We had a discussion about how many scholarships to use where I advocated focusing on fewer more impact players. Others made a point about using all 15 scholarships because you never know who might turn out to be good and it’s a numbers game. I don’t see how getting a developmental recruit in the class of 2025 who’s only other offer is Idaho state coming in with 5 other freshmen players and will redshirt this year, will help us in the long run. The chances of that are very small. We could’ve used the scholarship money saved by having 14 scholarship players towards house settlement funds for one guy (that’s $90K). Graduating our 2 senior bigs does not concern me. I have no question we will be able to find a good proven big man in the portal next year looking to transfer up and can make an immediate impact.
Others seem to think we can get an impact player with the 15th scholarship. Reality is we’re going to get developmental players like this. So save that money of scholarship for 15th guy and NIL given to him and use that instead to recruit a higher caliber recruit who can make more of an immediate impact for our program.
This theory wont really work IMHO. I suspect that scholarships not used will not create additional dollars of player pay to consolidate into a higher caliber recruit. The school isn't actually out of pocket for the scholarship. Yes its "worth" 90K but I don't see that UR will allocate $270K in more actual cash out of pocket dollars for unused scholarships 13-15. Thats actual cash unlike the scholarship and comes on top of additional cash already being searched for to pay the house agreement etc. Just don't see it happening this way at UR (or most anywhere). I agree with notion of not paying them anything and no NIL etc. and use all we have for the top of the roster but that piece alone isn't going to be enough to have much impact.
I do believe the related thread thoughts about the fact that there is some inefficiency in the High School recruiting marketplace. I'd like to see us take advantage of this, but that's easier said than done. We have to be able to identify the right players who the market is missing on AND successfully woo them ( against others who will no doubt be trying to exploit the same market inefficiency). This isn't exactly a sweet spot for us historically. We quite frankly don't win a lot of recruiting wars for kids where we aren't the best school on their list. To the extent we have a strength in recruiting, I think its in recognizing kids whose ability turns out to be better than their place in the market. In other words, we have done well sometimes where we are the best (or among the best) schools on someone's list and that player turns out to be pretty good and the market had him tooo low. But we miss on a lot of these too.
IMHO being successful at recruiting comes through three areas - - (1) winning the occasional battle for a kid who might be slotted in at a higher level in the recruiting hierarchy; (2) consistently winning enough battles for kids that are slotted in solidly at your level (and it being kids who generally live up to that level and occasionally exceed that level) and (3) identifying some kids who are slotted in at lower levels that turn out to be better than that level. To be consistently successful as a program, you need some of all three.
Success at the first only occasionally is fine. Two needs to be your bread and butter and I don't feel like we get it done there often enough! Three is a different skill in my view. One and two require you to sell - - the coach, the school and the program, but its all about wooing the kid and selling him. Three is about identifying the kid who is better than everyone else thinks he is. You still have to sell, but being the highest level school on a kids list will get a lot of the sales done! One and two are sales jobs. Three is identify and develop. I think we do OK on three. The problem to me is because we don't get enough at the number two, we have too many in group three and you are going to miss on them more often than not.
As we have moved into a new era of recruiting with NIL and the portal, this 3 pronged approach changes some. Group One is even harder than it ever was because NIL dollars will make it even harder to convince a kid to come. Two and three are different - - harder in some ways, but maybe easier (or more opportunities) in some ways. First off, anybody you get in groups two or three, you are going to have to fight to keep way more than before. But there may now be some kids, for example, in group two who might have been in group one before and your competition to get them is more on your level now. So more kids that are big boy leftovers, but a fight to keep not only them but also your historical group two kids who turn out to be successful and you have to fend off the big boys every year for that kid! But if we can win some battles here, I think Moon has actually been pretty good at building loyalty etc. within the program and we might be able to do as well as or better than peers at keeping people.
Most importantly, we have to be better at actually winning battles against other schools at our level. At our level is not and can not be a NET 250 (or even 200) ranked team to be clear. At our level to me has to be teams that are consistently somewhere in the 50-100 NET range. This will put us top 5 every year in A10 and in with the bottom half (roughly) of P5 schools. We have to win some battles with these people. Historically we have not won many of these battles and we have made up for it (only somewhat) by identifying some lesser recruited kids who have worked out.
Problem is, I don't see how or why that would happen now forus when it hasn't up to now!
