2014 Recruits

[jayball]

Agreed, thanks hilltop, Jet, and Ljay for scouring the interwebs and getting some recruiting info to follow over the summer.

While I enjoy following recruiting and appreciate the work, I hope folks understand that following recruiting is a bit like trying to tell how how attractive a girl is under blacklights after you have had a few drinks. It is not always a bad thing when one gets away.

We aren't going to be signing 4 NBA lottery picks every year. We will be "talking" to lots of kids. We will offer some of them and we will sign 2-4 players per year. When reading stories about recruits, realize that some of them are written by douches like Matt Perrault (ie inaccurate or deviod of any basketball expertise.) No one kid is going to make or break our program. A team of solid players can out perform a five star recruit. Enjoy the ride and watching the young men that sign with Creighton develop over their careers.

I really appreaciate Hilltop's straightforward approach and hope we can land a couple of solid players. Well actually I hope we can land the next Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook but I will take solid.

[AttyAlum]

We aren't going to be signing 4 NBA lottery picks every year.

This is very true, but we do have to start signing NBA caliber players regularly now. I don't think we will have the luxury of going two or three consecutive recruiting classes without having future NBA draft choices if we wish to be competitive in the new league.

I think Handdownmanddown and Jet's statements in this thread are pretty fair. 2013 is a great MVC class, but only an average BE class. We need to focus on greater athleticism and greater height among our guard signees moving forward. We also have to get top 150 kids inked regularly.

All that being said, 2014 is probably not going to be the fairest representation of our recruiting moving forward. Most of the kids in that class we have only been able to start pursuing since the BE news came about in March, meaning we were probably late getting to them.

Without a doubt, Lutz, Sellers and Drock are going to have their work cut out for them.

[CreighTony]

No one kid is going to make or break our program. A team of solid players can out perform a five star recruit. Enjoy the ride and watching the young men that sign with Creighton develop over their careers.

This is what I always liked about mid-major basketball. Teams like Northern Iowa and Bradley bringing down Kansas; players like Korver, Tolliver, Funk,Harstad, ..., developing into great players. Hopefully we will have a mix of both types in the Big East.

[jayball]

but we do have to start signing NBA caliber players regularly now. I don't think we will have the luxury of going two or three consecutive recruiting classes without having future NBA draft choices if we wish to be competitive in the new league.

I think Handdownmanddown and Jet's statements in this thread are pretty fair. 2013 is a great MVC class, but only an average BE class. We need to focus on greater athleticism and greater height among our guard signees moving forward. We also have to get top 150 kids inked regularly.

I agree that we need to up our recuiting as much as possible, but Andrew Bock was a Rivals Top 150 player in 2009.

Were any of our last 3 NBA players Top 150 guys? (Rodney, KK, AT) Was Doug Top 150? Rankings aren't always accurate.

I think we have a really good chance to be attractive to more top flight guys, but I don't think we need 3 Top 150 guys every year to have a good team and successful program. I have noticed some chatter about how we have a 1 year window to get some big name guys in here or we will become DePaul. I don't buy that. We have good fundamentals behind our program (fan support, facilities, ect) and I have confidence that Bruce and Greg will get us where we need to be in the new league.

I think good recruits will come, but I know we won't sign 95% of the guys that are discussed as having interest. When that happens there are always minor meltdowns and second guessing. I have a feeling some posters might be in overdrive mode for that this year with the change to "Big East" recruiting. I guess I just feel like we will find a way to be successful and that we aren't in any sort of make or break situation.

[Chicagojayfan]

but we do have to start signing NBA caliber players regularly now. I don't think we will have the luxury of going two or three consecutive recruiting classes without having future NBA draft choices if we wish to be competitive in the new league.

I think Handdownmanddown and Jet's statements in this thread are pretty fair. 2013 is a great MVC class, but only an average BE class. We need to focus on greater athleticism and greater height among our guard signees moving forward. We also have to get top 150 kids inked regularly.

I agree that we need to up our recuiting as much as possible, but Andrew Bock was a Rivals Top 150 player in 2009.

Were any of our last 3 NBA players Top 150 guys? (Rodney, KK, AT) Was Doug Top 150? Rankings aren't always accurate.

I think we have a really good chance to be attractive to more top flight guys, but I don't think we need 3 Top 150 guys every year to have a good team and successful program. I have noticed some chatter about how we have a 1 year window to get some big name guys in here or we will become DePaul. I don't buy that. We have good fundamentals behind our program (fan support, facilities, ect) and I have confidence that Bruce and Greg will get us where we need to be in the new league.

I think good recruits will come, but I know we won't sign 95% of the guys that are discussed as having interest. When that happens there are always minor meltdowns and second guessing. I have a feeling some posters might be in overdrive mode for that this year with the change to "Big East" recruiting. I guess I just feel like we will find a way to be successful and that we aren't in any sort of make or break situation.

Totally agree. My point earlier about the 2013 class was that it had a lot of the building blocks that make teams succesful. We got two JUCO's that fill some immediate needs, but the 3 HS kids are all guys who can perform at a high college level and can be very good BCS players. Add in a dynamic scorer (the kind of top 150 kid that I hope we can land this year) and we have a very good framework for success in the BE.

In general kids from South Dakota aren't going to get the rivals attention that kids from NY or LA get, but that doesn't mean that people didn't take notice of Hanson - he had Gonzaga, Mizzou, AZ State offers, and would have had other BCS offers if he'd not signed with us as early as he did. Hegner had Marquette, Northwestern, and Dayton offers and is a guy who I think was very underrated (Marquette is in his backyard and recruits nationally and they wanted him.. that says something). Harris wasn't as widely known, but was getting more and more interest AND when we saw him and Nick Fuller we chose him.

What's more is that all 3 are high skill guys who have the right physical makeup for their position. Not only can they match up size-wise to the rest of the conference, they can allow us to continue to play a high skill "suburban horse" style of play on offense that will help us in recruiting -- especially now that we are in the Big East. Would a shooting guard want to play in Georgetown's offense or ours (would they want to be on or team or theirs in the first round of the tournament)?

So my point is this - there's not an obvious all american in that bunch, but there are 3 very solid BCS level players who can be part of a very successful team in the future. If we add the right guys around them, that is a formidible team.

[Jaysker12]

It's great to discuss recruiting and who's interested in us, but until a player makes it abundantly clear to a media member what they're thinking(ie, take official visits, release a list of top schools etc), it's really just a giant guessing game. And, for the most part, anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's.

I think Hegner and Hanson will play above their rankings. Hanson especially; a 2 star recruit does not usually receive offers from Gonzaga, Iowa State, Missouri, and New Mexico. Hegner has also improved his game since he signed with us; had he still been up for grabs in the fall/spring I'm sure his rankings would've improved. I don't know much about Harris, but ESPN calls him a great shooter and athletic, so I'll take him.

[HandDownManDown]

I like the 2013 guys. - they'll do fine.

I guess I'm still chafed from our last recruiting 'expansion' under Dana, and coupling that with what I think is a feeling of urgency for putting the cornerstones in place for long term BE success, I'm twitchy. I'd prefer to be one of the sanguine types and just assume that all will be well but I'm not.

[AttyAlum]

I have noticed some chatter about how we have a 1 year window to get some big name guys in here or we will become DePaul.

No doubt, that is absolute hyperbole.

What is not hyperbole though is that DePaul is signing 150 type kids, where we are not (yet).

(And please, save the "not all 50 kids are truly top 150 kids" lecture. We all know that. The point is taht not necessarily numbers themselves, but more that we can't continually have lower classes than most, if not all, of the conference and expect to excel).

Also, I'm not saying we can't improve; in fact, I absolutely believe we can and will get better (I even said it would be unfair to use class of 2014 results as the measuring stick because of the short time period we've had to recruit those guys while an upper tier conference). Now, we just have to do it.

[Chicagojayfan]

I like the 2013 guys. - they'll do fine.

I guess I'm still chafed from our last recruiting 'expansion' under Dana, and coupling that with what I think is a feeling of urgency for putting the cornerstones in place for long term BE success, I'm twitchy. I'd prefer to be one of the sanguine types and just assume that all will be well but I'm not.

I know the feeling -- I have my concerns as well, but there is a lot of reason for hope. I'll give you the blue kool-aid view

- We are now in a BCS conference, in fact once of the most notable conferences. Getting a kid to come play in the valley is a far different recruiting exercise because the recognition just isn't there. Now, they have a chance to be on TV just about every week.

- Stadium/Facilities - Our stadium and facilities are already elite with even more on the way. Akoy described Georgetown's facilities as like something from a High School. Not only do we have top facilities, but the fan support in the stadium is really eye popping to kids. Get the kids on campus (using the BCS ties) and then seal the deal is much easier than when Altman started to make his push.

- Recruiting strategy - When Mac was hired he reached out to recruiting services to find out who were the most highly regarded young coaches when it came to recruiting. That is how we got Lutz and I believe a similar process led to Sellers. They have also worked hard to make inroads and relationships to key AAU teams and territories. Fish could sell and Altman could sell, but this staff has taken the entire sales process to another level. Being in the Big East raises the stakes, but gives them a LOT more to sell as an advantage.

- Staff has also added some bells and whistles that have worked -- the summer camp is a great idea and really something they've done well with. They really sell education, stadium and, now) will sell the Big east.

So given all that, I think there is a lot to make us optimistic.

I do think that we have to avoid the trap that Altman fell into where he'd swing for the fences with all of his recruits and went away from a base of recruits that he had success with in the midwest. We can now go recruit anywhere in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Wisconsin (I'd toss Texas into this mix as well since Lutz is so well established there) and expect to have a good reception with our recruiting pitch. In fact, hitting Minnesota really hard now seems to be a great idea given their coaching transition and the talent that they have up there.

The strategy I would think makes sense is to lock down key guys to fill roster positions there and look for difference makers to round out the squad from the top 150 players in the Big East territory. "You want to play in front of 18K in the Big East, be on TV, get a great education AND play in a high skill, high scoring offense? Come to CU"

[Bluejay Bilas]

Reasonable points have been made by optimistic, cautiously optimistic, and somewhat pessimistic posters on this topic. I do fear that people might be expecting a bit more than is likely from the five 2013 guys, as probably was true with the four 2011 guys. I'll defer to the coaches on the 2013 guys, but not everything about the unheralded nature of the class (FWIW, 247's team rankings placed Creighton outside of the top 100 for 2013) can be explained away by small state, small schools, and late blooming. I'm excited to the see what happens, but the reality of recruiting rankings is that it is rare for multiple unranked players on one one team to develop into successful high major players. Referring back to our 2011 class, which looked like a great MVC-caliber first recruiting class for Mac and co., only one of the four has thus far proven any sort of reliability and consistent D-1 aptitude. There is still plenty of time, but repeated classes like that one would have us battling in the bottom 2 or 3 spots of the Big East on an annual basis. The Big East is a bit down right now, which is great for us, but I do not think it is hyperbole to suggest that our first couple of years of recruiting in the conference are something approaching vital (they certainly are to this coaching staff). When I look, without blue-tinted glasses, at our returning players and the 5 new players (assuming no Gibbs), I see an All-American, two players I am pretty certain can compete on a top-tier Big East team (Wragge and Chatman), and 10 Big East question marks. McDermott and Wragge are Seniors. So, for the 14-15 season, that leaves Chatman and hopefully some guys who make big strides this upcoming season. Thus, my hope that we can get Joe Coleman and/or one or two well-rated, non-project 2014 recruits. And, build upon our Big East brand and recruiting reputation from there. Am I too pessimistic?

As a side note, I do not think it is accurate to say that Creighton chose Harris over Fuller. Harris obviously impressed the staff, but I do not think that is how it went down.