Historical Recruiting?

[J.Blink]

Though I've been a Duke fan since I was a kid (and graduated in early 2000s), the first time I paid any attention to recruiting news was the Patrick Patterson affair. After following the sagas of Monroe, Barnes, and even Wall (etc), pretty closely, I got fed up with the--in my mind--complete futility of trying to make any sense of cryptic tweets, cinder blocks, and insiders who have hot news (none of which comes to fruition!), and I've now almost entirely given up trying to keep up with recruiting before signing. Between recruiting announcements, two UNC games a season, and the tournament, I needed to cut down on some stress and recruiting didn't make the cut.

Anyway, I got thinking about this topic after reading some of the debates over one and dones in other threads. Much has changed in college basketball while Coach K has been active (that seems too banal to even say), but I'm curious about how recruiting at Duke today compares to 10, 20, or 30 years ago.

This is an area of almost complete ignorance for me. I've read a few tidbits about recruiting battles over the years (my favorite is that Grant Hill was a big UNC fan) but not much. While I think it's pretty much impossible to directly compare today's fishbowl world of twitter, facebook, and social media to pre-Internet recruitments, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to compare recruits (and the recruitment process) of 30 years ago to the last 5-10.

So, as kind of a hypothetical--which Duke players in the 80s or 90s might have been one and done players in today's climate? Which Duke stars (if any) were "under the radar" recruits who were possibly not as highly recruited as others. Which recruits of the 80s or 90s were touted as "game changers" or the kind of players one builds a team around (I'm thinking about the kind of language used about some of the recent one and dones)?

I have nothing interesting to add! Does anybody?

[DavidBenAkiva]

I'll take the challenge, although my knowledge of recruiting is probably not much better than yours. I graduated Duke in 2006, so wasn't around to read the press clippings of the 80's and 90's.

80's Stars
Danny Ferry comes to mind as a potential one-and-done type. Dude was athletic, big, high basketball IQ and highly recruited.
Laettner might also have fallen into the top-5, top-10 category of talent, although it's debatable he would have been one-and-done as he was not as athletically gifted as some of the other centers of his era (O'Neal, Mourning, Mutumbo, etc.).

90's Stars
Grant Hill and Elton Brand were probably one-and-done caliber players and Brand might have even left after a year were it not for a foot injury derailing his freshman year. Corey Maggette was a one-and-done guy, so there's that.

Really, the early entry and high school-to-draft era were just starting to take root in the mid-to-late 90s. Kevin Garnett in 1995 and then Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal in 1996 paved the way, so it's conceivable that Elton Brand, a senior the same year as Tracy McGrady, could have opted against going to college.

I can't think of others, outside of maybe Johnny Dawkins, who would have been considered at the top of the recruiting rankings and athletically gifted enough to be draft material.

[Olympic Fan]

There were almost no one-and-dones in the '70s and '80s -- anywhere.

Starting in the mid-to-late 1970s, there were a lot of college juniors who went pro early and an occasional sophomore (Isiah Thomas was a soph when he turned pro after the 1981 season). Worthy was a junior in '82 ... Jordan a junior in '84 when he went. Bob McAdoo was one-and-done at UNC in 1972, but he also had two years of juco at Vincinnes. The only one-and-done from the ACC in that time was Skip Wise of Clemson, who took advantage of the ABA-NBA war to sign with the Baltimore Claws in 1975 (and the team promptly went broke and he was left high and dry).

Gene Banks strongly considered going to after his junior year (1979). In today's climate I have no doubt he goes pro after his freshman year -- not only was it almost as good as Jabari's season, he helped lead Duke to the national title game. Maybe G-man after he was rookie of the year in 1977, but maybe not -- he was just 16 years old that season.

Not sure whether any of K's stars before Grant Hill would have been one-and-dones even under today's climate. Dawkins was great as a freshman, but he was like Paige in that he was small and slender (skinnier than Paige is as a soph). Not sure the NBA would have been beating down his door.

Ferry was the nation's No. 1 recruit in 1985, but he wasn't a great athlete and wasn't a great player as a freshman -- 5.9 ppg, 5.5 rpg. Same with Laettner, who was good, but didn't tear it up as a freshman (8.9 ppg., 4.7 rpg.)

Don't think Hurley would have been one-and-done either ... remember how immature and error prone he was.

Grant Hill would have been a projected lottery pick after his role in leading Duke to the '91 national title, but he's the first guy since Banks.

That's not to say that K wouldn't have lost a lot of guys early if the climate had been the same -- Dawkins after 2-3 years, Ferry after his junior year. I'm sure Laettner would have been a lottery pick after the '91 national title year. After Grant Hill, I think you have to wait until Brand. Had he not been hurt as a freshman, he might have been one and done.

Just not many one-and-dones ... maybe Gene Banks (a Foster recruit) and maybe Grant Hill. But I think those are the only ones.