Untitled Document
Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale



 Page 2 of 6 <2345>
Username Post: Ranking Next Year’s Recruits        (Topic#24223)
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
04-04-20 06:11 PM - Post#305782    
    In response to mrjames

While it concerns me that Penn seems to now lose all head to head recruiting battles with Harvard, and I see some evidence you may be right about Penn next year, I do have a little trouble with the suggestion that Penn is “failing” comparatively at recruiting. To PF10’s point, Penn managed more trips to the NCAAs than Harvard during the last 4 years, and the same number of trips to the Ivy tournament. Sure, Harvard’s graduating class got lots of win shares and more 10 win seasons. That may be more indicative of overall success than Penn’s numbers. But Penn’s performance over the last four years shows that Penn has been close enough to get within the margin of error. And that may be all Penn really needs to do.

On Harvard being favored to win the thing this year, did you mean pre season? I am pretty sure Yale would have been favored on Harvard’s floor in the final. I would also guess that Yale would be favored by more against Penn than Harvard would be over Princeton. So I think Yale would be the favorite to win the tournament, probably by a decent margin. The eye test (and the head to head games) may tell us Harvard and Penn match up well with Yale, but the numbers significantly favored Yale.

 
james 
Masters Student
Posts: 779

Age: 48
Reg: 03-18-19
04-04-20 06:12 PM - Post#305783    
    In response to mrjames

Ajogbor is very limited at this point from anything off the block.

He is a good finisher for all the reasons I said but you have to realize he has played on a talented team at the prep level making this job easier. And he physically developed early (cld be older given prep and Nigeria)

Basa ama shows versatility much the same way other Jones bigs have-sears, bruner, even Atkinson-on the hs level. Not a lot but some but he will have to get stronger like Atkinson and not lose his feet which are excellent.

You didn’t see game flexibility with Lewis either when I watched him but you saw block dominance. This is why his game capped out early at the college level. He never extended it. But he was certainly good at what he did and added a left hand. He reminds me of ajogbor who is physically superior at this stage though this adv faded on the circuit vs say his sophomore year when his rating peaked.

Atkinson hasn’t had to yet. I have seen him hit a few pull ups (at ga tech, stony brook) but thanks to bruner and the system he hasn’t had to and has worked well in isolation given his incredible feet which were the talk of the southern circuit his senior summer and ramped his recruitment.

Honestly evaluating guys on the internet with no context but a rating score and offers and without a fit in mind in the system they play in and a live perspective on basic skill frame and athleticism is a fools errand

I will comment on guys I see play live once. Otherwise it’s an even greater speculation than a typical projection which is speculative enough as is given we are talking abt 17-18 yr old kids

We will be surprised undoubtedly


 
james 
Masters Student
Posts: 779

Age: 48
Reg: 03-18-19
04-04-20 06:18 PM - Post#305784    
    In response to james

I know someone intimately well who had offers from half the sec and old big East.

But went to Yale. How many offers were good? When did he receive them? Early was the answer when his physical adv peaked at a premier prep school on the east coast where he was a finisher on the block.

Your eyes can best model a development curve for a prospect esp when you can graph multiple points. And most especially when they aren’t the truly elite where others can do it for you.

 
HARVARDDADGRAD 
Postdoc
Posts: 2685

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
04-04-20 06:35 PM - Post#305786    
    In response to james

Thanks to all for the observations in response to my inquity about Agogjor. My contribution is that Amaker likes to coach defense, including having a real rim protector to funnel action towards. The flip side of that is that such athletes may not be the smoothest or versatile on offense. Recruits like Chris Lewis, Zena Edosomwan and Kenyatta Smith come to mind. None of them were a threat to score more than 5 feet from the basket. On the other hand, if they were, it is possible that they would not have chosen the Ivy League.

 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
04-04-20 06:46 PM - Post#305788    
    In response to james

Certainly agree that there is a lot of variability here. I think it goes beyond the types of projections you are talking about. Mrjames knows more than me, and you know more than we do on the basis of playing. But none of us project these guys for a living. The guys who make the offers do this for a living. That’s why I think the offers are the best indicator.

There is noise in the offers of course. But you like Basa-Ama, and others may prefer Ajogbor. I suspect Amaker thinks Ajogbor is pretty projectable. I rated Cornell’s class lowest of the group, but I suspect Earl got guys he wanted and thinks he can develop them. On the other side, for those of us who are connected to pipelines of particular staffs, you sometimes hear negative things about other teams’ recruits. Sometimes the stuff is true, sometimes it is sour grapes, sometimes it is just a difference in how a coach projects a player, and right or wrong the coach passed on a player somebody else liked and offered. But even with that noise, I trust their perceptions more than mine.

 
bradley 
PhD Student
Posts: 1842

Age: 74
Reg: 01-15-16
04-04-20 08:58 PM - Post#305793    
    In response to SomeGuy

As you suggest, variability is the key word. One only has to look at the rankings of high school recruit by year and then take the actual performance of the player against projections -- significant disconnect. Certainly, they are a myriad of reason why including injuries etc. but it is still an educated crapshoot.

The concept of variability goes right up to pro drafts in all of the sports. It is always fun to watch how ESPN experts in the various sports re-do the draft several years down the road. Even people who do it for a living at the highest level have plenty of hit and misses.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
04-04-20 09:18 PM - Post#305794    
    In response to SomeGuy

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that you’d hear different things from different staffs as a general rule. I find that there’s far more unanimity in the scouts of recruits than there are commonly widely diverging opinions. There are still surprising players and classes, no doubt. But if you polled the staffs, I think you’d find consistent and pretty darn accurate rankings of classes across the league.

This year, I don’t think Penn would be ranked by anyone in the top four. Again, I’m not trying to troll anyone... just trying to pass along information. This league does NOT benefit from having a team with the resources to be successful stumble. And that’s all I care about.

 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
04-05-20 02:09 PM - Post#305836    
    In response to mrjames

You are a better man than me. I have enjoyed watching Harvard “stumble” in recent years despite winning the paper recruiting battle.

 
SRP 
Postdoc
Posts: 4894

Reg: 02-04-06
04-05-20 04:12 PM - Post#305842    
    In response to SomeGuy

It’s intriguing to me that Mike finds Princeton outperforming its apparent recruiting success, given that a) Henderson has morphed the offense pretty far from the Carril-style tradition and b) that style is not unique any more in the league, with aspects showing up in more teams’ play. It does seem that guys like Schwieger (and Caruso and others) emerge from initial obscurity to become important players with surprising frequency, and that MH himself doesn’t always know which players that he thought had potential are going to emerge.

 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
04-05-20 05:06 PM - Post#305848    
    In response to SRP

Also interesting how fast it turned for Princeton this year. OOC, they seemed to be underperforming their talent, given that Llewelyn has to be one of the highest rated recruits the league has gotten in modern times. And then they flipped the switch in conference play. They were much younger than everyone else, so may have just taken some time to figure it out.

On under the radar, my recollection is that we kind of knew that Schweiger was a fit and could be the best player in that class despite the higher ratings for Much and Desrosiers. But Caruso literally came out of nowhere, at least to me.

If I had to pick now, I’d put Princeton second next year, ahead of Harvard. Aririgozuh is a big loss — obviously that is the big hole they have to figure out. They might look more like the team that went 14-0, where they often play small.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
04-06-20 10:14 AM - Post#305884    
    In response to SomeGuy

Yeah, I don't really mean the recruiting thing in the more pejorative sense of the past, when Princeton truly was playing a different game than everyone else and went after different players to fit that system.

That being said, Princeton, much like Penn, is very specific about what it's looking for strategically - namely, great shooting, valuing possessions and defensive rebounding. Contrast that with Harvard (and to some extent Yale), which are far more focused on owning the area around the rim and having high-quality, on-ball, perimeter defenders (and hopefully having those same players be strong offensively, though not a requirement for all). To some extent, that just gives Princeton a different lane than Harvard and Yale (not entirely separate, but largely separate), and it's done a nice job of winning some battles head-to-head with them when the need arises.

As for next year's rankings, my guess is that there will be a lot of fun debate about 1-2-3 and then the battle for 4th. But unlike years' past, I don't think there will be a top tier that is considered necessarily "safe" from the battle for an Ivy tourney spot discussion.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32685

Reg: 11-21-04
04-06-20 10:24 AM - Post#305890    
    In response to mrjames

Of course, with Penn scoring 5 guys who could play last year, there is less specific need for this class. Could have used a big man, of course, but if MLL is the real deal, the story will be second year development.

 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
04-06-20 12:14 PM - Post#305895    
    In response to palestra38

Yes, I am curious if mrjames has more info on who Penn was involved with. It looks to me like we didn’t land a big fish big man, and we made a decision at that point not to fill the spot with a smaller fish. But then other teams are getting credit for taking the smaller fish. Without naming names, I find it hard to believe that Penn couldn’t get a big in the range of the level below Ajogbor, Basa-Ama, and Hooks. So it looks like we made a choice not to close on one (at least yet). To P38’s point, that may be a sign of confidence in the bigs in the last three classes for next year.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
04-07-20 09:46 AM - Post#305928    
    In response to SomeGuy

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing that they were going to take a look at Evan Williams before he committed to Cornell.

I don't know that there was a lot there to get at the level below the top forwards. Martini and Moses and maybe Ndur? The top end of this class evaporated early, and it wasn't a strong class for Ivy-level forwards.

 
Mike Porter 
Postdoc
Posts: 3615
Mike Porter
Loc: Los Angeles, CA
Reg: 11-21-04
04-07-20 04:53 PM - Post#305949    
    In response to mrjames

I didn't remember any interest in Evan Williams, but looks like Penn coaches went to watch Williams work out once in mid-Feb, but never offered. I never saw them involved with any of the other big guys taken recently by other teams.

 
Mike Porter 
Postdoc
Posts: 3615
Mike Porter
Loc: Los Angeles, CA
Reg: 11-21-04
Ranking Next Year’s Recruits
04-07-20 05:07 PM - Post#305951    
    In response to Mike Porter

Mike - totally respect your opinion and frankly I've voiced my own concerns about gaps in recruiting years for Penn in past years and this year in particular for interior players (I actually think when staff puts together a good class it is quite good, but when staff misses, they miss by more than I'd like).

I also completely completely agree recruiting to need is important, and with misses on post players this year, Penn didn't do a great job of this. I would put Harvard, Yale and Princeton in 1, 2, 3, so no argument there.

That said, I still struggle to see how Columbia (ESPECIALLY) or Brown classes are better in terms of just basketball talent/performance regardless of position.

Based on AAU/offers alone, these are stats Penn's top 2 recruits put up against top competition on very good AAU teams (in HS ball they killed it statistically and both were 2,000+ point scorers):

Clark Slajchert

AAU - Under Armor Circuit (14 games) Avg 12ppg, 54% FGs (59 of 110), 49% from 3 (22 of 45) 87% FTs on top team in his division.

Offers - 2 weeks before Penn commitment, Kyle Smith WSU offer (so his stock was rising, not falling and Kyle Smith is a guy you have praised for his ability to identify talent)

Andrew Laczkowski

AAU - Adidas Gauntlet scored 11.4 ppg over 16 games shooting 59% overall (71 of 121) and 50% from 3 (27 of 54) on a team that won the whole thing.

Offers
Saint Louis (A10)
Northeastern (CAA)
Rice (CUSA)
All these offers came within 1-2 months before Penn commitment

Serious question - did any of the Brown or Columbia recruits put up numbers anything like the above? I tried to look and honestly couldn't find anything that useful, which sort of leads me to think not.

Then there is our last current recruit - TJ Berger who I think is a step below those two in both AAU results and in offers, so I'm not as high on him. But he had a good senior season on a top high school team, playing top competition (and I mean dude hit 11 3's in a game). Plus in his post commitment interviews, he said he picked Penn over Yale (for whatever that is worth).

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
Re: anking Next Year’s Recruits
04-07-20 10:24 PM - Post#305957    
    In response to Mike Porter

I mean, Harvard and Yale brought in really good talent and are 1-2 (reasonable folks can argue about the order). That’s probably the only clear part of rating these classes.

From there, I’d probably have Brown 3rd, but you could argue them or Princeton. Moses was 2nd team at the highest level of the NEPSAC - that’s very impressive. Taylor could be a sneaky strong contributor early on as well. I’d have both ahead of Penn because the top end player (Moses or Martini/Hooks) is better from a talent/need perspective.

Columbia is sort of the opposite reason. Large class just increases the odds of finding contributors at spots you need. That’s a more tenuous argument for sure, and Penn’s top-end talent is indeed better.

At the end of the day, the specific rankings don’t really matter as much here. You can argue anything beyond 1-2. What matters most though is Penn had to have a post and didn’t land one. That was a massive miss.

 
Quakers03 
Professor
Posts: 12480

Reg: 12-07-04
04-08-20 12:01 AM - Post#305959    
    In response to mrjames

Have you heard chatter that MLL is having issues we don’t know about? This outright dismissal of him is really something.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32685

Reg: 11-21-04
04-08-20 08:14 AM - Post#305963    
    In response to Quakers03

He's talking about the incoming class, not last year's. But yes, his assumption that Penn "had to
get a post guy is dependent on the notion that MLL isn't that guy. And while no one knows how he will play in major minutes, no Ivy team has an inside player who is a better athletic talent than MLL. To me, any Harvard guy assuming anything right now after losing their only two guys who were proven scorers is just guessing.

 
PennFan10 
Postdoc
Posts: 3580

Reg: 02-15-15
Ranking Next Year’s Recruits
04-08-20 09:13 AM - Post#305968    
    In response to palestra38

This. No one has a clue really. Calling Penn's lack of a big in this class as a "major miss" is propaganda at best. If they had been in on a bunch of bigs and didn't get one, that would be a miss. They weren't involved with virtually any bigs. Does anyone think that's because they couldn't attract one? I think that's speculative.



Edited by PennFan10 on 04-08-20 09:37 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

 
 Page 2 of 6 <2345>
Icon Legend Permissions Topic Options
Report Post

Quote Post

Quick Reply

Print Topic

Email Topic

23627 Views




Copyright © 2004-2012 Basketball U. Terms of Use for our Site and Privacy Policy are applicable to you. All rights reserved.
Basketball U. and its subsidiaries are not affiliated in any way with any NCAA athletic conference or member institution.
FusionBB™ Version 2.1 | ©2003-2007 InteractivePHP, Inc.
Execution time: 0.554 seconds.   Total Queries: 16   Zlib Compression is on.
All times are (GMT -0500) Eastern. Current time is 07:18 AM
Top