JUCO Negligence: The stage is set

Lets resolve this issue... Since it keeps coming up. Good thing its offseason.

I don't have a recruiting budget... I don't recruit players... The guys I picked for this particular exercise were selected based on offers, stats, etc. I didn't "evaluate" them... I didn't bring them to my house and have them run drills and stuff..

You are trying to reshape this entire ordeal to something that doesn't matter... "see, the guys you picked weren't good, how could you possibly expect Lon to pick the right guys"... Do you really believe in that sentiment?

Guys like you and me really don't know who is going to be good or not until they get D1. Paid coaches, however, are supposed to be able to identify proper talent starting in their region and working their way out from there. They get paid millions of dollars to do this, develop relationships with local coaches, go to camps, invite people to campus, etc.

So now lets address your claim.... I cherry picked someone. The guy I cherry picked was in the home state. Turns out he was the most productive recruit to come out of the state.

We only know what we know now, but I would expect Lon to be aware that there was a really good player down the road. Bring him in for a visit. Have him work out with the guys... Offer him a scholarship if you fancy him.

He repeated this pattern with other players... Aaron Calixte and Miles Reynolds, who combined aren't as valuable as Mason Jones. Why did he go through such effort to bring in Miles Reynolds from California, but expended no effort on Mason Jones?

I didn't know about Mason Jones until I saw he signed with Arkansas... He slipped under my radar of random net research. His coach didn't call me, or email me... I didn't notice him at juco tournaments or showcase events... I didn't have a member on my staff that is there to identify talent for me to evaluate. Because I don't have any of these things.

In other words.... I didn't know about Mason Jones. Maybe that concerns you. But what concerns me is that Lon Kruger didn't know about Mason Jones, and instead went after players who are significantly less valuable.

Had this guy been from Canada, or Washington, or Florida, etc... sure, I wouldn't expect you to know of every diamond in the rough from all over the country. You simply don't need to do that. But it concerns me that we went to Maine, California, New Zealand, Finland, etc while some many of these other guys are right here with no offers.

Thats why I don't go "cherry picking" guys from all over the country. That wouldn't be fair. But guys within 3 hours from your campus? That seems inexcusable to me, unless of course you are bringing in far superior talent, but he isn't... That opens the door for fair criticism, in my opinion. Hopefully that addresses the other complaint, that I always point out that they are 3-4 hours by car away from Norman. You should know these guys inside and out....

Which brings me to the next critique people have of the logic.... "How do you know Lon didn't know them inside and out and chose otherwise"... If I accept that to be true, that means Lon would have had Jones (as an example) in for a visit, worked him out... then compared him to Miles Reynolds, and specifically chose to offer Reynolds a scholarship and not Jones. These recruiting efforts are usually widely reported, which didnt happen here. That is clue #1... The other part is, if he had done that, it seems obvious to me that a paid professional would see that Jones was better than Calixte or Reynolds. If he had done his due diligence on local talent, he wouldn't have made the choice he did unless he was rejected by the primary target.

There you have it... I laid out my entire throught process in what I think is a productive and clear manner. I typed quickly, so I apologize for any errors.

One of your many flaws in logic is that, players abilities and quality aren't constantly at a verified equal level.. a player can come in and light it up and suck later.. you act as if all of these players are exactly and always consistent with their abilities too. Players might improve at a school into a player that at any other school they might have never become..

It's one thing to not even recruit spangler... and passing on a Connors state kid..
 
Lets resolve this issue... Since it keeps coming up. Good thing its offseason.

I don't have a recruiting budget... I don't recruit players... The guys I picked for this particular exercise were selected based on offers, stats, etc. I didn't "evaluate" them... I didn't bring them to my house and have them run drills and stuff..

You are trying to reshape this entire ordeal to something that doesn't matter... "see, the guys you picked weren't good, how could you possibly expect Lon to pick the right guys"... Do you really believe in that sentiment?

Guys like you and me really don't know who is going to be good or not until they get D1. Paid coaches, however, are supposed to be able to identify proper talent starting in their region and working their way out from there. They get paid millions of dollars to do this, develop relationships with local coaches, go to camps, invite people to campus, etc.

So now lets address your claim.... I cherry picked someone. The guy I cherry picked was in the home state. Turns out he was the most productive recruit to come out of the state.

We only know what we know now, but I would expect Lon to be aware that there was a really good player down the road. Bring him in for a visit. Have him work out with the guys... Offer him a scholarship if you fancy him.

He repeated this pattern with other players... Aaron Calixte and Miles Reynolds, who combined aren't as valuable as Mason Jones. Why did he go through such effort to bring in Miles Reynolds from California, but expended no effort on Mason Jones?

I didn't know about Mason Jones until I saw he signed with Arkansas... He slipped under my radar of random net research. His coach didn't call me, or email me... I didn't notice him at juco tournaments or showcase events... I didn't have a member on my staff that is there to identify talent for me to evaluate. Because I don't have any of these things.

In other words.... I didn't know about Mason Jones. Maybe that concerns you. But what concerns me is that Lon Kruger didn't know about Mason Jones, and instead went after players who are significantly less valuable.

Had this guy been from Canada, or Washington, or Florida, etc... sure, I wouldn't expect you to know of every diamond in the rough from all over the country. You simply don't need to do that. But it concerns me that we went to Maine, California, New Zealand, Finland, etc while some many of these other guys are right here with no offers.

Thats why I don't go "cherry picking" guys from all over the country. That wouldn't be fair. But guys within 3 hours from your campus? That seems inexcusable to me, unless of course you are bringing in far superior talent, but he isn't... That opens the door for fair criticism, in my opinion. Hopefully that addresses the other complaint, that I always point out that they are 3-4 hours by car away from Norman. You should know these guys inside and out....

Which brings me to the next critique people have of the logic.... "How do you know Lon didn't know them inside and out and chose otherwise"... If I accept that to be true, that means Lon would have had Jones (as an example) in for a visit, worked him out... then compared him to Miles Reynolds, and specifically chose to offer Reynolds a scholarship and not Jones. These recruiting efforts are usually widely reported, which didnt happen here. That is clue #1... The other part is, if he had done that, it seems obvious to me that a paid professional would see that Jones was better than Calixte or Reynolds. If he had done his due diligence on local talent, he wouldn't have made the choice he did unless he was rejected by the primary target.

There you have it... I laid out my entire throught process in what I think is a productive and clear manner. I typed quickly, so I apologize for any errors.


Once again, the point is that the success rate on JUCOs is horrific. You identified 4 guys that had good offers and JUCO stats, and 3 of them were complete bums. That's about the going rate. You then cherrypicked another local kid who turned out to be a fine player.

These JUCO kids offer an extremely low floor and a low ceiling. You aren't getting all-americans from JUCO, but you can sure as hell find a lot of Ty Lazenby's or Ricky Torres or Austin Trice or Darrion Strong-Moores out there. Year after year you post about a couple of random JUCOs who have become solid D1 players, while ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority are straight trash.
 
One JUCO on the roster is one JUCO too many.

High school guards. Give me high school guards. Sign as many guards as you can, and always hold back a scholly or two for the next D-1/grad transfer.
 
One JUCO on the roster is one JUCO too many.

High school guards. Give me high school guards. Sign as many guards as you can, and always hold back a scholly or two for the next D-1/grad transfer.

This. Odomes was a worst case scenario in a lot of ways, yet we still got more mileage out of him than any guy Kruger has ever signed here taller than 6'7.
 
One JUCO on the roster is one JUCO too many.

High school guards. Give me high school guards. Sign as many guards as you can, and always hold back a scholly or two for the next D-1/grad transfer.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you and bigabd are going to disagree on this one :ez-laugh:

I'm definitely somewhere in the middle on this. I like the idea of cherry-picking the best - which is what a once "JUCO Blue Blood" school should be able to do.
 
I'm definitely somewhere in the middle on this. I like the idea of cherry-picking the best - which is what a once "JUCO Blue Blood" school should be able to do.

I'm in the middle, too, except I don't think it's necessarily easy to spot the good ones. As we've seen, plenty of coaches get fooled every year.
 
I'm in the middle, too, except I don't think it's necessarily easy to spot the good ones. As we've seen, plenty of coaches get fooled every year.

Good point...not many Mookie Blaylocks, Harvey Grants and Anthony Bowies to choose from. Finding the Taj Grays, Terrell Everetts and Corey Brewers aren't quite as easy. That said, we went to the Final Four in 2016 without a single player who was in the National Top 100 out of high school. That tells me the coaches know how to evaluate talent, but (maybe I'm being unnecessarily critical) need to devote more effort in finding those JUCO gems.
 
JUCO ball has always been hit or miss w/ prospects, the problem is the talent at JUCO now is nowhere near what it was; as more kids are qualifying or have other options if they don’t qualify
 
JUCO ball has always been hit or miss w/ prospects, the problem is the talent at JUCO now is nowhere near what it was; as more kids are qualifying or have other options if they don’t qualify

The Derek Roses of the world somehow manage to qualify.
 
Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Devonte Bandoo out of Hutchinson CC signed on with Baylor today over West Virginia, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Indiana.... Meaning that the area juco targets are all gone. Trice went to KSU, Miricevic went to South Florida, Ricky Torres went to Wichita State. OU recruited Reynolds and Calixte directly over Bandoo and Torres.

I was criticized in the other recruiting thread for hand-picking players over the past 1-3 years within driving distance of Norman that OU never offered scholarships to, but only after they did well in college. That is fair.... such as Shakur Juiston, Vladimir Broadziansky, Rob Gray, and Loal Acuil to name a few... All those guys made all-conference teams and were 3-4 hours away from Norman and didn't get a look.

So this year it is Bandoo, Torres, Trice, and Miricevic. At least OU knew about these guys at some point, especially Trice who had a visit scheduled but he jumped on the KSU offer. He wouldnt have made sense anyway because OU has 8 post players. I know OU chose Reynolds directly over Bandoo. Will see how that decision plays out.

Austin Trice is now playing at Portland State.
Miricevic is averaging 3pts & 3rbs at USF.
Torres is averaging 2pts 2rbs & 2assts at WSU.
Bandoo is averaging 8pts 4rbs & 1.5 assts for #1 Baylor.

JUCO is a crapshoot.
 
Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Austin Trice is now playing at Portland State.
Miricevic is averaging 3pts & 3rbs at USF.
Torres is averaging 2pts 2rbs & 2assts at WSU.
Bandoo is averaging 8pts 4rbs & 1.5 assts for #1 Baylor.

JUCO is a crapshoot.

Actually I would say craps has better odds.
 
Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Long gone of the days where OU plucked players like Jackie Jones, cheese Davis, Harvey grant, skeeter, mookie, Bryan Sallier, Angelo Hamilton, etc. and found all those players in either Texas, Kansas or Oklahoma!

Following juco recruiting in the 80’s/90’s was FUN! Did anyone else ever used to call those 1-900 numbers and paid to get recruiting updates?? I think it was Al esbach that used to do it.
 
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Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Most of the time recruiting takes a hit when coaches are getting little older.
 
Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Whether recruiting JUCOs or high school kids or taking players out of the portal I would think the best strategy would be individual talent evaluation.
Regardless of JUCO, high school, geography, sunshine, moon light, good times or boogie individual talent evaluation has to be the key.
 
Re: JUCO Recruiting: The stage is set

Whether recruiting JUCOs or high school kids or taking players out of the portal I would think the best strategy would be individual talent evaluation.
Regardless of JUCO, high school, geography, sunshine, moon light, good times or boogie individual talent evaluation has to be the key.

I agree for it's called "diamonds in the rough."
 
Two things appear to have happened.

1) You don't hear about top quality players going to JUCO because they didn't qualify academically like before. It may happen but I doubt it. That usually made headlines.

2. There is much more competition for the quality guys than in the era when OU was one of the first to build championships with JUCO's.

It does seem inconceivable that one would miss a top local talent whatever the level. However, players develop at a different rate and a solid guy one year can grow into a much better player the next year. Also moving up one level to the next is hazardous and many bright stars fade quickly at a higher level.
 
Two things appear to have happened.

1) You don't hear about top quality players going to JUCO because they didn't qualify academically like before. It may happen but I doubt it. That usually made headlines.

2. There is much more competition for the quality guys than in the era when OU was one of the first to build championships with JUCO's.

It does seem inconceivable that one would miss a top local talent whatever the level. However, players develop at a different rate and a solid guy one year can grow into a much better player the next year. Also moving up one level to the next is hazardous and many bright stars fade quickly at a higher level.

This reminds me of the Buddy Hield debate. Some insist that we didn't truly beat KU in a recruiting battle for him because KU didn't really recruit him that hard. Assuming that is true for the sake of this discussion, was Self "negligent" for missing out on a kid in his home state who ended up being the best player in the country and a lottery pick, or is it possible that no one, even one of the best coaches on the planet, could have foreseen Buddy turning into that player?
 
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