London Johnson Post-Mortem [Recruiting Meta]

@AnonymooseHoo - You need to put a :wink: or something on that post because you really canā€™t be serious with ā€œborderline malpracticeā€.

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LJ was handled borderline malpractice. Green was handled poorly.

Iā€™m still in awe that we never offered Trimble in the ā€˜22 class. And that we have yet to offer Janowski in ā€˜24.

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LOL how was LJ malpractice? He committed to us and then changed his mind. How is that the staffā€™s fault?

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so the alternative is that they offer a player at a position that they already have someone committed?

Forgone conclusion he was going to UNC if they offered and Michigan if UNC didnā€™t offer. Also not a pure pg and also not a strong shooter. Freak athlete though.

Gonna bring back this HGN quote

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Writing was on the wall by January. To not have a plan for the Spring was malpractice in my mind.

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To be fair though if there was someone they really liked they would have offered by then. We were looking for two guards anyways. None of the guards in 2023 we offered outside trey green post LJ were pure pgs. We already offered Caleb Foster and LJ, the only two pure pgs worth a damn that UVA fit with. Who else could they have gone after? No one they liked.

They tried to find someone this summer but no new pg offers outside Trey Green who skyrocketed cause they werenā€™t blown away. PG is a spot we have to hit on/canā€™t just be a filler.

I am of the belief given what HGN has shared that Tony is all in on Ty Davis and even if we somehow got ElMarko or Taison we are still going hard after that kid.

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Bad business. You donā€™t have a chance with some of these guys if you donā€™t offer. Maybe he decommits. Maybe he transfers after a year. Maybe a coach leaves. Maybe heā€™s overrecruited.

Sure, but by all accounts you need to have a better plan.

This is how you end up in October with a consolation prize of a Top 3 for Taison or Elmarko and an international recruit or a guy in the 300s (yes, Kihei worked out in that one gameā€¦no, letā€™s not discuss this further).

Trimbleā€™s half-brother played at UNC. That would have been a hard pull.

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Honestly, the level of point guard in todayā€™s nil environment who is willing to sit behind reece and not get that much run next to him with imac coming in is probably not the point guard youā€™d want for the next four years.

Plan seems to be try to find a top flight pg and if not punt to 24 when you can offer them an opportunity to win a starting job on a potentially elite team

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You canā€™t say stupid stuff like ā€œit worked out in that one gameā€ and then say letā€™s not discuss it further. Kihei was really solid his entire freshman year, especially for a freshman, and was critical in several other NCAA games.

Then he was All-ACC his second year.

Heā€™s not perfect and definitely has some deficiencies, but your statement is just ignorance (and being a bit of an ass to the guy that saved our natty).

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Brace yourselves, 50 post Kihei digression incoming

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Definitely need more of this type of athleticism in blue & orange.

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Itā€™s worth remembering that there were at least two games in 2019 in which Clark sat for the greater part of the second half. In both the UNC and Syracuse games, he struggled in the second half and was replaced. Since 2019, there have been other games, or portions of other games, in which he should have probably been on the bench, but the staff had no real options. It is also worth noting that he has improved each year. He still has lapses in judgement, but they are far fewer than they were earlier in his career. Regardless, I am hopeful that the staff will have other options this coming season. There are times and/or situations where he is outstanding. There are other times when he is a serious liability. Hopefully, the staff has the tools at hand to deal with the latter.

Malpractice is probably a little strong of a word, but the LJ drama was certainly a significant blunder, and the ensuing effort to correct that blunder has been less than a success.

Iā€™ve said before that I saw it as an intel mistake. It is a generally accepted simplification that anybody looking for the bag is ā€œnot our kind of guyā€ (and I say this without any judgement on the kid. itā€™s just a recruiting reality). So just not knowing LJ was in that bucket, was an intelligence error. Someoneā€™s gotta be on top of what these kidā€™s are really after, whether that is via connections with the AAU teams, coaches, whatever. Then simply to take an 18 year kid at his word with so much time on the recruiting clock, without any apparent contingency planning, compounded the problem. Again, no judgement on the kid, but until the ink is dry on the NLI, nothing is a done deal, especially in the NIL/G league era.

Edit: Iā€™m not trying to disparage the staff or anything, but for me this episode falls clearly under the heading of ā€œclear staff error, criticism allowed if not warrantedā€

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For me it was the GoFundMe for Ukraine. tell tale sign thereā€¦

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But what if the kid didnā€™t even know he was a bag type of guy at that point. He might not have. I mean, ultimately itā€™s always on the staff no matter what happens because the buck stops with them, but if you think you have a kid in the fold you arenā€™t exactly recruiting other options and that was during the season anyway. Maybe not looking harder in the Spring was a mistake but maybe they just didnā€™t like anyone.

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I think if LJ wound up on another team that would have been closer to a bungling. But LJ has basically decided heā€™s a pro now and didnā€™t even play AAU this summer. But that leaves two questions:

  1. Should we have seen the writing on the wall earlier?
  2. Could we have changed his mind?

For me, itā€™s really hard to know, based on public (even pay board) info. Maybe we shouldā€™ve seen the writing on the wall, or maybe LJ strung us along effectively (or to be fair to them, just changed their mind suddenly - picturing Shareef as Lord Frey saying ā€œThe Lannisters send their regards!ā€ - oops, spoiler alert from Game of Thronesā€¦).

I guess maybe we shouldā€™ve been more ready with a Plan B, but I feel like our plan B is working out okay: basically, outside chance to get a top 50ish PG still (Chatman or Elmarko), if not, go all in for Ty Davis (or other). And if needed, fill in with a grad transfer in the portal (if Reece leaves early, or we really need a gap filler).

With Green? Meh, I donā€™t know. I think I was less excited about Green as our PG of the future than many. I kind of got the impression he was being recruited as a ā€œnice piece to have for our guard rotationā€ not PG of the future. And Miller was probably selling PG of the future (amongst who knows what else).

If we get Davis or Elmarko or Chatman, hard to see it as a bungle, IMO.

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At the very end of the day LJ proly did us a favor by not comingā€¦

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Right? I like to think Iā€™m not that old school, and there are definitely guys that just wind up in college hoops because itā€™s a decent place to spend a year, and now guys that just do the OTE or G-League route, and that works out just fine. They are ready to be pros (like LJā€™s buddy Scoot, probably; that guy Green on the Rockets another). But LJā€™s game struck me as not really in that ballpark, and him seeing himself in that ballpark might have been a red flag.

Most guys who arenā€™t Jalen Green or Scoot can benefit from the resources that college hoops have to offer (one of which is bountiful NIL opportunities, to be fair!).

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