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POLL: New coach

For recruiting purposes, we just need to keep promoting UR name recognition for academics and a winning tradition. . "Street Cred", so to speak, is what it is all about with kids today in social media. That's how RPI came out of nowhere in basketball and ODU will do the same in football. Marketing!!!!

This post was edited on 4/20 11:28 AM by SpiderK
 
Originally posted by SpiderTrap:
Recruiting - college basketball at the highest level and high mid-major level, which is where the A10 falls - is mostly about recruiting.

At the higest level - its about getting the best players, usually all-americans or potential NBA players - and letting them make plays. At the the A10 level - its about outrecrutiing and getting better players than your competition in the conference.

You can try to develop talent within, but I think that sets you up for being a good team every few years when you have all the pieces come together. Get the best players - and now your talking about reloading rather than rebuilding.
I don't completely agree. It is not about overrecruiting other programs in the A10, it is about getting players whofit your system and out coaching your opponents.

Here are the average recruiting stars for each A10 team according to Verbal Commits:

[ 1] VCU (3.37)
[ 2] URI (3.03)
[ 3] UMass (2.85)
[ 4] SJU (2.77)
[ 5] Dayton (2.68)
[ 6] La Salle (2.53)
[ 7] GW (2.52)
[ 8] SLU (2.50)
[ 9] GMU (2.44)
[10] Duq (2.30)
[11] For (2.26)
[12] SBU (2.25)
[13] Richmond (2.24)
[14] Davidson (2.18)

Davidson was the worst at recruiting, which isn't surprising since they just came from a lower conference, but that didn't stop them from having success. Similarly we had success this year besides having the 2nd worst average star rating while teams like UMass, SJU, La Salle etc. all underperformed based on their recruiting rankings. I see little correlation between recruiting rankings and success in the A10. While I do think recruiting is important, I think other aspects of coaching are even more important in the A10.
 
all this talk about finding someone off the CM coaching tree ... I don't get it. if I'm CM, I obviously believe, no I know, that my system is what's best for UR. my coaching career depends on the success of my team, and I want the best people around me to help me reach our goals. but I'm not hiring someone who's going to fight me every step of the way. if you're not on board with what I do and how I do it, you're not being considered for the job. I want you to teach my system and recruit for my system. maybe that's just me. and CM.
 
I don't think anyone is suggesting that he intentionally hire someone who disagrees with him at every turn. That would be stupid. But the point is that, in my opinion and those of some others here, it might not be the worst idea in the world to bring in an experienced guy who has been to a few different spots, learned from a few different coaches and developed a broad base of knowledge. (And hopefully a solid recruiting track record, too.)

I own a business. Should I only ever hire people who interned for me - and hire them right out of college? Or should I mix in a new hire from time to time who has worked for different businesses, large and small, and who can bring some different perspective to the mix?
 
Originally posted by WebSpinner:
if one looks at the D-1 transfer list each year as well as the number of guys sitting on the bench, not getting in games, at every school, have to conclude that they all miss. other than the top 50 or so guys, you get lucky sometimes, sometimes you do not. happens in the nfl, nba, mlb and they scout and prod and inspect those guys to the hilt. a crap shoot in a lot of ways, particularly at our level where we don't get a shot at the top 50 or even 100 guys.
I think you are partially correct here. However not all of them should be construed as misses. For instance, T.J. Cline I don't think is a recruiting miss for Niagara. He was good for them and simply moved up the food chain. Those transfers that are moving to a higher name conference and/or school I would not classify as misses.
 
I see something different when I look at that list Fan2011.

You see VCU and URI at the top - no surprise there, since they have been recruiting at a high level recently and guess what - they are at the top of the league or predicted to be there for the time being. Then you have UMASS, SJU, and Dayton rounding out the top half - Dayton has done very well, and I expect their recruting only to get better with recent success. UMASS has been pretty good recently as well - NIT Final Four in 2012, NIT in 2013, and NCAA in 2014. Middle of the pack team this past season, but ususually middle to upper level A10 team. SJU - not sure what is going on, btu they have fallen hard recently. They do have one of the leagues top 5 players in Embry, but nothing around him.

Then you look at bottom of your list - Duquesne, Fordham, SBU, Richmond, and Davidson. Other than ourselves and Davidson in their first year - these are perennial bottom feeders of the league.

I guess my point is - yes, you can do it your way. Find guys to fit your system, develop them, etc. Which seems to be what Davidson does as well or has done in the past. Or you could recruit the best players and recruit better than your conference opponents. Not saying its not possible - but I like my odds and chances better of getting the better players and maybe adapting more to their style. Think it lends itself to more success over time and more reloading rather then rebuilding.
 
You would think UR would be past the point of having to make chicken salad out of you know what. Lets make it out of chicken for a change.
 
Originally posted by SpiderTrap:
I see something different when I look at that list Fan2011.

You see VCU and URI at the top - no surprise there, since they have been recruiting at a high level recently and guess what - they are at the top of the league or predicted to be there for the time being. Then you have UMASS, SJU, and Dayton rounding out the top half - Dayton has done very well, and I expect their recruting only to get better with recent success. UMASS has been pretty good recently as well - NIT Final Four in 2012, NIT in 2013, and NCAA in 2014. Middle of the pack team this past season, but ususually middle to upper level A10 team. SJU - not sure what is going on, btu they have fallen hard recently. They do have one of the leagues top 5 players in Embry, but nothing around him.

Then you look at bottom of your list - Duquesne, Fordham, SBU, Richmond, and Davidson. Other than ourselves and Davidson in their first year - these are perennial bottom feeders of the league.

I guess my point is - yes, you can do it your way. Find guys to fit your system, develop them, etc. Which seems to be what Davidson does as well or has done in the past. Or you could recruit the best players and recruit better than your conference opponents. Not saying its not possible - but I like my odds and chances better of getting the better players and maybe adapting more to their style. Think it lends itself to more success over time and more reloading rather then rebuilding.
UMass hasn't finished higher than 6th in the A10 in the past 7 years, they are not a top A10 team they are a perennial middle to bottom of the A10 team. SJU had one good year in 2014, but other than that they have not been good. Dayton has done well, I agree, but both VCU and URI have underperformed based on their recruiting. I'll give URI the benefit of the doubt since Hurley hasn't had much time there, but VCU should be blowing everyone else in the A10 away if recruiting was everything. They have been good, but they haven't been better than other top A10 teams.

Davidson and Richmond have greatly over performed based on recruiting, It probably has something to do with our coaching. If recruiting was everything we would see a strong correlation between recruiting rankings and A10 rankings, but we don't.


There is actually a slightly negative correlation between recruiting and both kenpom rating and A10 ranking, although the R^2 values are both below 0.1, meaning that there was basically no correlation between average recruiting stars and final position in the A10 standings or kenpom rating this past year.


This post was edited on 4/20 1:20 PM by fan2011
 
I hope that's not the case but reading of late here thinking CM will be UR's coach until they ask him to leave. His so called "system" has translated to success on the A10 level. I hope not intentional about the small guard recruiting but that along with his rebounding philosophy won't put him above the middle of the pack at best in a major 5/6 conference. As Clint Eastwood has stated, "a man has to know his limitations" and CM is a very smart guy.

Hey the Spiders under his direction might always be in the 3-6 range in the A10 but those couple schools who recruit better will always be a problem. I LOLed awhile back when I saw a Sherod vid and said no way he's coming here. Well I sure like to eat crow and see him or Buck arrive and others start coming too. Get the best on paper talent and mold that would be nice.
 
Originally posted by fan2011:
Originally posted by MrTbone:
Concur, but CM has basically said if a guy can do the things he wants him to do (shoot, dribble, pass) then his measurables don't matter that much. I think that's a somewhat flawed philosophy but I don't coach bball.
I don't find the philosophy flawed. Despite having short guards we have been a top 50 defense (points allowed per possession) the past two years. We had the shortest player in the A10, and he was a first-teamer. We also had the 3rd shortest player, and he was voted 6th man of the year. The guards we have had have been extremely valuable to the team, their size didn't matter.

Here are the average heights of all A10 teams this past season (weighted by playing time) and their national rank

[ 1] La Salle 77.8 inches (37)
[ 2] GW 77.5 inches (58)
[ 3] Bona 77.4 inches (77)
[ 4] GMU 77.2 inches (107)
[ 5] SJU 77.2 inches (108)
[ 6] SLU 76.9 inches (136)
[ 7] UMass 76.6 inches (185)
[ 8] Fordham 76.5 inches (194)
[ 9] VCU 76.5 inches (199)
[10] URI 76.4 inches (217)
[11] Dayton 76.0 inches (267)
[12] Duquesne 76.0 (268)
[13] Davidson 75.9 (277)
[14] Richmond 75.7 (302)

Notice that the top 5 teams from this past year are all in the bottom 6 in terms of height. In the A10 height is not what makes a team good, in fact the teams that have chosen to focus on recruiting height seem to be worse. We can be very good with short guards if those short guards are good, and Mooney seems to have a knack for finding this type of guy.


This post was edited on 4/19 9:48 PM by fan2011
Fan2011, love the data, you are of my own school of thought.

I think maybe I should re-phrase to say that the philosophy is self-limiting? We have had good success with our model, but maybe we are settling for guys who are lightly recruited knowing that they hit whatever our magic trifecta is.

For the record, I think there are lots of influences here that merit consideration. Wasting time on guys who only want to play P5 or a certain style is probably not worth our time. I just think we could recruit at a slightly higher level and have more upside in so doing. But that's ignoring lots of other peripheral stuff.
 
we should all acknowledge that UR and Davidson are also, by far, the smallest, most academically demanding, and the whitest schools in the A-10. I know we all love our school but it cannot be the easiest place to recruit players. It's not an excuse and I think CM does a great job making it a positive but it certainly makes our pool of potential recruits smaller than most. I don't think we are realistically ever going to roll the ball onto the court and think our 5 beat anyone else's 5 straight up. Wainwright tried that and it was a disaster. It's just not the way UR is going to operate. We need a "system" and a coach that 100% believes in and values the things that make UR different. CM is a very good/perfect fit and like it or not I just think it's our reality.
 
We are all aware of the recruiting challenges inherent in recruiting players to come to our school (many of the same challenges a Davidson would have). But at the end of the day, we have to have continuous improvement in that area if we are to move up in the college basketball world order. Otherwise, we are doomed to be a post-season team every 3 or 4 years when we have a crop of upperclassmen who have played in the system together successfully.

We spend a lot of money on basketball, and we have expectations that go along with both that level of spend, and past success. We could hire an "up and coming" young coach every few years, pay him a lot less, ditch the chartered flights, etc., and probably have similar results to what we have had for the past 4 years.

We have had a significant number of recruiting misses (i.e. players who have come here, and not panned out), as well as "early" recruiting misses where we go hard after a high-profile player and not had him sign a LOI (White, Henderson, and others). The bottom line is that we have to recruit better than we have if we want to keep the program moving in the right direction, and a new assistant who is a lights out recruiter would help a lot.
 
recruiting is a huge part of basketball success but recruit RANKINGS mean nothing. if we landed TJ out of high school, some here would have freaked out! "His only other offer was from Niagra and he just had looks from Liberty, San Jose State, Western Kentucky, and Lehigh??? OMG!"

the fact that he wasn't ranked high wouldn't have meant that he wasn't a great recruit for UR. some of you guys have to stop blindly buying what the recruiting gurus say. there are a lot of kids playing ball out there. CM and his staff are finding really good ones. sometimes other schools and the gurus agree they're good and sometimes they don't. most of our best players weren't hugh recruiting wins anyway. the misses like big Luke, Singleton, maybe Kadeem and Chandler ... no harm done. 13 man rosters make it ok to miss sometimes.
 
Originally posted by spiderman:
the misses like big Luke, Singleton, maybe Kadeem and Chandler ... no harm done. 13 man rosters make it ok to miss sometimes.


It is certainly not "no harm done" by these misses in my book. Recruiting misses have huge impacts on a program. Imagine if instead of whiffing on these 4 guys, we hit on just two of them with a guy who could make a significant contribution to the program. Take for instance Tim Singleton. Right now, we would have a rising Junior shooting guard. I think that is a pretty big need that we would like to have filled now. Depth has been an issue the past 2 years as well, again, would be nice to have one of these misses allow for extra depth when an injury strikes.

To me there is a direct correlation between our lack of participation in the NCAA for the past four years and the number of recruiting misses during that time.

And I'm not a big believer in stars or recruiting rankings, but it doesn't take a basketball guru to look at Kadeem and Chandler one other offer from a low tier school last year and make an educated guess that these guys might have been recruiting reaches.
 
97, no matter what college roster you choose to look at, if they have 13 kids then 4 aren't playing. kids that aren't playing are going to leave and be considered a miss, or stay but sit on the bench and be considered a miss, or not get time early enough and be considered a miss. ever team has a ton of "misses", unless you are Kentucky and there's room every year because kids leave early. but even there, I'm sure some don't get time and even those kids are misses.
 
Just a reminder how tough recruiting can be. Look at DT, TD, ANO, then look at K0, TJ, KA. Tell me which three you would have picked walking into a new gym for a pickup game. If you are being honest as to which 3 you would have taken, you would have lost 21-5 in that game.
 
K, I think the "0" key on your keyboard somehow got swapped with the "5" key. You may want to check that out.
 
Recruiting is by its nature very tough. That's why the schools that do it best tend to have the best results in terms of winning.

We will never recruit with the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, etc. As has been stated here previously, our goal should be to out-recruit the other A10 schools. Out-recruiting them doesn't necessarily mean we get more 3 and 4 star players than they do, it means we get the best recruits possible given our academic standards, and our team's system of play.
 
Kee, agreed. The art at our level is recruiting the best "basketball players" we can get not the best "athletes" we can get.
 
I don't think "the whitest" school is a factor and it bothers me that race should ever be brought into this conversation.
We have quite a few "black" nerds that come to this school and couldn't dribble and walk at the same time.
 
I don't think our self-described "whiteness" should have any basketball-specific relevance whatsoever.

However, basketball aside, not having a large percentage of "students of color" might have an impact on whether or not a student or student/athlete would feel comfortable with the campus culture at a school that has a smaller percentage of such students.
 
Originally posted by keefusb:
I don't think our self-described "whiteness" should have any basketball-specific relevance whatsoever.

However, basketball aside, not having a large percentage of "students of color" might have an impact on whether or not a student or student/athlete would feel comfortable with the campus culture at a school that has a smaller percentage of such students.
Only 60% of Richmond's students are white. This is slightly less than the percentage people in the United States who are white. I don't think we are a 'white' school, our demographics mirror the demographics of the country. Maybe we were a long time ago?
 
I guess my point from that list was - you look at it - and VCU recruits at a high level and is making the NCAA tourney each year. URI has been recruiting well since Hurley took over and they made it to the NIT in his second year after being near the bottom of the A10. And based on what they have returning - all signs point to them being an NCAA team next season, and if Hurley stays at URI (a big IF) - then I think he will continue that trend. Not saying he is a great coach - but he is a good recruiter and getting to the NCAA tourney only helps him recruit. Dayton - based on your list, they have been recruiting well and have had NCAA success (Elite 8 and won a game this past season in NCAA tourney) - so they are doing well. UMASS - yes, not great lately and probably underperformed to their recruiting slightly - but they have been better than we have in the last 3-4 years. In that time - they have an NIT final four, NIT, and NCAA appearance. What do we have the last 3-4 years - NIT and CBI. SJU - they are the loser of the bunch. Have not performed well at all. So out of the top 5 teams on your recruiting list - I would say 3 have done well (URI, VCU, and Dayton) and UMASS has done better than UR.

Look at the bottom 5 teams - Duquesne, SBU, Fordham - perennial bottom feeders of the league. Only 2 of the 5 - ourselves and Davidson, and Davidson's recruiting might be skewed since they have only been in the league one year, it will be interesting to see if they increase their recruiting because of the change or continue to look for under the radar guys - have had success.

In my book 4 out of 5 look better than UR at the top, and at the bottom - its 2 out of 5. I like 4 out of 5.
 
HoopDirt.com says Marcus Jenkins may be our new assistant. He played for Mooney at Air Force, coached here for 4 years with him and has been at Princeton ever since. So much for thinking out of the box. At least he has coached somewhere else for 4 years, I guess.

http://hoopdirt.com/daily-dirt-42015/
 
I guess my point from that list was - you look at it - and VCU recruits at a high level and is making the NCAA tourney each year. URI has been recruiting well since Hurley took over and they made it to the NIT in his second year after being near the bottom of the A10. And based on what they have returning - all signs point to them being an NCAA team next season, and if Hurley stays at URI (a big IF) - then I think he will continue that trend. Not saying he is a great coach - but he is a good recruiter and getting to the NCAA tourney only helps him recruit. Dayton - based on your list, they have been recruiting well and have had NCAA success (Elite 8 and won a game this past season in NCAA tourney) - so they are doing well. UMASS - yes, not great lately and probably underperformed to their recruiting slightly - but they have been better than we have in the last 3-4 years. In that time - they have an NIT final four, NIT, and NCAA appearance. What do we have the last 3-4 years - NIT and CBI. SJU - they are the loser of the bunch. Have not performed well at all. So out of the top 5 teams on your recruiting list - I would say 3 have done well (URI, VCU, and Dayton) and UMASS has done better than UR.

Look at the bottom 5 teams - Duquesne, SBU, Fordham - perennial bottom feeders of the league. Only 2 of the 5 - ourselves and Davidson, and Davidson's recruiting might be skewed since they have only been in the league one year, it will be interesting to see if they increase their recruiting because of the change or continue to look for under the radar guys - have had success.

In my book 4 out of 5 look better than UR at the top, and at the bottom - its 2 out of 5. I like 4 out of 5.

Your eyes deceive you. Can we post pictures here? If you saw a visualization of the relationship between average stars and A10 wins or average stars and kenpom ranking it would be incredibly obvious that there is no relationship. This is made even more clear with simple linear regression.
 
Your eyes deceive you. Can we post pictures here? If you saw a visualization of the relationship between average stars and A10 wins or average stars and kenpom ranking it would be incredibly obvious that there is no relationship. This is made even more clear with simple linear regression.

The reason there is no relationship/correlation between average stars and any other metric is because the entire "star rating" system regardless of whose it is, is totally arbitrary and has no basis in reality. How many times have we seen a player with no stars suddenly jump to 3 stars or more because of who he got an offer from or signed with?

The only use for the star system is for very informal comparison purposes like "That guy who just signed with Kentucky is a 5-star recruit", or similar. The star system has very little applicability when it comes to how we recruit. All I know is that we need to do a better job recruiting if we want to move the program onward and upward.
 
Interesting on Marcus Jenkins. Could be a good hire, but I was looking for someone who hasn't learned everything he knows about college basketball from Chris Mooney. Like a lot of things, Mooney does, if this is true, it is very predictable.
 
could be a great hire!
as said, I'm the contrarian to those that want someone different. I want a guy in the recruit's living room that speaks CM's language. part of the family. and a guy who can work with a group of players teaching what CM teaches, without CM having to be looking over his shoulder. sign him up and get him out there!
 
Its really just a matter of opinion. Like I said - there are two ways to go about things. Try to recruit the best players or try to recruit players who fit your system. Much like a team in a draft situation - do you take the best player available or take what fits your system or needs at the time. And when I look at your list that you put together of recruiting stars per team - to me - it looks like the teams who recruit at the higher level tend to have more success. Is it no surprise that VCU is at the top of the list and have been to the NCAA tourney every year now for the past 5 years. Or that URI is near the top and guess what - Hurley has turned them around from basically a last place team from 2011 to 2014, to a top 4 team and bubble team in 2015? Or that UMASS has been to the NIT final four, NIT, and NCAA tourney in the last 4 years? Dayton - Elite 8 and NCAA 2nd round recently.....

Then you look at the bottom of the list - Duquesne, SBU, and Fordham - perennial bottom feeders of the league. SBU made a run in 2012 and sometimes creeps into the middle of the pack, but compare them to UMASS - and UMASS has had more success. Then you have us and Davidson. I throw Davidson out because this is year one in the league for them. Wait 2-3 years and lets see how they recruit. They may stay near the bottom and try to find guys to fit their system or they might raise up. Then you have us - just one NIT this past season to speak of the past few years.

Do the stars and ratings always equal success? Of course not. Do you need guys to fit your system - yes. But when I look at the list - we are grouped with Duquesne, Fordham, SBU, and Davidson. I don't like being grouped with them. I would rather be grouped with VCU, URI, UMASS, Dayton - cause those teams seem to be more successful recently, and if they continue to recruit at a high level - that likely will not change much.


[ 1] VCU (3.37)
[ 2] URI (3.03)
[ 3] UMass (2.85)
[ 4] SJU (2.77)
[ 5] Dayton (2.68)
[ 6] La Salle (2.53)
[ 7] GW (2.52)
[ 8] SLU (2.50)
[ 9] GMU (2.44)
[10] Duq (2.30)
[11] For (2.26)
[12] SBU (2.25)
[13] Richmond (2.24)
[14] Davidson (2.18)
 
I went to verbal commits to look at these ranking numbers. I don't see anything aggregated, so I guess someone here did the math. that said, the star ranking are absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe we're trying to gleam anything from this. so TJ Cline gets ranked 2 stars, as does Trey Davis, Julius Johnson, Fore, and Friendshuh. Those are pretty impressive players. but Taylor, Smithen, Diekvoss, Kirby, Fletcher, Moran and Moyer are also given 2 stars! The highest ranked guy we have is Wood. The 2nd highest ranked guys we've had were Piotrowski and Singleton!
Come on now. You guys are ranking programs from this? It isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on.
 
I went to verbal commits to look at these ranking numbers. I don't see anything aggregated, so I guess someone here did the math. that said, the star ranking are absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe we're trying to gleam anything from this. so TJ Cline gets ranked 2 stars, as does Trey Davis, Julius Johnson, Fore, and Friendshuh. Those are pretty impressive players. but Taylor, Smithen, Diekvoss, Kirby, Fletcher, Moran and Moyer are also given 2 stars! The highest ranked guy we have is Wood. The 2nd highest ranked guys we've had were Piotrowski and Singleton!
Come on now. You guys are ranking programs from this? It isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on.
I think that may have been Fan2011's point. The recruiting rankings are of dubious value, and don't necessarily translate to any prediction of success. I will say, I suspect that this is more true for the middle rankings than it is for the edge. I suspect there's a higher correlation of success or lack thereof when a guy is a 5star or no-star.

In our case, we swim in that 2-3 star pool, where it's not really a great predictor of anything.
 
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we are not going to get top recruits for a number of reasons. So get an assistant who can offer different system options, help coach players to improve their skills, etc We need to take maybe second tier players (4 on a 1-5 scale), improve their skills, during the 4+ years they are here and put them in a system that helps them win.
 
I appreciate all you guys providing opinions and stats. As for me, I hope to just wait until May 20th - that is the last date of the Spring signing period - and we will hopefully have a coach by then, although in the next week would be better. It would be nice to have one or two three-star recruits, too.
 
I like that Jenkins may (already is?) coming back. We get somebody who knows our system, is a great guy, and knows what types of recruits Mooney likes to shoot for. I don't really see glaring negatives to this.
 
Marcus is a super guy and glad he is coming back if that is the case. HEY STORK3, how old are you, laughing at sailor bob and the bowman body, two of my favs!!
 
I really hope this coaching hire is, or soon will be, official. Coach Jenkins has a very positive reputaion, clearly knows the Spider "systems," and should be able to recruit players who continue to be a great fit for UR. If this happens, kudos go out to both Coach Moody and to our new AD, who probably also had a role in this hire. If we can replace an excellent coach, like Jamal Brunt, within a couple of weeks, with a coach as good as Coach Jenkins, this truly speaks volumes about the status of our program. The future is looking brighter, by the day, if this happens.
 
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