has the basketball savy to start at the 2 from day 1- he apparently has the shooting ability and height to be an extremely effective shooting guard in the Belt. I am hopeful that we will have a chance to be pretty good. But we will take our lumps early and probably won't know until mid-January what type of team we really have.

Scoring sometimes comes from unexpected places, players who didn't previously score just because that was not their role. III will score more. I expect Big Ticket to be back where he was year before last, at least. Both of them I expect to be in double figures. Courtney will assume more of the scoring role, and I think he is up to it. He is pretty active underneath. Don't forget that both he and Burton shot 50%, so they can hit baskets. And someone of the newcomers will be a scorer.

(05-13-2009 07:17 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Scoring sometimes comes from unexpected places, players who didn't previously score just because that was not their role. III will score more. I expect Big Ticket to be back where he was year before last, at least. Both of them I expect to be in double figures. Courtney will assume more of the scoring role, and I think he is up to it. He is pretty active underneath. Don't forget that both he and Burton shot 50%, so they can hit baskets. And someone of the newcomers will be a scorer.

It seems obvious to me that we'll have more players capable of putting some points on the board than at possibly any time since the Newell days. Of course Fish, Malik and Muntrelle did a fairly good job, to say the least, but other than that regime, we really haven't had many teams with multiple scorers. If you have three or four players capable on any night of scoring 15-20 points, it makes it difficult for an opponent to concentrate on any one player. I still say, if chemistry and leadership can be developed on this year's team, we might have our best chance of winning the tournament. We will probably struggle early, but once everyone learns the system and gets used to playing together, this could be a fun season. I'm ready.