How do we fix recruiting?

[3rdbass]

I'd say posting the same numbers as a true freshman in a P5 conference as what he put up in what would be his junior year in a non-P5 counts as regression. But you and the other guy who quoted me have essentially done so saying he's the same player as he was 2 years ago, how is that a good thing? More importantly, how does that prove me or anyone else who pointed out talent development as an issue wrong?

He was injured last year so he didn't get a full year of development. Also, for the last 5 games he average 17.6PPG. How about looking at the progression at the end of the year. It was going to take him some time to get his game together especially for not playing competitive basketball in over a year and being injured for half of last season.

If you want to talk about regression how about TSAM? He didn't do anything to address his two weaknesses(ball handling and shooting). He actually looked worst on defense as he was a step slower compared to last year.

 

[UconnFanNVa]

None of what you said is dealing with the fact that he was arguably better 2 years ago than he was this year. You realize he's 21 right? I would buy that playing in real games is that much more important if he weren't a kid who's been playing ball all his life and if he had shown any improvement at all from practicing with a NC team with 2 of the best guards this school has ever had while physically maturing and having a year to grasp game plans. Even yesterday during the game that's making you fawn all over him he still managed to get called for traveling multiple times on the perimeter and some idiotic reaching plays defensively while still showcasing a wildly inconsistent jumper. I'll tell you this, UCONN would not have won 4 titles if the program were being ran by someone like you who honestly doesn't seem to mind that a player has made zero development in 2 years.

I just have to disagree with his 0 development. I'm only going by THIS year on his development, anything before UConn doesn't matter to me because he wasn't under UConn instruction. maybe he had a "better" freshman year, but he was also playing a different team that doesn't exactly have the same expectations that UConn has. He may have to take a step back under management at UConn before can take a few steps forward. Either way you make it sound like i'm a Purvis fan boy, i'm clearly not, but I don't blindly hate the kid either. He's on our team, he's what we have, and he's not going anywhere. We all should be ROOTING for him to get better, not waiting to say I told you so he sucks. If you think he sucks and he's going to bring our team down then just lower your expectations for the team so that when you are right your not disappointed and making all these negative posts. Either way you are entitled to your opinion and i'm entitled to mine, just like everyone else is entitled to theirs. I'm not going to call you any names, but I don't your outlook is become being realistic and just down right pessimistic.

I think that since he has been here he has shown improvement over the course of the season. Like people have pointed out, he has shown a lot of improvement over the last few games of the season (remember mr. DeAndre Daniels doing the same at the end of his sophomore year?). The stuff you complain about the traveling and stupid fouls, I agree they are extremely frustrating. On the flipside they are things that are extremely fixable. The staff will point these things out to him and he will spend a lot of time working on not making some of those simple mistakes in the future.

I get what you are saying. He wont improve and we need better players on the team. I just disagree. I think he has the potential to improve and I think he'll see a different player next season. Only time will tell though. Its why we keep coming back each year to watch our team play.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

His FG% and 3P% were down from 2 years ago. Every other stat either stayed virtually the same or worse besides PPG, which based on having a worse FG% is just due to higher usage. He also averaged less PPG in conference play than he did OoC, and outside of the 2 SMU games regularly played his worst ball vs better opposition.

Good call neglecting to mention any of that though. Certainly what we were all expecting from the 21 year old former 5 star who had that extra year to train with a guard dominant NC team.

Do you even know what true shooting percentage is?

His 3 point percentage went down by .013% and he shot twice as many as the year before. Spoiler alert that's going to bring down your overall field goal percentage.

Even with that being said, the difference is negligible.

The made a lot of mental errors like catching the ball out of bounds which comes with time, but he played his best ball in march. Also known as the end of the season. That's improvement.

 

[Lefty2one]

It's both recruiting and development. The guys who saved us from having an embarrassing season were the high profile recruits - Boat, Hamilton and Purvis. The gap between those guys and the rest of the roster is remarkable. Those guys are talented and athletic enough to be difference makers.

Our interior guys are all 3-star recruits (Brimah, Nolan, Lubin) and a borderline 3-star/4-star in Facey. Enoch projects to be similar to Facey. That's simply not good enough. A decade ago we had 5-star/future lottery big men coming off the bench.

This team has one future NBA player on the roster and that's Hamilton. We don't have to worry about Brimah leaving early, that's not going to happen. Recruiting aka pure talent in this program is a big problem and quite frankly it has been since the 2009 Final Four team.

The player development is also a concern but we're starting with less talent than JC did in the past. While we've had plenty of 2 and 3-star stop-gaps transfer out we've certainly made the most out of 3-star and 4-star guys and developing them into "UConn" type of players. Athletic, aggressive, tough, etc. There are a ton of schools out there that thrive off of developing lesser guys, from Wisconsin on down.

In the past we had plenty of players who may not have increased their skill level tremendously but they had something else to hang their hat on. They were either plus-level athletes or strong enough to be your lunch-pail type of role player. If the were neither of those things then they didn't see the floor. This year we were stuck with guys who weren't skilled and were average athletically. Our returning backcourt is full of guys who aren't great athletes who can't dribble, pass or shoot - with the exception of Purvis roughly every third game while he's doing his bizarre Dyson/Selvie impression.

When our recruiting is down a miss like Calhoun hurts even more. A 4-star SG coming out of HS with a reputation as a scorer and shooter - that's exactly what this team needed. Another scorer and one lights-out shooter. But we all know he's essentially a Coombs-McDaniel clone - a shooter who can't shoot and isn't athletic enough to be a difference maker at this level. His respectable freshman year seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe his injuries have really derailed him. His confidence is non-existent.

Then there are the things that should be correctable as players pass through the program. The lack of shooting on this team is so remarkable. Every guy who struggles with his shot has glaring issues with their mechanics and none have been corrected.

• Purvis doesn't cock his wrist back nearly far enough and has way too much palm on the ball.
• I don't know where to begin with Calhoun, his jumper needs to be completely rebuilt.
• Cassell Jr is leaning backwards on every 3PA he takes.
• Samuel makes us long for Taliek's jumper.

Right now we're in a dangerous spot. The AAC thing is absolutely killing us. We're in a bad mid-major conference (the MWC and A-10 got more bids than us) with no rivals and a brutal travel schedule. With so many other attractive destinations for top recruits we've definitely got our work cut out for us. We have to get in to the friggin ACC.

 

[kobe]

Your problem this year was simple, you didn't have a 4 or 5 that was an offensive threat. I mean a times in our game last week we simply didn't guard 2 guys. It reminded me a ton of our 12-13 team that barely got into the field, we had good guards in kilpatrick and cash wright but simply had no one in the paint...our guards shot a horrible percentage as a result.

 

[3rdbass]

Your problem this year was simple, you didn't have a 4 or 5 that was an offensive threat. I mean a times in our game last week we simply didn't guard 2 guys. It reminded me a ton of our 12-13 team that barely got into the field, we had good guards in kilpatrick and cash wright but simply had no one in the paint...our guards shot a horrible percentage as a result.

I agree at least last year we had Deandre that presented some inside threat. Unfortunately nobody developed enough to replace that. We also missed a decent rebounder inside to compete with other teams bigs. The other thing people forget was that DD helped AB a lot on D as he was a decent shot blocker also. We only had AB this year to deter teams inside.

 

[Lefty2one]

I agree at least last year we had Deandre that presented some inside threat. Unfortunately nobody developed enough to replace that. We also missed a decent rebounder inside to compete with other teams bigs. The other thing people forget was that DD helped AB a lot on D as he was a decent shot blocker also. We only had AB this year to deter teams inside.

Not having an inside threat is okay when you have great shooters like we had with Bazz, Giffey and Daniels. Keep the floor spaced and opening up driving lanes. This year teams could pack the living hell out of the paint and opposing bigs could help at will because outside of the Hamilton-to-Brimah lob there was zero threat that our interior bigs were going to score.

 

[3rdbass]

Not having an inside threat is okay when you have great shooters like we had with Bazz, Giffey and Daniels. Keep the floor spaced and opening up driving lanes. This year teams could pack the living hell out of the paint and opposing bigs could help at will because outside of the Hamilton-to-Brimah lob there was zero threat that our interior bigs were going to score.

True but we didn't have either option this year. Last year's team had good outside shooting and at least a decent inside threat in DD.

 

[tzznandrew]

Do you even know what true shooting percentage is?

His 3 point percentage went down by .013% and he shot twice as many as the year before. Spoiler alert that's going to bring down your overall field goal percentage.

Even with that being said, the difference is negligible.

The made a lot of mental errors like catching the ball out of bounds which comes with time, but he played his best ball in march. Also known as the end of the season. That's improvement.

Purvis was playing far fewer minutes at the end of the 2013 year.

He played 12 minutes and scored 2 points in their NCAA loss to Temple.
He averaged 13 minutes and 3.33 ppg in their 3 ACC tournament games.
He scored double figures only 3 times after 2/1. He averaged 6.4 ppg after 2/1.

But he regressed here?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Purvis was playing far fewer minutes at the end of the 2013 year.

He played 12 minutes and scored 2 points in their NCAA loss to Temple.
He averaged 13 minutes and 3.33 ppg in their 3 ACC tournament games.
He scored double figures only 3 times after 2/1. He averaged 6.4 ppg after 2/1.

But he regressed here?

Well said and thank you.

 

[Deadrody]

You really think diamond stone was scared off by AB? If any center was scared off by AB I don't want him. AB is an adequate center who can't play against real strong tall big guys. Maybe he will be a lot better next year with a full offseason but right now he is decent but far from scaring off real recruits at that position.

Here's the thing. It's not about anyone being "scared" to compete with the talent of someone like Brimah. The fact is, however, that UConn has won 4 titles because their signature is max effort. And Brimah - as flawed as he may be - is trusted on the court in big games. So he is the default starter and it would be no minor effort to displace him. To suggest that any freshman will be able to come in and take minutes away from Brimah - as a Junior - might be wishful thinking.

I wouldn't hold it against any kid to think guys like Hamilton, Purvis, and Brimah would impact their ability to get a lot of minutes.

 

[Lefty2one]

Purvis came on strong for sure and was much better than he was at NC State (and in December for us for that matter).

In seven March games he averaged 17 ppg on 47% shooting (that includes his 0-7 dud against Memphis) and was damn near the only aggressive offensive player besides Boat for that entire stretch. Even more amazingly he shot nearly 43% from deep. If he can turn into a halfway decent FT shooter he can average 16-18 ppg for us next year.

 

[Bonehead]

So - raise your hand if you DON'T think Adams and Enoch are da bomb? I am not a BB junkie like many but all I heard is how these two are the 'Bomb' and great gets.

So, we are still in the AAC and have two great recruits coming in, what's there to fix?

 

[3rdbass]

Here's the thing. It's not about anyone being "scared" to compete with the talent of someone like Brimah. The fact is, however, that UConn has won 4 titles because their signature is max effort. And Brimah - as flawed as he may be - is trusted on the court in big games. So he is the default starter and it would be no minor effort to displace him. To suggest that any freshman will be able to come in and take minutes away from Brimah - as a Junior - might be wishful thinking.

I wouldn't hold it against any kid to think guys like Hamilton, Purvis, and Brimah would impact their ability to get a lot of minutes.

I will just have to disagree with you on this. Though AB does provide the threat of the block he has very little impact on the rest of the game. If Diamond Stone was coming to UCONN I'm sure Ollie would be laying the red carpet for him to start. Not saying he is just going to give him the job but I'm sure he would love to have Diamond Stone as his starting center as opposed to such a limited player in AB. If anything the AAC tourney showed us was that AB really has to improve this off season to have any impact on next year's team. Right now we don't have a bonafide front line player. We just have backups starting for us right now.
If any other player really regressed this year besides TSAM it is AB. Hopefully a full off season will do wonders for the kid. He isn't an awful player like one poster wants to believe but he has to get a lot better to be a real impact player besides blocks in the AAC. The last seven games he average 4.7 PPG and 3.1 RPG playing 28.5 MPG. Do you really think those are great numbers for your starting center?

 

[Lefty2one]

So - raise your hand if you DON'T think Adams and Enoch are da bomb? I am not a BB junkie like many but all I heard is how these two are the 'Bomb' and great gets.

So, we are still in the AAC and have two great recruits coming in, what's there to fix?

Adams is supposedly legit, a Top 30 kid. Enoch is a late riser ranked around 100th overall, so really a low-end 4-star. I wouldn't expect too much out of him next year. Similar to Facey two years ago and Lubin this year.

 

[Jimdish255]

Samuel and Omar are bench guys. Wings are being scared off by Purvis and Hamilton, PGs by Adams, centers by Brimah. By that, I mean the top guys who want starting jobs or big minutes as freshmen. PF's should not be scared off, but we have a ton already - Lubin, Facey, Enoch, Nolan - and can't afford to take anything but a top 25 guy who can step in and take the job on day 1.
I think Adams can succeed with this roster as a pass first PG who penetrates and shoots well enough to knock down open 3's. They need a rebounding monster of a 4 who can pass from the high post and hit a 15-17 ft jumper to let D Ham play outside against zones. It's not that he isn't good at the FT line taking that entry pass. It's just that he's not an offensive rebounder and neither is AB. They could also use John Gwynn.

Agree with part of this but we can't be putting most of the load on a young PG to dish and swish his way to the tourney. Even our better shooting PG's who were successful had guys they could kick out to or run off screens and drain jumpers. We had no one to consistently do that this year and along with pathetic rebounding it killed us. Anyone who suggests a do-it-all PG is the answer is wrong, wrong, wrong. Anyone who can step on the court and consistently hit an open three should be in contention for p/t next year and it doesn't matter who has to set screens to bust him open as long as there's 1 guy down low to fight for the rebound.

We'll still be young in some areas next year but we should expect a lot of improvement or at least more consistency from guys who were getting their feet wet this year And a good class coming in so far. I am a little more concerned about losing Boat's ballhandling and who picks up that slack without getting us turned over by pressure D.

 

[3rdbass]

Adams is supposedly legit, a Top 30 kid. Enoch is a late riser ranked around 100th overall, so really a low-end 4-star. I wouldn't expect too much out of him next year. Similar to Facey two years ago and Lubin this year.

Enoch is actually rated a little bit higher than you have him. I guess if you are just using ESPN he is bottom but his average is around 72. Which is better than KF. I have seen him play on TV and he is definitely has a bigger frame and more offensive tools than KF. Whether that translates to the college game next year is unknown but to assume he is going to be the same type of project as KF is probably a little too premature.

http://www.verbalcommits.com/players/steve-enoch

 

[businesslawyer]

We've got a lot of talent in Hamilton and Purvis.

Here's a controversial opinion. We need to recruit a real point guard. We haven't actually had one since Price. The NC teams couldn't even score that well (although last year's was better than most years.) What we've had was tiny shooting guards running the point. You want to score..you need a floor general and someone who can run an offense. We've got to get out of this midget shooting guard pattern. I know it worked with Shabazz and Kemba..but that's because they were great. In most cases it won't..and that experiment will never produce a lot of points.

Implying that Kemba and Shabazz weren't "real point guards" because they could score is absurd. However, I do think that Boatright is really a 2 guard in a 1 guard's body, and no offense to Boat but I think this team would have been much better if he was playing alongside a true lead point guard, like Shabazz, rather than a guy like Purvis who is not a passer at all.

 

[zymurg]

This thread has some thoughtful posts, but has often happens it has veered somewhat off course. In the immediate short term this spring
UCONN needs rotation players. I'd like a spot up shooter and another ball handler. Our current roster is inadequate, and where not inadequate is filled with entirely too many questions. A 5th year senior would be a blessing if he could play. I'm sure the staff is aware of these problems.

For the medium and longer term I have one thought that I haven't seen discussed. Is the staff recruiting for the best possible talent, or are they recruiting for players who fit into Ollie's concept of the type of team he wants to put on the floor? It helps in recruiting if you know what you are looking for. Know the desired end and it is easier to find the proper path. Calhoun was very good at explaining to recruits and their parents how he saw the recruit fitting in to the UConn system (Calhoun system). He was also flexible enough to change his system according to the available talent. He always had a plan.

I'm not sure if Ollie has a plan in the same sense. He has a work ethic plan; he has a team building plan once the players arrive. Would UConn press more if UConn had a deeper team? Last season he figured out how to get the best out of what he had. My feeling is that Ollie
would like to play at a much faster pace; is he recruiting to fill holes on the current roster, or is he looking to restructure the roster so that he can play a different style? My feeling is that he is caught in the middle, and that is an uncomfortable place to be.

 

[Vuce]

2013: Purvis, Facey, Brimah, Samuel
2014: Hamilton, Cassell, Lubin
2015: Adams. Enoch

He's doing alright.

"allright" is the right word I think. He is not killing it and he is not falling flat. He is getting 1 player per class that is an immediate difference maker. At Uconn, it maintain the standard we are used to, that's not enough though. We need multiple impact players in every class. The recruiting is good but it's not good enough for Uconn. As someone else wrote in another thread - what should be "role players" for us are getting starter minutes. That won't lend itself to winning 23-25 regular season games per year which is what we need to get to the Tourney.

 

[Hugo]

Zy, your comment re: our recruiting plan or strategy is an interesting one. One specific issue that has bothered me, as it bothers a lot of us, is our lack of a secondary ball handler this year. Somehow we absolutely needed to land a good backup PG this season to help Boat. We didn't and IMO this became a major recruiting failure. I know there may be valid reasons that we missed out on PG's we offered, but I can't believe the staff thought that SC jr or TSam could fill this need. We had a need, but couldn't fill it and that need still exists for next year. Was this an isolated recruiting failure or a strategic recruiting failure ?

We can live with an isolated failure as teams always have these, but much harder to live with a strategic failure. We lost too many good players to replace them all in one year, but having no viable backup PG was and still is a major problem. We have used the 2 PG system (Bazz/Boat or KEA/Ricky) very successfully in the past and this is a major selling point to any potential PG recruit. Why are we still without another PG ?

KO is new at this recruiting game and is still learning, but I sense that he may be in that uncomfortable middle ground you mention.

 

[UCweCONN]

A year removed from winning the national championship, so far, we have offered scholarships to 33 Class of 2015 recruits and gotten commitments from 2. This is a 6% success rate. By comparison, Kentucky has offered 18 and signed 3 (I'm surprised they offered this many and it's still half of us), and Duke has offered 5 and signed 3 (60%) There lies the problem. Do we make recruits feel special? It's hard to believe that's possible with that many offers.

 

[mauconnfan]

How do we fix recruiting? We get really lucky right now, between now and the summer!

 

[UCweCONN]

How do we fix recruiting? We get really lucky right now, between now and the summer!

And hope for some firings and we can swoop in pick over the carcasses. Vulture analogy.....

 

[caw]

A year removed from winning the national championship, so far, we have offered scholarships to 33 Class of 2015 recruits and gotten commitments from 2. This is a 6% success rate. By comparison, Kentucky has offered 18 and signed 3 (I'm surprised they offered this many and it's still half of us), and Duke has offered 5 and signed 3 (60%) There lies the problem. Do we make recruits feel special? It's hard to believe that's possible with that many offers.

Possibly but I'm not sure thats accurate, in terms of showing love (or whatever). I mean UConn did show two kids love, they committed, then UConn lost them for various reasons. That has precipitated going after other players late in the game and not being able to make up ground and get them in many cases.

Duke got their first choices to stick and UK is still waiting on their first choices to choose. You don't think UK will offer other kids if Newman/Maker/etc fall through?