Coach K and the recruiting "game"
- Thread starter ThroughBlue
- Start date
No thanks, I don't drink old moldy water. Here's some new updated water, though.
https://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1703221
Oh, and for comparison sake:
Skal #1 > Ingram #4
Murray #9 > Thornton #14
Briscoe #10 > Jeter #16
Mathews #48 < Kennard #25
Mulder JC 4-Star > Vrankovic 3-Star unrated.
Obviously, this doesn't even factor in Humphries. I think it's pretty easy to see who has the #1 class.
Skal #1 > Ingram #4
Murray #9 > Thornton #14
Briscoe #10 > Jeter #16
Mathews #48 < Kennard #25
Mulder JC 4-Star > Vrankovic 3-Star unrated.
Obviously, this doesn't even factor in Humphries. I think it's pretty easy to see who has the #1 class.
I don't understand why people worry about class rankings. What was the Florida class rated, the one that won back to back national titles? Meanwhile, we had the top recruit at every position except for Wiggins, and we lost to Florida three times. Duke can have the No. 1 recruiting class title. I'll be happy racking up Final Fours every year as a consolation prize.
And at least one, and probably two, of those were with ineligible players. They scrutinize everything UK does, while they turn a blind eye toward Durham.
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"Why was Duke able to thrash the same West Virginia team that beat us the game before? Because West Virginia was a terrible outside shooting team that had a huge night from three against us, then went into the Duke game thinking those shots were still going to fall. Seen it happen many a time."
WVU shot 41% from 3 against Duke. (5/12) not bad shooting by any means. The problem is Duke shot 52% and hit 13/25 and scored pretty much any way they wanted. WVU didn't guard that night and they got blown out. Also there was a revenge factor there as several of the Duke players had lost to some of those same WVU guys in the 2008 NCAA'S and it was pretty clear based on some comments they've made since then they were not losing to WVU that night in Indy. They were salivating for that game.
Regarding recruiting, I have to assume that some posting were just very young back in the late 90's/early 00's or else they would be aware of the insane amount of talent Duke was bringing in. Brand/Battier/Avery in 1997, that was a # 1 class. Dunleavy/Boozer/J Williams, another # 1 class in 1999. Redick/ Shelden Williams/Dockery/Randolph ( I think that was another top rated class in 2002. ) Surrounding them, Nate James, Chris Duhon, Daniel Ewing, Luol Deng, Shaun Livingston (committed but skipped college) etc.
Where has the OP been?
WVU shot 41% from 3 against Duke. (5/12) not bad shooting by any means. The problem is Duke shot 52% and hit 13/25 and scored pretty much any way they wanted. WVU didn't guard that night and they got blown out. Also there was a revenge factor there as several of the Duke players had lost to some of those same WVU guys in the 2008 NCAA'S and it was pretty clear based on some comments they've made since then they were not losing to WVU that night in Indy. They were salivating for that game.
Regarding recruiting, I have to assume that some posting were just very young back in the late 90's/early 00's or else they would be aware of the insane amount of talent Duke was bringing in. Brand/Battier/Avery in 1997, that was a # 1 class. Dunleavy/Boozer/J Williams, another # 1 class in 1999. Redick/ Shelden Williams/Dockery/Randolph ( I think that was another top rated class in 2002. ) Surrounding them, Nate James, Chris Duhon, Daniel Ewing, Luol Deng, Shaun Livingston (committed but skipped college) etc.
Where has the OP been?
Florida didn't have a team full of Freshman, so I don't comprehend the comparison. If you don't care about recruiting rankings, that is your right. I tend to follow them, and if I honestly thought Duke had the better class, I wouldn't hesitate to say it... But it's pretty simple, they don't. I'm sorry if that bothers you.
Duke don't have the No.1 class of 2016 by it's self, Rivals pick Kentucky. The biggest thing is when Coach K went after The Ones & Dones that keep media off Calipari back.
Kentucky & Coach Cal will still be winning lots of games.
Kentucky & Coach Cal will still be winning lots of games.
I think you should just go ahead and admit what you really are and stop pretending to be a UK fan. Posts like yours are pathetic
Bragging about winning the No. 1 recruiting class is like a baseball team bragging about winning the Hot Stove League. Duke signed five guys who all dominated their high school teams. We signed five guys who all dominated their high school teams. The question is which team will get those players to mesh into the already existent college team the best. Cause those guys all dominated their high school teams, too.
What does it matter? we are talking about recruiting TALENT, not how long players stay.
Read the OP. Coach K now recruits players that are coming to Duke with intentions of staying one year and leaving. JJ Reddick wasn't going anywhere after his freshman year.
Elton Brand? J Williams? you don't think they could have gone? kids stayed longer back then, it was a different era.
Below is the OP'S post:
With his second straight #1 recruiting class, and could possibly be three after next year..has there ever been a coach to adapt the way that Coach K has in the past few years. Bringing in players like Kyrie, Sub-Zero, Jabari, Okafor, Winslow, and Jones has turned Duke back to the "it" school that it was in the early 90's.
My question to my big blue brothers and sisters is what can we do to overcome the talent that Coach K is funneling into Durham?
Yes they could have gone, but they didn't. When you got an elite player back then you normally had them for 3 or 4 years. Its a lot easier to win when you have a high school all american that is now a junior. For a few years it seemed the majority of the one and dones were coming here. Now it seems like they are splitting us and yall.
Kansas seems to be getting their share. They have someone take off to the league just about every year.
I bet most of the top 15 kids every year see themselves as one and done. Cal cornered the market on getting them on campus, getting them to play hard, and not seeing their draft status slip. With exceptions, of course. K has been recruiting these same kids every year, but only getting one into the lottery per year. Last year he got three, and they won a title along the way. This year will be interesting to watch. How will he handle losing his three or four best players at once? We saw what happened to us in 2013.
Funny how the tune has changed in phonyville. Losing in first round to Lehigh and Mercer sure did change that.
Truthfully, I can't attest to how Duke fans as a whole felt about UK and Cal's recruiting before K adopted the same strategy. But I certainly remember Kansas fans on their Scout forum. They absolutely slammed UK for the one-and-dones, claiming they would never want Self to recruit that way. Always accused our players of not caring about UK, Cal ruining college basketball...................you name it.
And now they absolutely clamour for all of the elite recruits they can get. I'm guessing Duke fans did the same.
Funny to watch.
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Yup, UK would have won each game by 20+ last year easily if they had had Duke's path (I mean the first 5 games, as the title game would have been a bloodbath regardless if it was Duke, or Wisconsin).
Last time I checked UK has 8 titles and Duke has 5. K will retire one day and I highly doubt he gets to 8 before that time.
We have always went after the top talent in the country but have not been as successful as u at getting them. The only surefire oad was oakafor.Winslow and Jones were not thought of as oads until we won the NC
Coach K went almost 20 years without having a single NBA early entrant until '99 with Elton Brand, Avery, Maggette. Duke was the place you went to and stayed until you graduated, no matter how good you were - which was of course yet another thing that supposedly made them better than everyone else and for which the media heaped praise on them. I can still imagine Vitale gushing about Duke players being true student-athletes, yada, yada.
That rep actually started to drag their recruiting down over the next decade, even though they did win a championship in 2001. I think as well K somewhat avoided recruiting OAD types. Amazingly, Luol Deng was the lone NBA early entrant from Duke in the first decade of the 21st century. That recruiting dip just so happened to coincide with arch-rival UNC having a great run.
I think the game changer was UNC beating out Duke for Harrison Barnes. After that, Duke signed Kyrie Irving, who became the 1st Duke OAD since Maggette in 1999. K may have started slow with Irving, Rivers, Parker, but he's all-in now, and you can expect Duke to be right there with UK every year signing 4-5 of the best players in the country.
It's going to be interesting to see how the media spins it over the next few years. Of course, they're already spinning it as indicative of K's genius and adaptability.
Of course, you could also spin it as a old man near the end of his career whose ego and drive to win and pad his resume as the GOAT has won out over what were supposedly his convictions for the first 30 years of his career, but I doubt you'll hear that take very often.
That rep actually started to drag their recruiting down over the next decade, even though they did win a championship in 2001. I think as well K somewhat avoided recruiting OAD types. Amazingly, Luol Deng was the lone NBA early entrant from Duke in the first decade of the 21st century. That recruiting dip just so happened to coincide with arch-rival UNC having a great run.
I think the game changer was UNC beating out Duke for Harrison Barnes. After that, Duke signed Kyrie Irving, who became the 1st Duke OAD since Maggette in 1999. K may have started slow with Irving, Rivers, Parker, but he's all-in now, and you can expect Duke to be right there with UK every year signing 4-5 of the best players in the country.
It's going to be interesting to see how the media spins it over the next few years. Of course, they're already spinning it as indicative of K's genius and adaptability.
Of course, you could also spin it as a old man near the end of his career whose ego and drive to win and pad his resume as the GOAT has won out over what were supposedly his convictions for the first 30 years of his career, but I doubt you'll hear that take very often.
Not really. There was some thought Winslow might be, but only well after he committed... His senior year he really began to develop his shot. Still nobody was really seriously talking about him being OAD until folks started to see how he played. And Duke didn't even recruit a PG in the 2015 class because they assumed Tyus would be there two years, and then Thornton would take over.
And for the thousandth time... Ks recruiting intent hasn't really changed. He has recruited plenty of expected OADs... Wright, McRoberts, Livingston, Bazz, Wall, Monroe, and so on. Many just didn't come to Duke. Now he happens to be landing them. I mean, the class immediately following the Okafor class is five guys deep with only one expected OAD. In the class after that it looks much more likely Duke will get at least two OADS, which is the same number we expected in the Irving class (Barnes seemed destined for Duke.). Not a lot has changed from Ks vantage point... He is still recruiting the talent. We are just landing one or two more.
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by- by!! Put you on Ignore,
When Coach K & Duke passes Kentucky with Wins & National Championships don't even come here with your junk.
Only Calipari can recruit one and done players? Pretty sure every elite program is recruiting all of these elite players.
Maybe when the national title game was played, but sure as hell not when they were recruited or even as late as January. Their evolution into one-and-done talent doesn't change the fact that both were predicted to be multi-year players when they were recruited. It's a pretty large reason why Coach K had to scramble and land Derryck Thornton after the title game.
You guys may have felt you knew something the rest of us didn't but when a top 15 recruit goes to an elite program like Duke, most people's assumption is they would like to be one and done. Jones and Winslow were 9 & 12 respectively. Especially Jones, who coming out of high school, was known for being a solid decision-making floor general, though his physical tools were limited. I knew watching him early on that his stock would never get higher by staying in school.
Rankings don't always mean that a guy will be OAD, and top 15 certainly doesn't.
You want a perfect example? Look at Kyle Singler. Rated around five in his class, but nobody expected him to bolt for the league... He isn't a huge athlete, and that tends to restrict guys.
Don't know how else to put this. I am a pretty big Duke fan... Check up on news and stuff probably ten times a day.... Jones was highly rated but, given his size and relative lack of athleticism, he was expected to play two years. Again, note that K didn't recruit a PG in the next class, and had to scramble to get Thornton in a year early. Hell, one TV analyst said, about a month into the year, that Tyus Jones gave Duke nothing while he was on the floor. There was a little more idea about Winslow, but only once he started playing, and people realized he could shoot a bit.
Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that Ks recruiting is changed. He tries to get talented guys every year, he just happen to get a really good group of talented guys last year.
You want a perfect example? Look at Kyle Singler. Rated around five in his class, but nobody expected him to bolt for the league... He isn't a huge athlete, and that tends to restrict guys.
Don't know how else to put this. I am a pretty big Duke fan... Check up on news and stuff probably ten times a day.... Jones was highly rated but, given his size and relative lack of athleticism, he was expected to play two years. Again, note that K didn't recruit a PG in the next class, and had to scramble to get Thornton in a year early. Hell, one TV analyst said, about a month into the year, that Tyus Jones gave Duke nothing while he was on the floor. There was a little more idea about Winslow, but only once he started playing, and people realized he could shoot a bit.
Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that Ks recruiting is changed. He tries to get talented guys every year, he just happen to get a really good group of talented guys last year.
Oh I know. You guys know your players better than I do. But as things are going now, when a guy's stock it's going to go up by staying, he usually goes. Duke has been fortunate that guys in that situation, like Singler, have stuck around. The Tyus Jones's and Kyle Singler's of the modern college basketball world are taking off now.
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