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  1. #2021
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    New York, NY
    Quote Originally Posted by GGLC View Post
    ...

    You really think we'd move on to 2015-16 in recruiting targets facing the prospect of having only eight scholarship players next year?
    Yes. Next question?

    Not trying to be snippy, but what exactly do you propose we do? Or what do you propose that the coaching staff would do? Of guys not named Okafor, Turner, Alexander, or Travis, the only uncommitted players 6'7" or taller in the 247 composite top 100 of the 2014 class are #49 Jonah Bolden and #69 Thomas Welsh. Not exactly a vast pool of options and I've never heard that we've even established contact with either.

    I hope we get a big as much as the next guy. But hey, sometimes you strike out and you go back to the dugout and await your next turn.

    - Chillin

  2. #2022
    Quote Originally Posted by GGLC View Post
    You really think we'd move on to 2015-16 in recruiting targets facing the prospect of having only eight scholarship players next year?
    Well, no I don't. But that doesn't have much to do with my response to your comment. What you said was "at some point we're actually going to need to land some frontcourt players." I'm saying that probably won't happen with 2014 recruits (other than Okafor and Turner, assuming Travis is moving on without us).

    First of all, if Okafor and Turner decide to go elsewhere, we're still recruiting Jones and Winslow. If we get one or both of them we'd have 9 or 10 recruited scholarship players and a pretty good rotation, albeit a rotation in which our SF may only be 6'4 or so.

    Second, if we fail to get any of our priority recruits, we'd probably attempt the fifth-year-senior-immediate-transfer route, rather than "expand the net" to pick up lesser high school players.

    Finally, if everything else failed to provide high quality players for the 2014-15 roster, which I strongly doubt will happen, then yes -- rather than scrounge for players outside or at the bottom of the top 100 who probably wouldn't play much anyway, I'd guess we'd go into the season with just 8 guys (plus walk-ons). That's more or less what we did in 1999-2000, and it worked out OK.

    Still, I'm not getting worried about that just yet.

  3. #2023
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Fair enough. Thanks for the responses! I'll just cross my fingers that recruits don't keep rejecting us.

  4. #2024
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    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Well, no I don't. But that doesn't have much to do with my response to your comment. What you said was "at some point we're actually going to need to land some frontcourt players." I'm saying that probably won't happen with 2014 recruits (other than Okafor and Turner, assuming Travis is moving on without us).

    First of all, if Okafor and Turner decide to go elsewhere, we're still recruiting Jones and Winslow. If we get one or both of them we'd have 9 or 10 recruited scholarship players and a pretty good rotation, albeit a rotation in which our SF may only be 6'4 or so.

    Second, if we fail to get any of our priority recruits, we'd probably attempt the fifth-year-senior-immediate-transfer route, rather than "expand the net" to pick up lesser high school players.

    Finally, if everything else failed to provide high quality players for the 2014-15 roster, which I strongly doubt will happen, then yes -- rather than scrounge for players outside or at the bottom of the top 100 who probably wouldn't play much anyway, I'd guess we'd go into the season with just 8 guys (plus walk-ons). That's more or less what we did in 1999-2000, and it worked out OK.

    Still, I'm not getting worried about that just yet.
    I'm not diminishing the advantage of a post presence. I'm not writing off Marshall (who, I think, will surprise us in 2014-25). And I'm not writing off our getting the bigs (and other players) we need. But this "smallish, highly athletic, fast, multiple position" lineup is going to be an adjustment this year, as Coach K has repeatedly said. If we go that route next year, the players who played this year will have adjusted to it by the start of next season. Big plus if we end up going that way as a result of recruiting challenges this year.

    Did I mention that I'm not writing off our getting the bigs we want and might yet get?

  5. #2025
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    For 2014-15, we'd still have Amile, Marshall, Semi, and Alex to play in the frontcourt (assuming Jabari and Rodney both leave after this season). My guess is rather than "expand the net," the coaching staff would move on to the 2015-16 prospects.
    I agree. Too late to get in with anyone worth getting in on for the 2014 class. Which makes our apparently slow start on 2015 bigs -- no offers out yet to any big guys, most of whom have received several -- all the more difficult to understand.

  6. #2026
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    Another approach

    Maybe we could ask the NCAA to raise the baskets to 12 feet or so? Or lower them to 9 feet? Not sure which would advantage our short team more?

  7. #2027
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    New York, NY
    Quote Originally Posted by GGLC View Post
    Fair enough. Thanks for the responses! I'll just cross my fingers that recruits don't keep rejecting us.
    We have given out scholarship offers to 8 or 9 guys this entire year. We have 4 available scholarships. We have one elite recruit already. The two lowest ranked (by the general consensus) of these elite recruits have signed elsewhere (UNLV and UCLA); coaching staffs can't (and shouldn't) talk details, but I'm unconvinced that we would have let them sign a letter for us in October while we waited to hear from six other guys who we may rate more highly.

    Anyway, I write this (again) to say that it's not clear that anyone has really rejected us. From the perspective of any college program--including Kentucky's--we are seen as a primo recruiting machine. This year, as has been the case for 20 years, our recruiting peers are limited to a cluster of 3 or 4 schools. Do we get everyone? No. Can we only recruit about 3 players per year? Yes, and they almost entirely come from players ranked in the top 25. Elite players don't "keep rejecting us." If they did, last year's graduates wouldn't have spent their entire careers ranked in the top 10...

  8. #2028
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by johnb View Post
    We have given out scholarship offers to 8 or 9 guys this entire year. We have 4 available scholarships. We have one elite recruit already. The two lowest ranked (by the general consensus) of these elite recruits have signed elsewhere (UNLV and UCLA); coaching staffs can't (and shouldn't) talk details, but I'm unconvinced that we would have let them sign a letter for us in October while we waited to hear from six other guys who we may rate more highly.

    Anyway, I write this (again) to say that it's not clear that anyone has really rejected us. From the perspective of any college program--including Kentucky's--we are seen as a primo recruiting machine. This year, as has been the case for 20 years, our recruiting peers are limited to a cluster of 3 or 4 schools. Do we get everyone? No. Can we only recruit about 3 players per year? Yes, and they almost entirely come from players ranked in the top 25. Elite players don't "keep rejecting us." If they did, last year's graduates wouldn't have spent their entire careers ranked in the top 10...
    I was under the possibly mistaken impression that Kevon Looney is more highly ranked than Grayson Allen. Apologies if I'm wrong in that. And your post is the first I've ever heard of the suggestion that Duke wasn't heavily recruiting Looney. You should also (presumably) add Reid Travis to those who have rejected us, since it was reports of Duke being 100 percent out for him that spurred my initial post on this topic today.

    Finally, it was my impression that we could (practically speaking) accommodate a class of five or six this year, rather than four at the maximum.

  9. #2029
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Quote Originally Posted by GGLC View Post
    I was under the possibly mistaken impression that Kevon Looney is more highly ranked than Grayson Allen. Apologies if I'm wrong in that. And your post is the first I've ever heard of the suggestion that Duke wasn't heavily recruiting Looney. You should also (presumably) add Reid Travis to those who have rejected us, since it was reports of Duke being 100 percent out for him that spurred my initial post on this topic today.

    Finally, it was my impression that we could (practically speaking) accommodate a class of five or six this year, rather than four at the maximum.
    You are right that Looney is highly ranked, and ranked higher than Grayson. You are right that Duke recruited Looney pretty hard. Don't know how right you are about Travis as 18 year olds are as hard to predict as, well, 18 year olds.

    But you are dead wrong about striking out this year. Every program misses, from the Kentuckys to the Kansases to the UNCs. Duke will miss. But we have a very strong recruiting pipeline this year. We will get a few recruits. Will we get them all? No, and Coach K rarely gets them all.

    Have a little faith in the coaches. You clearly haven't been following Duke basketball for too long if you think that this year's recruiting class is a failure.

  10. #2030
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Henderson View Post
    I'm not diminishing the advantage of a post presence. I'm not writing off Marshall (who, I think, will surprise us in 2014-25). And I'm not writing off our getting the bigs (and other players) we need. But this "smallish, highly athletic, fast, multiple position" lineup is going to be an adjustment this year, as Coach K has repeatedly said. If we go that route next year, the players who played this year will have adjusted to it by the start of next season. Big plus if we end up going that way as a result of recruiting challenges this year.

    Did I mention that I'm not writing off our getting the bigs we want and might yet get?
    So, you're predicting a long pro career for Marshall?

  11. #2031
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by flyingdutchdevil View Post
    You are right that Looney is highly ranked, and ranked higher than Grayson. You are right that Duke recruited Looney pretty hard. Don't know how right you are about Travis as 18 year olds are as hard to predict as, well, 18 year olds.

    But you are dead wrong about striking out this year. Every program misses, from the Kentuckys to the Kansases to the UNCs. Duke will miss. But we have a very strong recruiting pipeline this year. We will get a few recruits. Will we get them all? No, and Coach K rarely gets them all.

    Have a little faith in the coaches. You clearly haven't been following Duke basketball for too long if you think that this year's recruiting class is a failure.
    I never said this year's recruiting class was a failure. I'm simply pointing out that after Travis, we've only got four open offers that I know of, and it will be interesting to see what happens if we end up missing on our frontcourt targets. If we end up with only Grayson Allen out of this loaded class when we've gone after a number of people hard...then yes, at that point I would characterize this class as a disappointment/a challenge/underwhelming/what have you.

    And if you think I haven't been following Duke basketball very long, then you don't know what my username means.

  12. #2032
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Quote Originally Posted by MCFinARL View Post
    So, you're predicting a long pro career for Marshall?
    I'll settle for a Zoubek thing, and I wouldn't underestimate that possibility. In fact, I'll predict it. Mark it. If Marshall grows a beard, the nation will tremble.

    The only question is the quality of MP3's pastries. Zoubs is way ahead there, even though his first venture didn't work out.

  13. #2033
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    New York
    Quote Originally Posted by GGLC View Post
    I never said this year's recruiting class was a failure. I'm simply pointing out that after Travis, we've only got four open offers that I know of, and it will be interesting to see what happens if we end up missing on our frontcourt targets. If we end up with only Grayson Allen out of this loaded class when we've gone after a number of people hard...then yes, at that point I would characterize this class as a disappointment/a challenge/underwhelming/what have you.

    And if you think I haven't been following Duke basketball very long, then you don't know what my username means.
    Right, so you definitely remember that it referred to an absolute best case, every-star-in-alignment recruiting outcome unequalled in the history of Duke basketball. (Arguably.) Ever other year has fallen short of that height for the very good reason that no one wins the lottery ever year, Cleveland Cavaliers notwithstanding.

  14. #2034
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Princeton, NJ
    Quote Originally Posted by Des Esseintes View Post
    Right, so you definitely remember that it referred to an absolute best case, every-star-in-alignment recruiting outcome unequalled in the history of Duke basketball. (Arguably.) Ever other year has fallen short of that height for the very good reason that no one wins the lottery ever year, Cleveland Cavaliers notwithstanding.
    not clear that drafting anthony bennett is *winning* the lottery. maybe finding a way to lose?

  15. #2035
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by johnb View Post
    We have given out scholarship offers to 8 or 9 guys this entire year. We have 4 available scholarships. We have one elite recruit already. The two lowest ranked (by the general consensus) of these elite recruits have signed elsewhere (UNLV and UCLA); coaching staffs can't (and shouldn't) talk details, but I'm unconvinced that we would have let them sign a letter for us in October while we waited to hear from six other guys who we may rate more highly.

    Anyway, I write this (again) to say that it's not clear that anyone has really rejected us. From the perspective of any college program--including Kentucky's--we are seen as a primo recruiting machine. This year, as has been the case for 20 years, our recruiting peers are limited to a cluster of 3 or 4 schools. Do we get everyone? No. Can we only recruit about 3 players per year? Yes, and they almost entirely come from players ranked in the top 25. Elite players don't "keep rejecting us." If they did, last year's graduates wouldn't have spent their entire careers ranked in the top 10...
    Huh? Nobody has rejected us? Kevon Looney was recruited very hard by Duke for well over a year. He is a much higher-rated (for good reason) player than Reid Travis, and much higher than Grayson Allen for that matter as well. You can offer alternative definitions of the word "reject," but he chose UCLA over Duke and others, despite a very heavy and sustained effort by the Duke staff to get him to Durham.

    You are simply incorrect if you think we "wouldn't have let him" sign a LOI at this time. The entire effort that the staff made was to get him to sign just such a letter. Even had he signed, there would still hav been enough room for Jones, Okafor, and Winslow should they all choose Duke. The one who would have been left out would've been Travis.

  16. #2036
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    New York
    Quote Originally Posted by freshmanjs View Post
    not clear that drafting anthony bennett is *winning* the lottery. maybe finding a way to lose?
    Nicely played, sir.

  17. #2037
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by flyingdutchdevil View Post
    You are right that Looney is highly ranked, and ranked higher than Grayson. You are right that Duke recruited Looney pretty hard. Don't know how right you are about Travis as 18 year olds are as hard to predict as, well, 18 year olds.

    But you are dead wrong about striking out this year. Every program misses, from the Kentuckys to the Kansases to the UNCs. Duke will miss. But we have a very strong recruiting pipeline this year. We will get a few recruits. Will we get them all? No, and Coach K rarely gets them all.

    Have a little faith in the coaches. You clearly haven't been following Duke basketball for too long if you think that this year's recruiting class is a failure.
    You're quite right that every top program misses, and misses often. But I think what he's saying is if the worst-case scenario comes to pass, meaning that if we miss on Looney, Okafor, Jones, and Winslow (and Travis) and instead of the five-man class the staff wanted, we end up with one shooting guard ranked in the mid-20's as our entire recruiting class, the class will be considered a failure. "Failure" is a harsh word, but it would be hard to argue the truth of it in that case.

  18. #2038
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by Des Esseintes View Post
    Right, so you definitely remember that it referred to an absolute best case, every-star-in-alignment recruiting outcome unequalled in the history of Duke basketball. (Arguably.) Ever other year has fallen short of that height for the very good reason that no one wins the lottery ever year, Cleveland Cavaliers notwithstanding.
    Oh, Cleveland. Why do you have to make so many weird lottery picks? Kyrie deserves better.

    Anyway, I don't compare each class to Elton, Shane et al., nor do I expect anything like that outcome. I'm not dumb. It is valid to observe, however, that in a recruiting class with potential space for up to six recruits, our combinatoric outcomes are getting winnowed down. If we add Jones and Okafor and no one else, I will be ecstatic. I will be over the moon. (I will, dare I say, be GGLC.) If we miss on Jones and Okafor but get Winslow and Turner, I will think that we have an excellent class. If we get only one of the four of them, I will still think we've done pretty darn well for ourselves (although I will hope that we're able to have a bigger class in 2015).

    Obviously any doomsaying is extremely premature. My initial post was prompted by the impending miss on Reid Travis, who many people viewed (apparently wrongly) as the type of four-year contributor who would jump at the chance to go to Duke, a safer bet to hedge against our higher-ceiling pursuits. I'm sure we'll be fine regardless, but if we miss on Travis having so recently missed on Looney, our margin for error with our remaining offers is progressively slimmer. This was a loaded class. The prevailing sentiment has been we were in really well with a bunch of players and could pick and choose. It doesn't look like that's going to be the case. Still, I absolutely agree that we'll probably be more than fine, whatever happens.

    Forgive me for venting my anxiety a little in this thread; none of my friends in real life are Duke fans, and most of them actively root against us. It's just nice to have a bit of an outlet.

  19. #2039
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    This situation reminds me of the year that we had no depth in the backcourt and as it got late in the recruiting cycle, people really panicked as Duke turned their noses up on transfers and lower ranked players who would "fill a need". Then Andre left hs early and the problem was solved, it became clear why Duke was making the decisions they did, and the year ended with a NC.
    What if the Okafor, Jones, Winslow package shows up as predicted months ago? All of a sudden, we learn that Reid didnt see room, and Looney didnt like the potentially crowded frontcourt (Jabari). Or we miss on Okafor and Jones but Winslow comes and Turner shows that he was just waiting for the most room so he signs up. All better.
    Maybe it's the royal blue colored glasses but i just dont believe that Duke is maxing out on each of these guys and they are just choosing to go elsewhere despite Duke's pleadings. I believe that K has a plan, honestly communicates the plan, and the kid/family decide if it works for them.

  20. #2040
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    Dec 2009
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    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by tommy View Post
    You're quite right that every top program misses, and misses often. But I think what he's saying is if the worst-case scenario comes to pass, meaning that if we miss on Looney, Okafor, Jones, and Winslow (and Travis) and instead of the five-man class the staff wanted, we end up with one shooting guard ranked in the mid-20's as our entire recruiting class, the class will be considered a failure. "Failure" is a harsh word, but it would be hard to argue the truth of it in that case.
    Thanks for articulating my thoughts more concisely than I've been able to.

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