Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 38
  1. #1

    Other ways to do it

    Quote Originally Posted by SkyBrickey View Post
    It feels like heresy sometimes on the board to suggest that setting the priority on recruiting and developing multi-year talent might end up yielding better results than a strategy of focusing on landing the very best recruits available - multiple OADs (our norm since 2015).

    Looking back I tend to judge the success of a season on 1) national championship, 2) Final 4 and 3) enjoyment of the players. Others may have different criteria. For example, if we win the ACC championship but then lose out in the round of 32, I don't tend to value that championship over the early NCAA tourney exit.

    My eye test and gut tell me that the recent Final Fours and National Championships have been dominated by experienced teams. I don't have the time to do the analysis directly, but a quick search produced the following:

    - The current OAD era started in 2006 (Shawnee Williams, 17th) and then exploded in 2007 (8 of 21 top picks were freshmen)

    - Since 2006, in the last 15 Final Fours, 12 of the 60 (20%) of the Final Four teams had a first-rounder OAD

    - Only KY (2012) and Duke (2015) have won championships during this period with a lottery-pick OAD

    - Duke won two championships during this span. 2015 with multiple OADs and 2010 with a team of veterans. There were 10 total OADs in the 2010 NBA draft, so the OAD phenomenon was well underway in 2010 - just not yet at Duke.

    What I did not find, but would be super interesting, is what is the average age for the starting line-up on the 15 previous national champions? Obviously, young in 2012 and 2015, but I expect those two years would really stand out as outliers next to the other 13 champions.

    I've loved watching our OAD stars. Next year we are going to be absolutely loaded and have a great chance of hanging more banners. I don't consider myself anti-OAD and I definitely support giving these kids the right to transfer and own their college experience. What frustrates me is a close-minded view that the only way for Duke to run a sustainably excellent program these days is to continue to target multi-OADs every year. It's one approach, but it's not an open and shut case - especially if you factor in educating our athletes, integrating them into the campus experience, and keeping a fan base engaged - all other factors alongside winning basketball games.

    Bringing in multiple OADs is an approach that few teams have the luxury to execute on. We are fortunate. .But is it the best approach for hanging Final 4 and National Championship banners? The data over the past 15 years doesn't really support that case, so I think it's a fair debate for fans to have.
    I wanted to respond to this, but I thought it might be best to do so outside the Henry Coleman thread, so I brought it here. My response will come in the next two or three posts.

  2. #2
    I think we can all agree that the days of Hurleys, Laettners, and Grant Hills staying four years are long gone. I would also like to posit that this is a debate about recruiting strategy, which seems obvious, but we might as well say so just to limit misunderstandings. So, the first thing I want to do here is look at how Duke has recruited in the past 25 years.

    Some people think our recruiting strategy changed in 2015, but I don't really think it did. Regardless, in the past 25 seasons we've recruited multiple top 10 players and/or 3+ top 15 players on eight occasions.

    1998 (Brand, Battier were in the top 10; Burgess was either top 10 or top 15; I'm not sure what Avery was because the RSCI didn't start until the following year). Elite Eight in 1998, Final Four in 1999.

    2000 (J Williams and Boozer were top 10; also two other guys in the top 30). Sweet 16 in 2000, Champion in 2001, Sweet 16 in 2002

    2003 (S Williams was top 10; JJ Redick and Randolph were top 15). Sweet 16 in 2003, Final Four in 2004, Sweet 16 in 2005

    2015 (Okafor and Tyus Jones were top 10; Winslow was top 15). Champion in 2015

    2016 (Ingram was top 10; D Thornton and Jeter were top 15). Sweet 16 in 2016

    2017 (Giles and Tatum were top 10; Bolden and Jackson were top 15). 2nd round loss in 2017

    2018 (Bagley, Duval, and Carter were top 10; Trent was top 15). Elite Eight in 2018

    2019 (Barrett, Reddish, and Williamson were top 10; Tre Jones was top 15). Elite Eight in 2019

    So, six of those 8 "superclasses" got at least as far as the Elite Eight before they "broke up" (75%). Four of them reached the Final Four (50%), with two of them winning the championship (25%). Seven of the Eight classes at least reached the Sweet 16 in their freshman year.

    It's worth noting that the first three superclasses above didn't reach the Final Four until they were sophomores, but it's also worth stating that they didn't need to become upperclassmen to succeed in the tournament.

    In any event, those superclasses cover all but one of our Final Four appearances in the 25-year period, and all but two of our Elite Eight appearances. The remaining NCAAT runs happened when our teams shared a different characteristic: multiple top 30 seniors.

    2006 (top 30 seniors S Williams, Redick, and Dockery, representing 3 of the 5 top 30 players in the great 2003 recruiting class (the other two left early)). Sweet 16 in 2006

    2010 (top 30 seniors Thomas, Zoubek, and Scheyer; this team also had a top 10 junior (Singler) and a top 20 junior (N Smith), as well as a top 15 freshman and a top 20 freshman). Champion in 2010

    2011 (top 30 seniors Singler and N Smith, plus a top 10 freshman, a top 15 sophomore, and a top 20 sophomore). Sweet 16 in 2011

    2013 (top 30 seniors Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly; this team also had senior Seth Curry and a top 15 freshman). Elite Eight in 2013

    So, two of the four "super senior" groups made the Elite Eight (50%), one made the Final Four (25%) and one won the championship (25%). The rates aren't as good as the "superclasses," but still pretty good. All four of these classes made at least the Sweet 16.

    What stands out most to me about this second group is we've only had four of them in the past 24 or 25 years (not sure about 1997, because RSCI didn't exist so I don't know the recruiting rankings of our three seniors, but that team lost in the 2nd round, so it doesn't help the group, anyway). In fact, out of the past 24 seasons, we've only had more than two top 60 seniors twice (2006 and 2010). Which suggests that even in the relatively good old days, it was hard to keep top 30 players around until their senior year (possibly even top 60, though we didn't have many guys ranked between 35 and 60 so it's hard to say for sure). To think it will be easy to retain 3 or 4 of these guys until senior year is simply not borne out by history.

    It's also worth noting that the 2010 senior class won only three NCAA tournament games in its first three years, which to me points out a possible flaw in the top 30 senior model. Even when it works, you may not get consistent tournament success.

  3. #3
    The above post was just Duke. SkyBrickey has pointed out that championship teams over the past 15 tournaments have not followed the same OAD model that Duke has. So I looked at those 15 championship team rosters to see what those teams did do.

    Let's start with 2006 and 2007 Florida. They had an amazing 2004 recruiting class (Noah (#72), Brewer (#25), Horford (#47), and Taurean Green (unranked)), who weren't super-highly rated, but all seemed to be top players nonetheless. I'm going to call this the "lightning in a bottle" method of building a championship team. There's no real way to predict which players in the 25 to 75 range are going to be 1st round draft picks, and also stay three years in school, on top of that.

    Another recent team that followed this "model" were the 2019 UVa team (Guy (#32), Jerome (#46), Diakite (unranked), and Huff (#61) all came in the 2016 recruiting class and all far outperformed their recruiting ranking, Again, all stayed at least three years. Another was 2013 Louisville, with Gorgui Dieng (#69), Russ Smith (unranked), and Luke Hancock (unranked) in the 2010 recruiting class, and all stayed at least three years.

    2016 and 2018 Villanova had several classes like this in a row. The 2016 team had six NBA players but only one inside the top 40 (Brunson, #19); the 2018 team had five future NBA players, with only two inside the top 20 (Brunson and Spellman, #17). The top players on these Nova teams (Brunson and #96 Mikal Bridges) both stayed three years, though they probably didn't have to. These teams are probably the closest to SkyBrickey's fantasy, though again, I'd say it's nearly impossible to identify which, e.g., #96 player is going to be Mikal Bridges and which is going to be Nate Britt (who was actually #93, but I like picking on Heels, so...).

    The two Duke champions (2010 and 2015) in this timeframe, we discussed in the previous post. Kentucky's 2012 championship team used the multiple top ten freshman model. The two UNC champions (2009 and 2017) used the multiple top 30 seniors model, though they both did it in a way that is basically impossible to replicate today (2009 UNC team had seniors with recruiting ranks of #4, #15, and #29; juniors ranked #5 and #8; and freshmen ranked #9 and #18; 2017 UNC team had seniors ranked #14 and #25, juniors ranked #9 and #15, as well as a freshman rated #19, and a lightning-in-a-bottle Luke Maye). Kansas in 2008 had three top 15 players (#8 junior, #11 soph, #14 soph) plus two other top 25 (#22 frosh, #25 junior) and three other top 45 seniors (#31, #36, and #43). It's basically the OAD model except the players stuck around in a way they wouldn't today.

    The two UConn champions were basic chaos theory, coming from a #3 seed and a #7 seed to win the championship. Though it may be worth noting that the 2011 team had a top 15 junior and a top 16 sophomore, plus a lightning-in-a-bottle freshman class including #75 Shabazz Napier, #78 Jeremy Lamb, and #28 Rosco Smith. Still, anyone who thinks they can replicate what these UConn things did is probably not all there in the head.

    The last champion in the time period used a new model, as Baylor had four of its top six players coming in via transfer. Moving forward, this might end up being a popular model, but after just one success, it's hard to evaluate now.

    You may not agree with my characterization of some of the above teams, but I'm not sure whether that matters. I challenge anybody to look at any of the above champions, other than 2015 Duke and 2012 Kentucky (and possibly 2021 Baylor), and say with a straight face that the recruiting method used by that champion could be copied with a likelihood of similar success. They all got really lucky, either with overperforming recruits or top guys staying longer than normal.

    And none of them really used the "only recruit in the 20 to 50 (or 30 to 70) range and have everybody stay four years" approach. Even if you say the teams I labeled "lightning in a bottle" used a similar approach, it didn't really work consistently (Florida won twice with the same group of players; Villanova won twice, also with basically the same group of players; none of the others won more than once).

  4. #4
    I now want to expand the analysis beyond just champions. Let's look at the two ranges SkyBrickey mentions (2015 to 2021 and 2006 to 2021) and see how each champion (plus a few other top teams) performed in the NCAA tournament in the range.

    First 2015 to 2021:

    Code:
    Team		16	8	4	1	Pts
    Gonzaga		6	4	3	0	23
    Villanova	3	2	2	2	21
    UNC		4	2	2	1	18
    Duke		4	3	1	1	17
    Virginia	2	2	1	1	13
    Kentucky	4	3	1	0	13
    MSU		2	2	2	0	12
    Kansas		3	3	1	0	12
    Baylor		2	1	1	1	11
    Michigan	4	2	1	0	11
    UCLA		3	1	1	0	8
    Louisville	1	1	0	0	3
    Florida		1	1	0	0	3
    UConn		0	0	0	0	0
    To calculate the "points," I gave 1 point for the Sweet 16, 2 additional points for the Elite 8, 3 additional points for the Final Four, and four additional points for champion. Which means 10 points total for champion, 6 points for Final Four, 3 points for Elite Eight, and 1 point for Sweet 16. It's completely arbitrary, and heavily weighted toward the end of the tournament, but that's what SkyBrickey seemed to be looking for, so I went with it.

    It's interesting to note that Gonzaga, despite the lack of a championship, has had the most tournament success in the six-year period, BUT coach Mark Few has recently changed from whatever model he was using in the past (basically get a bunch of foreign players and transfers, go 32-2 in a low-major conference, and take advantage of the resultant #1-seed) and now seems to be going after top 10 players, just like Duke. It's not conclusive of anything, but to me that says something.

    It's also interesting to see Duke as the 4th-most successful team in the period, and Kentucky 6th, each with only one Final Four and UK without even a championship. To me, this suggests the OAD model consistently creates strong teams, even if the team can't always break through to the final tournament weekend.

    Now, let's look at 2006 to 2014:

    Code:
    Team		16	8	4	1	Pts
    Florida		6	6	3	2	35
    UConn		4	4	3	2	29
    Kentucky	4	4	3	1	25
    UNC		5	5	2	1	25
    Kansas		6	4	2	1	24
    Louisville	5	4	2	1	23
    UCLA		4	3	3	0	19
    MSU		6	3	2	0	18
    Duke		5	2	1	1	16
    Villanova	3	2	1	0	10
    Michigan	2	2	1	0	9
    Baylor		3	2	0	0	7
    Gonzaga		2	0	0	0	2
    Virginia	1	0	0	0	1
    In this period, Duke wasn't really using the multiple top 10 recruit model, and our tournament success was worse (9th in the same list of teams as above, the lowest number of points of any team with a championship in the period). Kentucky is 3rd, and Kansas (which used a similar model but not as successfully as Kentucky) was 5th. UNC was also successfully chasing top 10 recruits in this period, and came in 4th.

    Duke successfully recruited 6 top 10 players in this period, plus 4 additional top 15 players, and 2 others in the high teens. We didn't exactly use SkyBrickey's model, but we were a lot closer. And even with 7 of those 12 top recruits staying at least 3 years, our performance was worse than the later period when we start adding multiple top 10 guys most years.

    It may be worth noting that teams like Villanova, Gonzaga, and Virginia, all of which were top performers in the six most recent tournaments, didn't do much in the earlier period. For Virginia, getting a new, successful coach certainly had something to do with it, but in general, it shows whatever approach those teams are using may not have staying power over a longer period of years.

    Finally, let's add them together:

    Code:
    Team		16	8	4	1	Pts
    UNC		9	7	4	2	43
    Florida		7	7	3	2	38
    Kentucky	8	7	4	1	38
    Kansas		9	7	3	1	36
    Duke		9	5	2	2	33
    Villanova	6	4	3	2	31
    MSU		8	5	4	0	30
    UConn		4	4	3	2	29
    UCLA		7	4	4	0	27
    Louisville	6	5	2	1	26
    Gonzaga		8	4	3	0	25
    Michigan	6	4	2	0	20
    Baylor		5	3	1	1	18
    Virginia	3	2	1	1	14
    Here's the entire period SkyBrickey wanted us to look at. The teams that have most successfully chased top 10 players (Kentucky, Duke, UNC, Kansas) occupy four of the top 5 spots (and frankly, the 5th team, Florida, was also bringing in a fair number of top 10 guys in the period). Those teams also show the most consistent tournament success, with the most Sweet 16s and the most Elite Eights.

    I'd also note that no team in the time period has more championships than Duke.

    Ultimately, looking at my three very long posts (and I apologize for the length), I think it's hard to argue that any approach will offer more consistent tournament success than simply going after the best players you can get. You may not win every year, but if you're a legitimate contender two-thirds of the time (as Duke has been from 2015 to 2021), I think that's about the best you can ask.

  5. #5
    OK, I thought of one more way to look at this. In the 24 seasons since 1998, there have been 24 teams that successfully recruited multiple top 10 freshmen:

    1998 Duke (Elite Eight; Final Four as sophomores)
    1999 UCLA (1st round exit)
    1999 UNC (1st round exit; Final Four as sophomores)
    2000 Duke (Sweet 16; Champion as sophomores)
    2000 Kentucky (2nd round exit)
    2000 Florida (Final Four)
    2001 Michigan State (Final Four)
    2003 UNC (missed tourney; Champion as juniors)
    2006 Kansas (1st round exit; Champion as juniors (though with only one of the top 10 guys still there))
    2007 UNC (Elite Eight; Final Four as sophomores; Champion as juniors)
    2010 Kentucky (Elite Eight)
    2011 Kentucky (Final Four)
    2012 Kentucky (Champion)
    2013 Kentucky (missed tourney)
    2014 Kentucky (Final Four; Final Four as sophomores)
    2015 Duke (Champion)
    2015 Kansas (2nd round)
    2017 Duke (2nd round)
    2017 Kentucky (Elite Eight)
    2018 Duke (Elite Eight)
    2019 Duke (Elite Eight)
    2020 Washington (tournament canceled)
    2021 Kentucky (missed tournament)

    Not counting 2020 Washington for obvious reasons, there are 23 teams here. Twelve of them reached the Elite Eight, including four to the Final 4 and two champions. Of the 7 teams that didn't make the Final Four as freshmen, 6 out of 7 made the Final Four as sophomores or juniors, including 3 champions (or subtract one if you don't want to count 2008 Kansas). Add that up, and 18 of the 23 "superclasses" made an Elite Eight, 10 of the 23 classes made at least one Final Four, and 5 of the 23 classes won a championship.

    Show me any other recruiting method that has better tournament success. I'll wait.

  6. #6
    How do I insert the Homer Simpson receding into the bushes gif??

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Watching carolina Go To HELL!
    Amazing work, Kedsy! Thanks for staying up all night working on it. LGD GTHcGTH!
    Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!

    Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
    9F 9F 9F
    https://ecogreen.greentechaffiliate.com

  8. #8
    When I saw the title I thought this thread was going to be something completely different and relegated to the off-topic board.

    Carry on

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Hilton Head, SC
    Kedsy, this is a very interesting topic and I appreciate the amount of work and research that it took to put together your posts on the subject. I would offer two thoughts that come to mind. There is great imprecision with recruiting rankings, particularly below the top tier. In part this can be explained by the limitations of ranking high school boys who are not fully grown. Mike Dunleavy comes to mind. We see it all the time with the NBA drafting on potential. This explains why championship teams can be composed of players whose high school rankings were quite low. The other element that affects teams’ success is injuries. Coach K offered that our 2011 team might have gone undefeated had Kyrie not injured his toe. The 2019 would likely have been champions had Zion not blown out his shoe. The 2017 team was a MASH unit with so many players missing practice and games including Harry Giles who was never healthy.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Wow. Thanks for the analysis!
    "Just like you man. I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase." Omar Little

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    As always, a great analysis. Worth noting that by the top-10 cutoff, the 2007 OSU team JUST missed the cut. But Mike Conley was very underestimated at #21, and they had Oden (#1) and Cook (#13). They made the title game.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Richmond, VA
    Great analysis....

    I will have to take some time to digest it all but I wondered if there was a hybrid type of analysis.

    My premise to test is that teams that have the "most talent" do the best in the tournament. This seems obvious but a measure of current talent level rather than recruited talent level may be needed.

    I recall someone years ago suggesting an analysis where freshman came in at a certain lever (3*, 4*, 5*). For each year at school the talent increased by some fraction of a * due to the player having another year of training, learning the system at a school etc....

    With transfers a team would get a higher rated player than the HS rating would reflect due to this experience.

    For example, Mark Williams was a 5* recruit but as a sophomore he would be a 5.5* talent.
    Theo John was a 3* recruit but after 4 years at Marquette (and being coached by Wojo, so some familiarity with the Duke system) he would be a 4.5* talent.

    Now we want players to stay around like Mark Williams to enjoy the benefits of his improved play which is an emotional reaction. More analytically, if we just look at talent level it would be hard to find a 5.5* HS recruit (they don't exist except for Zion) or a 5.5* transfer.

    It is also hard to find a 4.5* talent that will stick around for more than 1 year so Theo John is a great talent pick-up.

    So if my premise is correct than each year we as fans may need to adjust our view of "roster maintenance" and look at how does the Duke staff create a team with the "most talent", rather than just a team with the "best recruits".

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by indy1duke View Post
    Kedsy, this is a very interesting topic and I appreciate the amount of work and research that it took to put together your posts on the subject. I would offer two thoughts that come to mind. There is great imprecision with recruiting rankings, particularly below the top tier. In part this can be explained by the limitations of ranking high school boys who are not fully grown. Mike Dunleavy comes to mind. We see it all the time with the NBA drafting on potential. This explains why championship teams can be composed of players whose high school rankings were quite low. The other element that affects teams’ success is injuries. Coach K offered that our 2011 team might have gone undefeated had Kyrie not injured his toe. The 2019 would likely have been champions had Zion not blown out his shoe. The 2017 team was a MASH unit with so many players missing practice and games including Harry Giles who was never healthy.
    Quote Originally Posted by MarkD83 View Post
    My premise to test is that teams that have the "most talent" do the best in the tournament. This seems obvious but a measure of current talent level rather than recruited talent level may be needed.
    Both of you make very good points. But unforeseen things like injuries and outplaying your ranking, while important factors toward actually winning, are extremely difficult to predict while recruiting, and this debate at its core is about recruiting strategy (i.e., which players should a coach pursue in order to maximize his team's shot at winning).

    Quote Originally Posted by MarkD83 View Post
    I recall someone years ago suggesting an analysis where freshman came in at a certain lever (3*, 4*, 5*). For each year at school the talent increased by some fraction of a * due to the player having another year of training, learning the system at a school etc...

    With transfers a team would get a higher rated player than the HS rating would reflect due to this experience.
    Yeah, that was me. I used that system to predict which players on very talented rosters would end up in Coach K's 7- (or 8-) man rotation.

    When I tried to extrapolate that system to compare different teams or the same team in different years, other posters (probably correctly) pointed out the system wasn't really well-suited for that task, primarily due to variability in the talent level of recruiting classes from year to year.

    Quote Originally Posted by chris13 View Post
    When I saw the title I thought this thread was going to be something completely different and relegated to the off-topic board.

    Carry on

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Richmond, VA
    Perhaps recruiting strategy should include transfers. This will be a mental shift for fans

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by MarkD83 View Post
    Perhaps recruiting strategy should include transfers. This will be a mental shift for fans
    Yeah, I think any strategy that does not take advantage of the new transfer rule is being shortsighted. I think that's going to be a very important means of acquiring experienced talent, especially as it will become increasing more difficult to develop one's on 3-4 year players.

  16. #16
    I have never seen a year where the top recruits underperformed in the way they did this season. The 2020 class will go down as one of the worst, IMHO.

    Since 2010, UNC has benefited from 5* recruits staying in the system for multiple seasons more than just about anyone. I find it interesting when they go back and re-rank the class based on how they actually performed. When a recruit does not live up to the ranking, its one of two things. The scouts missed something or the coaches that recruited them missed something. Who could have seen this season coming? Who is to blame? I assume the strength of the class? Lack of practice because of Covid?

    Roy got a lot of grief for players not leaving after one year. The rival fanbase always said that Roy sandbagged the player and didn't give him the opportunity, whatever the case may be, it was used in negative recruiting. Roy recruited a lot players with athletic ability that were short on skill and basketball IQ. I assume the players athletic ability is what gave them a high ranking. In the end, the kids didn't have the "it" factor that would take them to that next level. UNC has no superstars in the NBA, just a few role players.

    It will be interesting to see if the schools that employed the OAD formula return to success as we start to get back to normal. Baylor has shown us a new way to build through transfers. Gonzaga is now getting top recruits, but in a weak conference, they will always be near the top. The new transfer rules will change college basketball for the worse. I do not know a single player from Duke's team next year. As a rival fan, that makes the rivalry less fun. We love to root against the name on the front, but we all love to hate on the name on the back. Roy is gone and K will soon leave. Hope our favorite teams are able to find their way through this new era in college basketball. I found myself watching less basketball over the last two years. I spend more time on Youtube, reliving the good old days, a time when I knew the players names.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    As always, a great analysis. Worth noting that by the top-10 cutoff, the 2007 OSU team JUST missed the cut. But Mike Conley was very underestimated at #21, and they had Oden (#1) and Cook (#13). They made the title game.
    Yeah, before I looked I had thought 2007 Ohio State would be in there (I hadn't realized Conley had been ranked so low). Also, Florida in 2014 (2013 class) had #7 and #11 and made the Final Four. Duke in 2003 (2002 class) had #8 and #11 and made the Final Four as sophomores. But if you expand it out to any non-arbitrary number, you'd probably get misses too (I haven't checked). I figured sticking with top 10 was the fairest way to do the analysis.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by MarkD83 View Post
    Great analysis...

    I recall someone years ago suggesting an analysis where freshman came in at a certain lever (3*, 4*, 5*). For each year at school the talent increased by some fraction of a * due to the player having another year of training, learning the system at a school etc...
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Yeah, that was me.
    Hell of a flex.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by UNCfan View Post
    I have never seen a year where the top recruits underperformed in the way they did this season. The 2020 class will go down as one of the worst, IMHO.

    Roy recruited a lot players with athletic ability that were short on skill and basketball IQ. I assume the players athletic ability is what gave them a high ranking. In the end, the kids didn't have the "it" factor that would take them to that next level. UNC has no superstars in the NBA, just a few role players.
    I'd say someone like Berry is the opposite. Not a great athlete, or rather, too short, but high bball IQ and moxie. Pinson has athletic ability and I think a good basketball IQ. He just doesn't shoot well. Hicks doesn't have the skill set of today's NBA for a guy his size. A 6'8" guy without handles or an outside shot? Jackson also wasn't an explosive or powerful athlete. He had a nice array of floaters and finally maxde 3 pointers as a junior.

    Kedsy also had some of the numbers slightly off with that UNC team in '17 (but overall an impressive job putting this together). Berry was 25 but a junior. Meeks was a senior in '17 and RSCI 56. Bradley was one and done and RSCI 19, but I don't think he was anticipated to be a one and done (nor was Coby White later)

    In any event, these players RSCI ranks clearly were based more on college level ability, and wasn't indicative of how far they could go in the NBA or how early they could go. I don't think Roy held them back. No coach was going to make Joel Berry NBA material. But they stayed togetrher long enough and were good college players, and champions, with back to back title games. But right, this can't really be a formula. It's kind of Kismet. 'Nova and Virginia seem closer to the idea of teams built on mostly non-top 25 guys.

    But it does seem like that type of team was happenstance. Guys wth those types of rankings expect to go to the league earlier now generally.
    Last edited by wobatus; 04-23-2021 at 02:46 PM.

  20. #20

    2021 RSCI is final

    The Final 2021 RSCI has arrived and here's how it looks for Duke:

    Paolo Banchero: #2 (tied)
    AJ Griffin: #18
    Trevor Keels: #19
    Jaylen Blakes: unranked

    others of interest: Patrick Baldwin #5, TyTy Washington #14.


    So, we have three top 20 guys (including one top 5 guy) to go with our three returning top 25 guys. How does that match up with past Duke teams of the past 25 years?

    AT LEAST THREE TOP 20 RECRUITS INCLUDING AT LEAST ONE TOP 5
    2022
    2019 (#1 in final AP poll)(Elite Eight)
    2018 (#9 in final AP poll)(Elite Eight)
    2017 (#7 in final AP poll)(Rd of 32)
    2016 (#19 in final AP poll)(Sweet 16)
    2015 (#4 in final AP poll)(Champs)
    2000 (#1 in final AP poll)(Sweet 16)
    1998 (#3 in final AP poll)(Elite Eight)

    If you make it "Multiple Top 20 including at least one top 5," we can add 2020 (#11; no tourney) and 2006 (#1; Sweet 16).

    AT LEAST THREE TOP 20 RECRUITS AND AT LEAST THREE TOP 25 RETURNEES
    2022
    2017 (#7 in final AP poll)(Rd of 32)
    1998 (#3 in final AP poll)(Elite Eight)

    AT LEAST THREE TOP 25 RETURNEES AND AT LEAST ONE TOP 5 RECRUIT
    2022
    2017 (#7 in final AP poll)(Rd of 32)
    2011 (#3 in final AP poll)(Sweet 16)
    2006 (#1 in final AP poll)(Sweet 16)
    2004 (#6 in final AP poll)(Final Four)
    1998 (#3 in final AP poll)(Elite Eight)


    The 2016 and 2017 team were derailed by injuries, but even so, looking at the above comparisons we should be in for a fun ride in 2022.

Similar Threads

  1. SI Article about ways to improve CBB offense
    By MarkD83 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 61
    Last Post: 03-16-2015, 09:12 PM
  2. Ways to watch ACC & NCAA Tournament (international)?
    By JTaylor in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 03-15-2014, 08:08 AM
  3. 35 Ways To Know You're A True Duke Fan
    By roywhite in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 24
    Last Post: 03-15-2013, 05:35 PM
  4. You Can't Have it Both Ways
    By Jumbo in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 114
    Last Post: 12-10-2008, 11:01 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •