Barnes recruiting strategy

[horn4jc]

First, if it is true that Tristan Thompson is going pro, I wish him the the best. Same thing if Jordan Hamilton follows.

That said, I think Barnes needs to adjust his recruiting strategy. When Texas went to the Final Four, he had TJ Ford surrounded by solid 4 year players. Now he recruiting mostly players that are one and done. This is hurting team chemistry. Not saying don't recruit them at all. But, guys like Brandon Mouton, Royal Ivey, Jason Klotz, etc were the nucleus of the 03 team. Not to mention JT! You do want to have the best players you can get. But they do you no good if they leave even when they may not be ready. The only ones who really should have left early were LaMarcus Aldridge Kevin Durant, and TJ.
I know that this problem is not unique to Texas but I think Barnes needs to tweak his recruiting strategy and remember what got the 03 team to the Final Four.

Please discuss.

 

[Joe2005]

Unless Barnes doesn't recruit many players, I'm not sure how 3 one-and-done players (Durant, Bradley, Thompson) over 13 years is a recruiting strategy of mostly one-and-done players.

In case you didn't notice, this year's team had a bunch of seniors too - Lucas, Hill, Balbay, and Gary Johnson (Clint Chapman too if he hadn't redshirted). The difference is this class of seniors didn't turn out as good as the TJ Ford collection - or they didn't have a TJ Ford to make them look so awesome. (btw, TJ Ford's team was mostly surrounded by juniors, not seniors).

What you seem to want is to recruit players who we know aren't so good now that they might leave early, but will be so good in 3 or 4 years that they will be a championship team. That's difficult to do at best, and sort of bizarre when you can recruit players who you know are good NOW instead of hoping they might be good in 3 or 4 years.

 

[Third Coast]

Be careful what you wish for. Other than Kabongo, next year's team may be full of 4 year type players.

 

[busterbrown16]

This has been discussed ad naseum so I don't want to rehash all of it again. Guys on this forum have diametrically opposed views and that is just the way it is going to be.

I do think Joe's argument is very misleading because I think you can group the two and done players with the one and done players because it has the same effect. It sets the program back and almost gives it a "starting over" effect.

Let's face it, you can add Aldridge to the one and done group because he was hurt early in his freshman year and left after his only full season at Texas. DJ Augustine also left after his second year and he would have left earlier if he had not been overshadowed by Kevin Durant as a freshman. Jordan is also leaving after his second year, but that is mainly because it took him an entire year to learn how to not be a spoiled brat on the court and play within the team. Now that he has learned to do that, he has gotten everything he needs out of Texas and is going to realize his dream of the NBA.

The problem is not the number of guys that do it necessarily, but the impact it has on the overall program. And, at Texas, it has had a considerable impact.

 

[TXThorn]

Agreed. You might as well throw in the two-and-done guys with the one-and-done guys also, as they combine to form a staggered effect that keeps us from ever building solid depth and the ability to effectively replace the most important players and also have a solid cast around the new guy. So we are now very light down-low for next year. Let's say we develop these young big guys over a year so they will be much more potent for 2012-13, and then we add a few big men recruits. Then Myck and C.J. go pro after next year (and although not a one or two and done guy...J'Covan leaves too). Once again, the stagger effect hits us on the opposite end and we are very light in the backcourt for 2012-13.

The limited number of recruits, mixed with our strategy and the way it's played out does not cut it. So we may eventually be an Elite 8 or Final 4 team every now and again, but never can get past that hump to truly compete for a title. IMO, we have the Calipari strategy without the Calipari recruiting coups. Leaves us a man or two short and always will.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

The problem with the strategy is that people see the mid-majors who have success with senior-laden squads (that's usually my first thing when looking at a bracket, find the school with a strong core of seniors), and they get fired up about that team being able to go farther than we do. But we don't think about that team the next year when the seniors are gone and more often than not that team's off the radar.

My guess is that if we just stopped going after the one-and-done types, we'd see a lot more years in which we didn't do much at all rather than being consistently where we are. We might catch lightning in a bottle every three or four years, the question is which do you like better.

I would prefer that the NCAA do something useful for a change and step in to try and save this sport. One-and-dones are absolutely killing college basketball IMO, and it's not unreasonable for the NCAA to pass a rule stating that if you want to go straight to the NCAA that's fine, but if you want to play basketball at a university, you have to commit to at least two or three years.

Otherwise the NCAA is admitting what it refuses to acknowledge and what most of us already know: the concept of a student athlete is an absolute joke.

 

[Joe2005]

In reply to:

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[2222Horn]

On the other hand, look at UNC, they have 3 guys returning that were expected to go pro (Zeller, Henson and Barnes) and they have two studs (McAdoo and Hairston) coming in. Could be considered an embarrassment of riches but Williams is going to have to really coddle some egos next year.

But who would have expected Barnes to come back after he was a preseason first team AA as a frosh? No one can predict this. The reason Joseph probably declared is that so many of the top guys decided to stay. Too many variables and lots of options for HS players.

And as the OP himself stated, who would have expected Gibson, PJ Tucker, Maurice Evans to go pro? So how does the OP expect Barnes to have a Magic 8 ball to predict this? We just don't have a clue what people are whispering to these kids.

 

[Bigtex112]

I guess the question is would Bill Self or Roy Williams or John Calipari, or any other coach who has won an NCAA title in the last 10 years, turned away Kevin Durant, TJ Ford, Daniel Gibson, Tristan Thompson, etc? I don't think so. Like someone said above, you don't know who gets the ear of these guys. The only beef I have with Rick is that from an interview he did a couple years ago, his philosophy seemed to lean toward getting kids to the NBA over winning championships at Texas. On the surface that seems contradictory but in reality the two goals aren't really mutually exclusive. If you have players good enough to get to the NBA, you should be able to win at the college level. Rick's won but in some areas he's underperformed given the talent he's had. I'm specifically speaking about conference championships both regular season and tournament.