Another Look at Basketball Recruiting

ACC Basketball Recruiting College Basketball General NCS Basketball61

Let’s put the full disclosure up front—-I’m not a star gazer and I frequently laugh at those who are. But with that being said, I was really surprised by a piece DU put up several months ago about the recruiting of top-ranked high school players.

Among the things that I’ve learned over the years is that recruiting classes play no games against each other. So the value of recruiting class rankings is limited under the best of circumstances. One other thing that I’ve learned is that when the “stat” being touted is not consistent with the results on the field/court, then someone is looking at the wrong thing.

In general, I’m a bottom-line type of guy. If the end results are unacceptable, it’s not likely that my opinion will be swayed by those looking for bright spots amongst the crap. Which brings us back to DU’s entry….

The results of the basketball team over the last decade have ranged from mediocre to miserable. The results parallel my opinion of both the coaching and recruiting over the last decade. So I put some effort in figuring out a different way to provide some objective “measurement” of State’s recruiting to see if my initial judgment was off somehow.

There are several different ways to judge “talent” through stats like high school production, recruiting rankings, college production, draft status, and professional career. Let’s be clear…I like to see State sign highly-rated recruits and I like to see State’s players do well in the pros (NBA and Europe). But what I care most about is their production in college. So I decided to compile the All-ACC lists as a way to gage their production at the college level.

Here are the State players that were voted onto one of the All-ACC teams (minus the rookie team) over the last 10 years. I didn’t include the freshman team because it is a little like the tallest-midget contest.

 

2002

First Team

Anthony Grundy

2003

First Team

Julius Hodge

2003

Defensive

Clifford Crawford

2004

First Team

Julius Hodge

2004

Sec Team

Marcus Melvin

2005

Sec Team

Julius Hodge

2006

Third Team

Cam Bennerman

2006

Defensive

Cedric Simmons

2006

Hon Mention

Cedric Simmons

2007

Third Team

Brandon Costner

2007

Hon Mention

Ben McCauley

2008

Hon Mention

J.J. Hickson

2009

Def Hon Men

Courtney Fells

2010

Sec Team

Tracy Smith

2011

Hon Mention

Tracy Smith

 

(The years link to the press releases found at theacc.com)

 

The purpose of recruiting is to collect the best possible players and build a team. For State, you have to go all the way back to 2002 and Anthony Grundy to find a ball-handler selected to one of the three All-ACC teams. I couldn’t say how many times I’ve looked at State’s lineup and wished that we had a point guard as good as Justin Gainey (solid but not spectacular). When your coaches’ recruiting consistently leaves a huge hole in the most important position on the court, then I don’t think that any rational evaluation could conclude that the recruiting has been “good”.

Now for context…Let’s summarize the All-ACC awards for all 12 ACC teams over the last 10 years (noting that expansion occurred in years 4 and 5 of this 10 year stretch):

 

 

 

1

2

3

HM

D

DHM

Total

Duke

15

5

6

3

9

3

41

UNC

8

7

8

3

5

3

36

MD

4

6

6

3

3

1

23

WF

3

8

6

—

5

—

22

CU

2

2

4

3

4

5

20

FSU

3

2

4

1

8

—

18

GT

—

5

5

2

2

3

17

NCSU

3

3

2

4

2

1

15

UVa

3

5

1

4

—

—

13
               

UM

2

2

3

2

1

—

10

VT

3

2

4

4

5

2

20
               

BC

4

3

2

—

1

—

10

 

I think that my poor opinion of State’s recruiting was pretty accurate after all.   The article that DU referenced only looked at the highest ranked players.   The thrust of his entry was to point out that State has done fairly well in getting these highly-rated players.   However,  it would be a gross mistake to look at those results and conclude that State’s recruiting has been “good” or even “adequate”.     

You can bring up all of the excuses and future speculation that you would like, but the bottom line remains the bottom line.  State’s poor representation on the All-ACC teams (not to mention the W/L records) shows that the recruiting has been poor regardless of whatever the star-gazers conclude.   The chances of improving the results in the future without making real improvements in the recruiting are slim and none (and Slim has left the building).   

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

ACC Basketball Recruiting College Basketball General NCS Basketball

61 Responses to Another Look at Basketball Recruiting

  1. Plz2BStateFan 05/16/2011 at 6:46 AM #

    Poor recruiting or poor usage of talent?

  2. Dr. BadgerPack 05/16/2011 at 6:52 AM #

    “I didn’t include the freshman team because it is a little like the tallest-midget contest.”

    Thanks for starting my week off right. /Sarcasm

  3. tractor57 05/16/2011 at 6:52 AM #

    Amen Va!

  4. Pack Mentality 05/16/2011 at 7:53 AM #

    VaWolf,
    Thank you for this entry. I 100% agree that only 1 thing matters and it’s not how they played in high school.

  5. Sam92 05/16/2011 at 8:46 AM #

    i also agree that the only important measure is actual performance in college, i.e., while playing for NCSU.

    however, the way you wrote the article, you attribute this 100% to recruiting – what about coaching and player development?

    the poor performance could partly be attributable to underuse/misuse of talent

  6. Packfan28 05/16/2011 at 8:47 AM #

    In theory you can have a top 15 class by recruiting 5 guys who are all in the top 100, but who are maybe in #s 50-100. If you go to scout.com and look at prior year’s rankings, the top 15 – 25 players have a pretty good track record of success in college. After you get past #25, it becomes a crap shoot, just like the NBA’s 2nd round draft.

    My point is, we may have had some classes ranked in the top 15, particularly during Sendek’s time, but very few of them were with players in the top 25. Hodge, Costner, and Wilkins were the only really high ranked players that come to mind. On the other hand, schools like Duke, Carolina, Kentucky etc, consistently land the lesser risk top 100 recruits, ie, those in the 1 -25 category. They also get players in the 50-100 category, but they can afford to have these guys end up as role players. In our case, we look to these guys to be our saviours.

    Anyway, regsrdless of how we were ranked nationally in recruiting, as Va has discussed, the true test of the quality of recruiting is what they do when they get here, and our recruiting has been pretty miserable when you look at it from that perspective.

  7. Tampa-Pack 05/16/2011 at 9:16 AM #

    Couldn’t agree more. The only thing that matters is the W-L record. Lots of ways to get there. You can have talent but no coach, lesser talent but a great coach, or some combination between. They don’t hand out trophies for recruiting five star players, just winning on the floor.

  8. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 9:26 AM #

    what about coaching and player development?

    What about it? Can you do anything other than sit around and speculate?

    Good coaches get good players and win big ball games. From where I sit, State has had a shortage of all three for a long time.

  9. Wolfguy 05/16/2011 at 10:38 AM #

    Very good article and points. In my opinion, I attribute the lack of success to the inability of the coaching staff to bringing in enough top 100 guards and lack of player development. I think a program can overcome lack of consistent top 25 type recruits through proper development and mix of players.

    UCONN is a prime example of this. They bring in top 100 players and develop them. They bring in 4 and 3 star guys with the occasional 5 star guy (Kemba Walker) and win. Their big man development is always outstanding – regularly lead the NCAA in shot blocking and rebounding. things I can only wish for.

  10. travelwolf 05/16/2011 at 10:40 AM #

    A few months ago, someone pointed out a site discussing the ranking of basketball programs by their ability to recruit All-American talent out of high school – and we ranked around 15th. I believe that this points out that we had bad usage of talent.

    I wonder how Gary Williams ranks?

  11. travelwolf 05/16/2011 at 10:41 AM #

    Sorry, it was players ranking in top 10, 50, 100

    http://statsheet.com/bhsb/recruits_by_college

  12. packgrad2000 05/16/2011 at 10:41 AM #

    I’d say the only thing this proves is that our results with our recruits have been poor. It’s just as much speculation to say it’s blame it on poor recruiting. Probably more realistic is to say we’ve had decent to sometimes good recruiting classes that for various reasons, have not panned out into wins. For me, the legacy of Herb was that he could get some pretty good recruits and just seem to stifle them with his system. Damien Wilkins, Josh Powell, and Courtney Fells come to mind immediately. Julius was about the only highly touted recruit who didn’t seem to get frustrated by the system, coaching, or whatever you want to call it. Then there was the JJ issue, and more recently CJL. On the other hand, there have been guys not as highly rated who played better than their star rating, like Tracy Smith. I don’t know; I think I’d tend to put more of the blame with our poor results on coaching, system, and other factors, than recruiting. Not saying we’ve had stellar recruiting by any means (certainly not at the Duke/UNC level).

  13. packhammer 05/16/2011 at 11:19 AM #

    Interesting analysis. But the most interesting thing about this is Maryland. Indeed, unless the top players just don’t want to go to Maryland, which is possible in my view, Gary Williams was not a very good recruiter. But, give the man his due, he was a very good coach at preparation, development, conditioning, and game strategy! Something tells me that Turgeon is going to find it really hard to win as many games as Gary Williams. I believe that Maryland fans are going to taste the bitter medicine of trying to rebuild a successful program under a new head coach.

  14. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 11:25 AM #

    In my table, UMD was third in the conference in All-ACC players over the last 10 years. What are you using to say that UMD’s recruiting was poor? Inconsistent…yes? But certainly not poor.

  15. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 11:28 AM #

    Star-gazers are of course free to hang onto their system and blame everything else under the sun. But I would sooner believe the lack of good point guards was a bigger problem over the last decade than the nebulous “player development”.

    And when your recruiting leaves a big hole in the line-up…that qualifies as poor recruiting in my book.

  16. PoppaJohn 05/16/2011 at 12:08 PM #

    While the future is yet to be revealed, Paduan … all the indicators are that we have hired ourselves a personable ESPN analyst that did well as a coach when he had his most talented teams. He may not be a potential hall of fame coach, but he did seem to be able to point them in the right direction when he had talent.

    Additionally, there are very strong indications that our new Fab Four can recruit, and recruit in this area. But, there is always the legendary “how can you possibly recruit against the boys in blue” stigma to overcome – which may or may not exist at all.

    So the Pack’s formula for success is:
    ER + ACA = WINS

    (Exceptional Recruiting + Average Coaching Ability = SUCCESS!!)

    I think that if you look very closely, that’s the formula for many, many schools nation wide. Dare I say, most??

    I would love to have hired a guy that could make a #100 player into an NBA player, but I don’t think that’s what we have. But I think we have a chance to start getting to that second weekend in a year or two.

    And I think that’s pretty great for near term goals.

  17. anonimus 05/16/2011 at 12:09 PM #

    Correlation does not equal Causation
    While I tend to agree your argument is less than air tight. To state poor representation on all ACC teams is the result of poor recruiting is impossible to prove with the data presented. We’re not talking machines here. The All ACC team selection process itself is not 100% quantitative and varies from person to person on their criteria. Some may use more subjective qualitative measures and qualities. This analysis is entertaining but ultimately flawed without further refinement and inclusion of other measures that can impact the outcomes of individual and team performance.

  18. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 12:34 PM #

    When you include all three ACC teams, plus defensive team, plus honorable mention for both categories, there is no room left to complain about the selection process unless you have some damning evidence to provide. And as usual, the complainers offer no data to support their position.

    The analysis is not perfect, but it is certainly not flawed:
    1) The purpose of recruiting is to build a team and to win games. Thus the W/L records over the last decade are ample enough reason to question the recruiting.
    2) When you examine the individual players over the last decade and discover a huge hole at the most important position on the team, you have identified a key recruiting failure.
    3) When those conclusions are combined with a measure of college production at the individual level, you get a pretty good measure of recruiting.

    Thus the key conclusion is not based on just one thing…but three separate measures that all lead to the same conclusion.

  19. Sam92 05/16/2011 at 1:23 PM #

    what about coaching and player development?

    What about it? Can you do anything other than sit around and speculate?

    You’re saying that performance is the sole result of recruiting – we have a difference of opinion. in my opinion, what coaches do with talent is also an important factor in who ends up on an all acc team

  20. wolffpride 05/16/2011 at 1:59 PM #

    I disagree, I think the quality of players we have recruited in the last 10 years is above average in the ACC. Outside of the talent that Duke and Carolina get, I think we get as good as players as any other team in the ACC. We just havent found a way to culminate the talent we have into a winning team. I will agree that we have not had a steady point guard since Sendek has been here and that is the most important position.

    You should not take it out on the players, it is the coaches fault. I believe you will see that we have a lot of talent on our team going into next year, especially on the post. With Lorenzo Brown playing point I believe we will finish in the top half of the ACC. I have faith that Gottfried is a good coach and will develop and use the talent that we have.

    It is too narrowed minded to say that since we dont win games, we dont have good players. There is alot more to it. Anyone who plays in the NBA is talented, yet there are losing teams in the NBA.

  21. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 2:07 PM #

    You should not take it out on the players, it is the coaches fault.

    You are confused…I’m not blaming anyone but the coaches. They recruited the players, they set the strategies, they taught the players, they made the in-game decisions. The W/L records are a direct reflection of the coaches and their abilities.

    It is too narrowed minded to say that since we dont win games, we dont have good players.

    Read the whole article.

    Anyone who plays in the NBA is talented

    And how many State players from the last 10 years have played in the NBA?

  22. VaWolf82 05/16/2011 at 2:33 PM #

    I think the quality of players we have recruited in the last 10 years is above average in the ACC.

    I don’t know how I overlooked this before. I look forward to your proof of this claim.

  23. wolffpride 05/16/2011 at 3:00 PM #

    Your argument is that our recruiting classes have not been good. Now when a team loses consistently there is an obvious misunderstanding between players and coaches in terms of execution of the offensive and defensive gameplans. Maybe the players are not right for the system that the coach is trying to run and maybe the coach is just an idiot. I believe Sendek understood and ran a pretty decent system, while I think Lowe was simply just a bad coach. Sendek never recruited top talent, while Sidney Lowe did. Hickson, Painter, Howell, Harrow, Brown, Leslie, and Smith were all in the top 75 of there respective classes according to Rivals. You can also include Tyler Harris of this year’s class since he is like 140th according to Rivals.

    Sendek was no doubt a better coach because he understood his system and recruited his kind of players. The problem with the princeton is that no good players want to play stall ball. Sendek had decent success in the ACC with a “less talented team”. Look at the top two teams in any given conference, no princeton being ran there. Sendek was doomed from the start. So I am not going to argue that we had top talent under Sendek, but I believe that he recruited the right players. It is just a tough offense to run.

    Lowe, on the other hand, did bring in top talent. I think he was just a bad coach. He never demonstrated that he had a grasp on what he was trying to do. Every year he talked about how we were going to run, and we wound up playing a slow down game. It had nothing to do with the players that he recruited, it was his system, or lack thereof. I think he got the type of players he wanted, its not like he was the only one going after them. I believe you will see that when Gottfried gets his shot with Lowe’s team, that he did recruit well.

    Recruiting has not been our problem the last 10 years, it has been the system. Whether it was not ideal, or barely existent.

  24. wolffpride 05/16/2011 at 3:13 PM #

    My apologies, the quality of players that we have recruited in the last 5 years has been above average in the ACC. I was only referring to who Lowe recruited. It was no secret that Sendek didn’t land top players.

  25. rtpack24 05/16/2011 at 3:56 PM #

    Recruiting at a high level D-1 program is considerably more than just recruiting talent. Example see JJ Hickson. At the time we had a tremedous need for a talented guard that could handle the ball. Instead Sid and staff spend alot to time and energy recruiting Hickson, don’t get me wrong if you can sign a Hickson most of the time you do it. He was one and done and created a log jam on a team that had talented front court players. So Sid signs a top recruit and ends up hurting the team. Sendek also seemed to never have a plan on recruiting players to play as a team. He never ran the Princeton offense until he hired Larry Hunter, who is the coach that actually installed that offense. While Sid signed some quality players, he did a poor job of recruiting the right pieces to have a successful team.

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