I am even less of an expert on basketball than football, but why does Toledo have such a hard time recruiting top MAC/mid-major talent? Given Toledo's location (near Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland areas) and facilities, why can't Toledo recruit top classes every year? Second, what happened to the MAC? I remember the era of Hunt at Ohio, Wells at Balls State, Boykins at Eastern, great players at BGSU and UT. It seems like the league has never come close to replicating that era.

(12-12-2017 09:07 PM)falconplucker Wrote:  I am even less of an expert on basketball than football, but why does Toledo have such a hard time recruiting top MAC/mid-major talent? Given Toledo's location (near Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland areas) and facilities, why can't Toledo recruit top classes every year? Second, what happened to the MAC? I remember the era of Hunt at Ohio, Wells at Balls State, Boykins at Eastern, great players at BGSU and UT. It seems like the league has never come close to replicating that era.

I'll take a shot at this. As far as recruiting goes, not sure we've had a great recruiter in a long time. Even with very nice facilities. As far as top players, you're talking about 20 or 30 years ago. Kids could fall through the cracks, little or no internet, many schools didn't emphasize basketball as much because the big money wasn't there, and finally, every DII or DII school that wanted to make a name for itself decided to go DI. There are 351 DI schools now. There were less that half of that 30 years ago. That's thousands of kids that the MAC might get, but now they're going to Oakland or Wofford. In the Midwest, Big Ten schools maybe could sign 40 kids a year. They couldn't sign everybody, so MAC schools would get a Bonzi Wells or Gary Trent.

(12-12-2017 09:52 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 09:07 PM)falconplucker Wrote:  I am even less of an expert on basketball than football, but why does Toledo have such a hard time recruiting top MAC/mid-major talent? Given Toledo's location (near Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland areas) and facilities, why can't Toledo recruit top classes every year? Second, what happened to the MAC? I remember the era of Hunt at Ohio, Wells at Balls State, Boykins at Eastern, great players at BGSU and UT. It seems like the league has never come close to replicating that era.

I'll take a shot at this. As far as recruiting goes, not sure we've had a great recruiter in a long time. Even with very nice facilities. As far as top players, you're talking about 20 or 30 years ago. Kids could fall through the cracks, little or no internet, many schools didn't emphasize basketball as much because the big money wasn't there, and finally, every DII or DII school that wanted to make a name for itself decided to go DI. There are 351 DI schools now. There were less that half of that 30 years ago. That's thousands of kids that the MAC might get, but now they're going to Oakland or Wofford. In the Midwest, Big Ten schools maybe could sign 40 kids a year. They couldn't sign everybody, so MAC schools would get a Bonzi Wells or Gary Trent.

Toledo’s last player to get more than a cuppa NBA Joe (I.e. a couple ten day contracts or a dozen floor minutes) was Kozelko, I think.

H2O is right on the NBA career of ex Rockets. I maintain that this is a chronic recruiting drought that has no excuse for existence, PERIOD. If we can be out recruited by Oakland with a tiny HS gym type facility or for that matter any MAC school than there is a problem. Current program doesn't have a good recruiter IMO. Don't care that there are 3xs the number of programs in DI as there was in the glory days, no reason for not getting the best of the MAC or Horizon League players here. I'm just saying...GO ROCKETS!

(12-14-2017 11:38 AM)rocket 51 Wrote:  H2O is right on the NBA career of ex Rockets. I maintain that this is a chronic recruiting drought that has no excuse for existence, PERIOD. If we can be out recruited by Oakland with a tiny HS gym type facility or for that matter any MAC school than there is a problem. Current program doesn't have a good recruiter IMO. Don't care that there are 3xs the number of programs in DI as there was in the glory days, no reason for not getting the best of the MAC or Horizon League players here. I'm just saying...GO ROCKETS!

Absolutely. Need a young hotshot ethical recruiter/assistant coach and pay him/her accordingly.

(12-14-2017 11:52 AM)Boca Rocket Wrote:  

(12-14-2017 11:38 AM)rocket 51 Wrote:  H2O is right on the NBA career of ex Rockets. I maintain that this is a chronic recruiting drought that has no excuse for existence, PERIOD. If we can be out recruited by Oakland with a tiny HS gym type facility or for that matter any MAC school than there is a problem. Current program doesn't have a good recruiter IMO. Don't care that there are 3xs the number of programs in DI as there was in the glory days, no reason for not getting the best of the MAC or Horizon League players here. I'm just saying...GO ROCKETS!

Absolutely. Need a young hotshot ethical recruiter/assistant coach and pay him/her accordingly.

I was going to suggest Gene Cross but then I saw “ethical”. Of the coaches we’ve had, I only heard rave reviews about two in advance: Cross and Eck. Of course a recruiter doesn’t have to be the head coach but there’s still an object lesson. Maybe Justin is that guy?

(12-14-2017 12:00 PM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  

(12-14-2017 11:52 AM)Boca Rocket Wrote:  

(12-14-2017 11:38 AM)rocket 51 Wrote:  H2O is right on the NBA career of ex Rockets. I maintain that this is a chronic recruiting drought that has no excuse for existence, PERIOD. If we can be out recruited by Oakland with a tiny HS gym type facility or for that matter any MAC school than there is a problem. Current program doesn't have a good recruiter IMO. Don't care that there are 3xs the number of programs in DI as there was in the glory days, no reason for not getting the best of the MAC or Horizon League players here. I'm just saying...GO ROCKETS!

Absolutely. Need a young hotshot ethical recruiter/assistant coach and pay him/her accordingly.

I was going to suggest Gene Cross but then I saw “ethical”. Of the coaches we’ve had, I only heard rave reviews about two in advance: Cross and Eck. Of course a recruiter doesn’t have to be the head coach but there’s still an object lesson. Maybe Justin is that guy?

That would be great!

A player like Kozelko won't go unnoticed in remote Traverse City anymore. These days young players with next level skills are identified and swept up early by the Dark Forces of the AAU and shoe company programs. Ethics laced up a pair of Nike Air Jordans 20 years ago and has been slam dunking for the Big Bucks ever since.

Most of the Horizon schools don't play football and can focus all their effort and resources on basketball. I am guessing that Head Coaches and Asst Coaches are better paid in the Horizon than the MAC

(12-14-2017 01:05 PM)Sleepy Wrote:  A player like Kozelko won't go unnoticed in remote Traverse City anymore. These days young players with next level skills are identified and swept up early by the Dark Forces of the AAU and shoe company programs. Ethics laced up a pair of Nike Air Jordans 20 years ago and has been slam dunking for the Big Bucks ever since.

Most of the Horizon schools don't play football and can focus all their effort and resources on basketball. I am guessing that Head Coaches and Asst Coaches are better paid in the Horizon than the MAC

Not in the Horizon. Atlantic 10 is a huge difference.

(12-14-2017 01:05 PM)Sleepy Wrote:  A player like Kozelko won't go unnoticed in remote Traverse City anymore. These days young players with next level skills are identified and swept up early by the Dark Forces of the AAU and shoe company programs. Ethics laced up a pair of Nike Air Jordans 20 years ago and has been slam dunking for the Big Bucks ever since.

Most of the Horizon schools don't play football and can focus all their effort and resources on basketball. I am guessing that Head Coaches and Asst Coaches are better paid in the Horizon than the MAC

I agree with the first paragraph 100 percent. I don't know enough about the second to comment.

sleepy is on the right track. a generation ago recruiting was far more local. ohio, indiana, michigan, kentucky and the chicago area were-and still are to a degree- elite high school basketball territory. MAC teams didn't always get great talent, that primarily went to the Big 10 and few national programs that recruited the region. but, if it was a good year for high school talent in ohio, some of those studs spilled over to the MAC or a big talent who had say a speech impediment -Ron Harper, family trauma -Gary Trent, was undersized -Craig Thames, Earl Boykins. could find their way to a MAC school. since the age of nichols, several things have transpired.

1) Recruiting has gone national on several level. More D1 teams overall who recruit a larger area. More AAU programs that show off good talent and sort of under the radar type kids. And HS basketball academies where a lot of Midwestern kids go for their final year of HS and get seen by more college recruiters.

2) Disinvestment in public education. The foundation of good players was a culture of great public league (and often Catholic school) programs. often, beginning in elementary. School had more resources and paid coaches. they were more of an anchor in their communities with a lot of long time staff, family connections and community involvement. Now, big public school have less money. Many kids attend small charter schools that don't have sports, have high teacher and staff turnover, and little connection to neighborhood sports programs, rivalries, etc... In Toledo, you used to be able to go to a typical Woodward-Devilbiss HS game and see 3-4 guys with college talent. Maybe, not the grades or focus, but the game. A lot of those big neighborhood HS are gone or a shell of themselves and don't have the good feeder programs of middle school and elementary basketball. A handful of private schools and still big public HS now mostly dominate the game and load up on talent. Less kids are getting playing time to develop against good competition.

3) MAC emphasis on football shifted resources in that direction. The MAC often had a couple good football teams back in the day and did put some good ones into the NFL, but now every MAC team invests a lot of it's athletic money and energy on football. Plus, with title IX, non football monies have shifted somewhat towards women's sports. The MAC now plays more tv football, sends more players to the NFL and more teams are competitive nationally to a degree but basketball has lost a little of the focus. While MAC football is on tv a lot and gets a recruiting bump. MAC basketball has essentially zero nationally tv exposure or brand and now isn't even shown on local tv.

4) Coaching turnover. The MAC was a league with some long time capable coaches in the 60s-80s/early 90s. Some of these guys were old school and had limitations but they knew the game, knew how to coach it and knew the regional high school scene. Often, they had longtime assistants. Today, the MAC is a stopping point for the most part for head and assistant coaches. The league lacks some of the stability and continuity it once had.

also, the transfer and movement of players issue is overblown as a MAC or UT problem. Transfers are very common everywhere and some non-MAC schools have much high turnover of players.

Stempin could have been an NBA player if bad coaching had not made him play the post. He had NBA talent that was stifled because of all the reasons above

(12-15-2017 07:19 AM)indianasniff Wrote:  Stempin could have been an NBA player if bad coaching had not made him play the post. He had NBA talent that was stifled because of all the reasons above

Hmmmm- I always thought he had NBA talent until he (or the coaches) fell in love with a perimeter game and ill-advised threes (IIRC he shot under 30%). He was a slasher and leaper and should have used those strengths. I don’t even recall him in the post once our big guy developed (Craig Something?) in his senior year. Weird how we remember things differently- at my age I’m lucky to remember anything! I do, however, remember him stuffing Cinci’s Kenny Satterfield at the R ‘n R Shootout in Cleveland to preserve a Rocket win!