JAR seemed like a “recruiting bump” type of guy. We aren’t going to get anyone who Duke goes all in for (Keels) until K retires. Continue getting guys in the 50-100 range and ideally freshman transfers who exceeded at low-mid major level programs and want to transfer to high major
2 Likes
But we have gotten those recruits consistently, which you cannot say about before the national title. Also Hauser and Murphy were at a totally different level than Key (and maybe Gill but I didn’t follow that recruitment). This is trying to invent a problem that just doesn’t exist
Nichols was probably the most coveted recruit when he transferred. Tougher get at the time than Murphy or Hauser. I’m not saying recruiting stinks after the NC, just that it hasn’t improved.
1 Like
I am confused as to the evidence supporting that. We haven’t had to take a Marco Anthony or Nigel Johnson or Kody Stattman since the national title. Every player we have landed has been a top target for CTB
1 Like
I suppose the question which must be asked is, “What were your recruiting expectations after winning the title?”
Among other things, Virginia is still not going to get the player who imagines he is a “One & Done”. Title or not, Virginia does not have the profile which would be attractive to him. There is no guarantee that he will earn early playing time. Coach Bennett still has to trust his defense. Virginia is not going to play a fast paced, up and down, offense in which he can display his prodigioius skills, and Virginia’s offense is unlikely to allow him the freedom to create on his own. Then, you also have to question how much those players, who are intent on playing just one year (and completing a single semester of course work), are interested in attending classes. Coach Bennett has demonstrated he doesn’t tolerate sloppy academics. Finally, Virginia is competing for talent with schools which do play uptempo schemes, which do allow personal creativity, which don’t demand great defensive effort/competence, and some of which are indifferent to class attendance. This isn’t to say that UVa won’t find that elite talent for whom Virginia is very appealing, but I have a suspicion that they aren’t that plentiful.
Also, there have been just two recruiting classes since Virginia’s national championship. Both Jabri Abdur-Rahim and Reece Beekman committed after UVa won it. Trey Murphy III committed after UVa won it. I think that constitutes a bit of a bump. As far as the 2021 class is concerned, very few offers were extended. No evaluations took place last summer. If I am not mistaken, the offers were based, for the most part, on the summer of 2019 performances. There were no official visits.
I am unsure of what you expected, but I think there was a bump for 2020, and there was never going to be a bump for 2021 based on Coach Bennett’s recruiting practices. Of course, the recruitment of Franklin and Gardner could be considered something a bump, and I suspect that it would have been unlikely to have happened without the national championship. FWIW, everything is fine.
3 Likes
Great points. I think we’ve lost more than we won this past year but this was mainly for strategic reasons: swinging for the fences when we thought we were set PT wise. This is skewing perceptions a bit. No national title bump is going to get us to beat Duke consistently while K is there.
And then when we suddenly needed an influx due to transfers out, we got Tony’s top targets (who were very sought after).
2 Likes
There’s also multiple ways that recruiting needs to be evaluated. There’s the percentage of guys you prioritize/target who you land, and then the percentage of the guys you land who live up to your evaluation of them and succeed. We landed a decent number of our top targets in 2019 and 2020, and many of those players were well rated. But Casey and JAR (our two top recruits) didn’t work out, and neither did McKoy (who we beat UNC for the first time round).
Just adding that previous to this pandemic season, we were landing some top targets post natty. They just haven’t contributed at a high level so far, aside from Reece.
1 Like
A lot to unpack here. My recruiting HOPE, not expectation, was that UVA would recruit on a par with anyone save for true one and done factories (Duke and Kentucky). That we would have the recruiting results on par with Villanova, Mich. St., Gonzaga. That Tony would have closed on more top targets: Butler, Keels, etc. A lot of the factors you cite as recruiting impediments: pace, offensive limitations, etc. [I don’t buy the academic excuse—that’s a straw man in my view] stem from when Tony had no alternative than to do more with less—i.e., how to compete against teams with more raw talent. I wanted to see him do more with more.
These are the two programs I hope to match on the trail. Never dreamed we would catch Duke, Kentucky, Kansas or Carolina. Nova being so close to us and offering most of the same benefits with a more open offense might be our biggest obstacle on the trail. If Jay Wright was in another part of the country I think we might get our pick of mid-Atlantic kids. Then again Nova landed Robinson-Earl from the middle of the country so maybe it’s not a geography issue.
2 Likes
First, the academics argument is legitimate. Do you imagine any of the players at Kentucky, LSU, Kansas, etc., who knew they were going to declare for the draft, attended many spring classes? Coach Bennett dismissed Sylvan Landesberg for doing just that. Second, why would you want Coach Bennett to change his approach? It works. In fact, it works very well. Your argument reminds me of the Sabre’s football board 20+ years ago. A significant number of posters wanted Welsh gone so a new coach could take Virginia to the “next level”. We all know how well that worked. For now, I am perfectly content with the way Coach Bennett is doing things. UVa is getting good recruits. It is winning games. If I am not mistaken, it has finished lower than a tie for 2nd in the ACC only once since 2014. In that eight year span, it has won two conference tournaments and finished first in the regular season five times (once was tie). Since the 2012 season, there has been only one year in which the team finished lower than fourth (in 2017, UVa was tied with Duke for fifth). Then there is that pesky National Championship. Let’s not try to fix what isn’t broken.
8 Likes
Imagine if we never knew the Wahoos named Malcom Brogden, Ty Jerome, Akil Mitchell on and on. I wont take that trade up to go down
8 Likes
Jumping in here on one note… Keels and Butler are not the same level of recruit. Butler was a top 100 guy. Differentiate here because not sure Butler would apply to the “national champ” recruiting bump considering we recruit at that level well
Since 2016, only two players selected in the top 10 of the NBA Draft won a national championship in college – and one of those was Dre.
Top high school players are not picking schools based on whether they can win a national championship. Or whether a coach can “develop” them to be pros. They think they’re already good enough to be pros. They’re picking schools where they’re guaranteed to start right away and have the freedom to showcase their offensive talents, which generally means being allowed to shoot whenever and from wherever they want. They don’t want a team; they want a showcase. That’s not Virginia.
15 Likes
Ya’ll really gotta start seeing past rankings. Mostly it’s a measure of when recruits are discovered. That’s about it. And really with all the respected people moving away from the media side of the business, it’s all pretty meaningless now. Any of you could spot the cream of the crop. After that, it’s just a measure of hype and offers. Corey Evans was the last true national media scout that hustled to see everybody. You could debate his opinion but at least it was based on real evaluation. Not the case for any of them now.
13 Likes
I haven’t seen anyone post about rankings or wanting 5 stars tbh. Just want Tony’s plan A guys. Ultimately we need future NBA guards and wings to get back to National Title contention no matter what they are ranked or where they come from.
6 Likes
That’s an interesting stat given all those teams had multiple future NBA players.
1 Like
Simply moving from dead last to 318th in pace would gain 5 possessions per game. That’s simply not too much to ask and is reasonable. Not gonna happen though unfortunately … methinks.
There is a bigger gap in possessions per game from us at 350th to 318th than there is from 318th to 105th.
Is plan A the players he starts recruiting the Fall of the junior year because he’s familiar with him? Or his Plan A the players he finds later and recruits just as hard only over a shorter period of calendar time? My point is, just like rankings, most people mean “plan A” as being found early. All should be thought of the same. The players we start recruiting in July have just as much history of success.
11 Likes
I don’t think any school gets all the Plan A guys. No one. I know that there are lots of elite players who show offers from Virginia, but, since it is not the staff which is reporting such to the media, I sometimes wonder if some of those offers are exaggerations of conservations which were held. While there are always under-the-radar recruitments, I believe most of us have a pretty good idea of whom the staff is expending energy in recruitment. And, you win some and you lose some. That said, while recruiting is essential to the health of the program, let’s not forget that recruiting isn’t the final measure of success. Winning on the court, regardless of the number of stars associated with the roster, is a much more significant measurement. (I would much prefer to lose the recruiting battle for a particular player and win the contest against that team than vice versa.) And, Virginia is winning like never before.
4 Likes
Eh we were winning more 13/14-18/19 than the past two years and the level we look set up to win next year. That’s really the ultimate question. How far away are we to getting back into national title contention? Are the young guys already in the roster going to get us there? If not can we land the guys in 2022 to do it?
1 Like