Some freshman are more mature than normal. But most take a year or even two years to figure out how hard you have to play to win at the high D-1 level. Upper class competition is the single biggest motivator to accelerate the maturation process. In other words, if you can play good ball without the younger players, and do, then they will get with the program earlier so that they can get minutes.
I think this is Jeff's problem. The freshman and Willie are our best players and are having to play whether they work hard or not -- because they are our best players. Outside of Crocker, we just don't have a really good bunch of returning players that are as talented as our younger players.
Jeff took "runners" on some really good athletes that were available because they were academic risks, e.g. Clark, Cannon and Patillo, or because they were "head cases", e.g. Maze and Early. These kids didn't make it and are gone now. I don't have a problem with taking these chances, and when you gamble, you need to be ready to lose. We are now paying our losses -- sort of speak.
I also think that to a certain degree Jeff is going through a learning curve with regard to recruiting. He thinks he can recruit anyone, and in some cases, he has shocked everyone. However, he is finding out in some instances when you go against the North Carolinas, Jayhawks and UCLA, you are going to get some of the kids you want and you will have wasted a lot of time and money chasing kids that aren't coming. Then, you find yourself on the outs with kids that went elsewhere that you could have had.
In short, Jeff is learning and will develop a better feel about recruiting, focus on a couple big time kids and also recruit a few you know you can get. Every kid on Kansas is not a high school all american, and you don't need this to win. For example, we could have had Roberson, but chose to jerk his schollie to go after Jai. Not questioning or gripping, just saying that he could be our senior point guard this year.
Bottom line, Kelvin's recruits went elsewhere. We have missed on some risky players, missed on some decent recruits that we could have had, and it looks like it has all caught up to us this year.
We have talent and play outstanding for a few minutes at a time, but we look like what we are, talented but young and immature. I had hoped Jeff would have these kids playing ball by Conference, but it doesn't look like that can be accomplished. And, he might not get much out of them this year. But I still think he is a terrific coach and we should stand behind him. He was young when we hired him, and he had no experiance at a big time school and he is feeling his way. I still say the sky is the limit with Jeff. My guess is that is that he is searching far and wide for some immediate help. I think he will build his numbers by next year, have more competition and options for playing time, get his freshman churning like they should by next year and we will be right back in the middle of things.
In short,
