I Think We Could Be Recruiting Better Thread

Trying my best to reserve judgement until the team is complete, but I'm with the crew here who has said this has NOT been what i was expecting. I figured we would be one of the hottest transfer destinations in the country. To date the recruits he's bringing in have been VERY underwhelming.

Still 40% of the roster yet to fill, but here's hoping there are some game changers in the mix.

The one concerning thing is I figured with Repole on board the NIL would flow to really hit the ground running. I get going BIG on the 2024 class, but I thought there might be a little more to sprinkle on 2023, unless that's happening and we don't know it, like Mackenzie and Silas.

If we get 2/3 of Mackenzie/Dunlap/Silas it will change my tune quite a bit, but so far there's a lot to be desired with the current recruiting class.
 
We should also not rule out another big leap for Soriano and that should be included for perspective.

We saw with Purdue that putting a capable big man inside with shooters could get you a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

I’ll settle for a 10 seed.
 
MugCostanza said:
Soriano will be very good but on his best day he's nowhere near where Edey is on his worst day
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Disagree entirely. Eden is a big, slow goon. He’s helped by the fact that he’s marginally athletic for a 7’4” + kid. Size will get him places, but he dominated mainly because they isolate his size effectively.
 
MCNPA said:
Disagree entirely. Eden is a big, slow goon. He’s helped by the fact that he’s marginally athletic for a 7’4” + kid. Size will get him places, but he dominated mainly because they isolate his size effectively.
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Mcn, he was clearly the most dominate player in the country last season. Goon or not lol. Honestly he’s tremendously coordinated for a kid his size.
 
Amaseinyourface said:
Mcn, he was clearly the most dominate player in the country last season. Goon or not lol. Honestly he’s tremendously coordinated for a kid his size.
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He’s twice as tall as everybody else. He can barely jump 4 inches off the ground. Every play was an isolation for a dunk, or a fairly decent hook shot. Yes he dominated physically but is far from a very good player skill-wise. Coordinated for his size I agree with. He was mainly just too big to handle for most. I think Soriano is quite a bit more skilled, and hopefully with Pitino’s help, get to that next level though he will never be 7’4”. We do have Keita at 7’1” though! 😉
 
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MCNPA said:
Disagree entirely. Eden is a big, slow goon. He’s helped by the fact that he’s marginally athletic for a 7’4” + kid. Size will get him places, but he dominated mainly because they isolate his size effectively.
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I mean yeah, doesn't matter how or why he dominated but he did. There's a lot Pitino can do to help Soriano but he can't make him 7'4 lol
 
MCNPA said:
He’s twice as tall as everybody else. He can barely jump 4 inches off the ground. Every play was an isolation for a dunk, or a fairly decent hook shot. Yes he dominated physically but is far from a very good player skill-wise. Coordinated for his size I agree with. He was mainly just too big to handle for most.
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The smarter coaches shouldn't even try to handle him. There's a reason two low majors beat them. They couldn't play Purdue's game, so they didn't.
 
AlBovino said:
Wishing and hoping. I too hope Pitino is the not just the one to give us a better brand of basketball, but to also give us winning basketball. The two are mutually exclusive. My concern is that he has under performed todate. I am hopeful that he will over perform with the remainder of his recruiting. Many on here thought that all Pitino had to do was throw his jock strap on the court and all the best players would follow the pied piper. That has not happened yet.
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"ALL the best players would follow"???
Thar wasn't the case at Kentucky or Louisville!
He lost a lot of the best players to Duke, UNC, Uconn, Michigan, UCLA, Indiana, Virginia, Syracuse, Florida, Georgetown, Villanova, etc., etc.

In short, it's an extremely competitive business and even two of the nation’s most player friendly schools in terms of "benefits" didn't get ALL THE BEST PLAYERS" at the time because the coaching competition included Coach K, Roy Williams, Jimmy B, Jay Wright, Billy Donovan, Jim Calhoun, coach Thompson and Bobby Knight.

Now we still have Rick Pitino but he is competing against the highest NIL offers and promised minutes to lying recruiters. St. John's has been WAAY behind in the NIL scam of amateur college basketball. Give Pitino another year and more NIL and the recruiting will become more successful.
 
I understand the disappointment even though I don’t quite share it. I get it though. When your team hires a coach at Pitino’s level you’re dreaming about a couple big pops right off the bat. It’s literally been 1 month though and any disappointment I feel in missing out on these early recruits is far outweighed by how I pleased I am with who the current coach is. It’s not even close.

The only recruit I’m genuinely disappointed we missed on was Clayton (not a big Ledlum fan.) I think Clayton is the type of player that could be the difference btwn a bad team and a decent team or a decent team and a good team. So that combined with his connection to Pitino made it a tough one. That being said if he can reel in Demary that’ll go a long way to making me forget Clayton. I agree he clearly needs a couple more impact starters but it’s been under 30 days and I like the pieces he’s gathered so far.
 
austour said:
True but then how many of new guys were top 100 in the portal. If you are accepting of HS rankings then you have to accepting of portal rankings by so called experts. Some will under perform their ranking some will out perform (hopefully that's the norm with a coach of Pitino's qualifications). But the lists are directional. At this point in On3's portal rankings there are 3 STJ mentions in the top 115. All leaving. The highest incoming is Alleyne at 117. At least 247 has Jenkins in the top 100 and I believe he will be a productive starter. A Jenkins/Alleyne backcourt is not going to scare our BE foes though. But the presence of Rick probably does.
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The ranking sites like On3's and the Resource Network (RNx) use so-called efficiency metrics to rank players by position and overall efficiency.
It is a convoluted system that leaves out some important intangibles. What cohesive influence did their stats play in the overall effectiveness of the team's offense?
How is the ability to defend measured vis-a-vis the competition? How do they measure leadership and coachable aspects of the game?
How do they measure how well they meshed with teammates?

You mentioned that a backcourt of Alleyne and Jenkins wouldn't scare our foe. Did the backcourt of Alexander and Curbelo who, in these rankings, are rated higher?
How about when our backcourt was Posh and Wusu, or King and Pinzon, etc. Our backcourt was one of the worst in the conference and least compatible in recent memory.

All one has to do is look at teams like FAU, FDU and Princeton to see that how well teams coalesce late into a season without superstars to understand how important those tangibles are when they have high level coaching.

We have filled positions that belonged to King, Pinzon, Curbelo, Stanley, and Jones. I don't care what their "efficiency rating" is because their team effectiveness was mediocre at best. Curbelo and Jones were very efficient at hero ball.....period.

Aaron Estrada from Hofstra is ranked higher than all our departed and incoming players. Having actually watched him play, I dare say, while a very effective scorer, Daniss Jenkins and Walter Clayton, were better all-around players in the game I witnessed. He is ranked 50 points higher than Jenkins in the portal. That's absurd.
 
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Rocket said:
The ranking sites like On3's and the Resource Network (RNx) use so-called efficiency metrics to rank players by position and overall efficiency.
It is a convoluted system that leaves out some important intangibles. What cohesive influence did their stats play in the overall effectiveness of the team's offense?
How is the ability to defend measured vis-a-vis the competition? How do they measure leadership and coachable aspects of the game?
How do they measure how well they meshed with teammates?

You mentioned that a backcourt of Alleyne and Jenkins wouldn't scare our foe. Did the backcourt of Alexander and Curbelo who, in these rankings, are rated higher?
How about when our backcourt was Posh and Wusu, or King and Pinzon, etc. Our backcourt was one of the worst in the conference and least compatible in recent memory.

All one has to do is look at teams like FAU, FDU and Princeton to see that how well teams coalesce late into a season without superstars to understand how important those tangibles are when they have high level coaching.

We have filled positions that belonged to King, Pinzon, Curbelo, Stanley, and Jones. I don't care what their "efficiency rating" is because their team effectiveness was mediocre at best. Curbelo and Jones were very efficient at hero ball.....period.

Aaron Estrada from Hofstra is ranked higher than all our departed and incoming players. Having actually watched him play, I dare say, while a very effective scorer, Daniss Jenkins and Walter Clayton, were better all-around players in the game I witnessed. He is ranked 50 points higher than Jenkins in the portal. That's absurd.
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Unless I’m misremembering some on here declared Posh and Belo the one of the best if not the best backcourts in the BE if not the country. This helps me have even more confidence in our new players despite the concerns of some posters.
 
NCJohnnie said:
Marillac when you talk about top 100 recruits, assume you’re talking about HS rankings which I agree makes sense for HS recruits like Demary and Dunlap. But when it comes to guys from the transfer portal, the rankings become irrelevant compared to how they’ve performed in college, especially at high major level, imho.
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I agree the Clayton jr opting for Florida was a disappointment to all of us and had to be for Pitino as well . But ,,Ledlum was a stretch all along . Who else has been to a Campus visit other than those 2 that didn’t come here ? So , who else has declined ?
 
To me, losing Clayton brothers me.
Otherwise, what did we expect?
Rick's been here ~30 days.
Forget last year's dissonant/disjointed roster.
He asked 6 kids he wanted, to stay; three opted out.
He missed on transfers Bamba, Ledlum, Timberlake, & Ryan.
All preferred other venues, and only Ledlum was a close miss.
Rick also 'whiffed' on Fielder & Dual---one went to the coach who recruited him, the other to his first choice.
So, 2 close misses on 12 recruits / transfers, but gets 5 players he knows well or who fit his style.
Plus, he probably gets a high-scoring guard in Thomasson and 'maybe'
a high-end 4* guard (Demary Jr.), while still pursuing 3 wings.
Just my two cents, but I think we should 'chill' just a little bit.
 
MCNPA said:
He’s twice as tall as everybody else. He can barely jump 4 inches off the ground. Every play was an isolation for a dunk, or a fairly decent hook shot. Yes he dominated physically but is far from a very good player skill-wise. Coordinated for his size I agree with. He was mainly just too big to handle for most. I think Soriano is quite a bit more skilled, and hopefully with Pitino’s help, get to that next level though he will never be 7’4”. We do have Keita at 7’1” though! 😉
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This is not a knock on you but if Edey played at St. John’s you would say he was better than Wilt Chamberlain 😂
 
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