ADVERTISEMENT

Sal Koureissi - 2018 Signee

Kind of confirms to me that we are not under real serious consideration by those still holding offers (Kupsas, etc). There are decent guys out there I’m sure, it’ll just be a bit of an uphill climb since we will be late to the party.

I think it would be worth looking at guys who had injuries junior year whose offers softened and might end up being steals.
 
MrTbone said:
Kind of confirms to me that we are not under real serious consideration by those still holding offers (Kupsas, etc). There are decent guys out there I’m sure, it’ll just be a bit of an uphill climb since we will be late to the party.

I think it would be worth looking at guys who had injuries junior year whose offers softened and might end up being steals.
Click to expand...
Well, we've been earlier to the party on a many a players only to have them not pan out, so maybe we our luck will turn on a johnny come lately offer.
 
I feel like most of our commits over the years ... even a lot of the best players we've had ... kind of come out of nowhere. not very often have we landed a guy that we've been following on this board for a year, unless I'm just not remembering.
 
Who would have thought that TJ would have turned out the way he did? Give our coaches credit for helping him to A10 Player of the Year. I believe that some on our roster right now are fixin' to be coached up. Whoever our commit this year turns out to be will be afforded the same opportunity for development.
 
spiderman said:
I feel like most of our commits over the years ... even a lot of the best players we've had ... kind of come out of nowhere. not very often have we landed a guy that we've been following on this board for a year, unless I'm just not remembering.
Click to expand...
Demonte Buckingham and Nick Sherod come to mind.
 
spiderman said:
I feel like most of our commits over the years ... even a lot of the best players we've had ... kind of come out of nowhere. not very often have we landed a guy that we've been following on this board for a year, unless I'm just not remembering.
Click to expand...
We do get good recruits who are out of nowhere. One might argue that this is a desperate strategy. I don’t doubt that our coaches have a decent eye for talent, but if anyone made a serious argument that we have been getting our main targets the last 6+ years I’d say you are sniffing glue.

It’s tough, I’m not saying it’s easy. We need to be better than we are at this.
 
our main targets and best targets aren't always our earliest or most popular targets. some guys are really good as sophs and everyone knows about them. they get early offers. some guys, like Abercrombie, have a big summer before their senior year, or even a big fall or winter. just because they came on late doesn't mean they're lesser prospects.
 
If/when this group of young players make it to the NCAA, you will see interest from recruits increase. I applaud the staff for going after high quality candidates. That will pay off in the future. In the distant past, we have had signees that basically were not recruits by any other D1 schools. It will come.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gcarter52
spiderman said:
our main targets and best targets aren't always our earliest or most popular targets. some guys are really good as sophs and everyone knows about them. they get early offers. some guys, like Abercrombie, have a big summer before their senior year, or even a big fall or winter. just because they came on late doesn't mean they're lesser prospects.
Click to expand...
6 of the 12 A10 teams who have 2018 commits include at least one 4-star recruit in their upcoming class. That’s nearly half the league, including Duquesne who is a perennial bottomdweller in the A10. We have never to my knowledge signed a 4-star guy in spite of generally being highly competitive in the conference.

I agree that success begets success, but a strong recruiter finds ways to land these guys. I just feel like it’s settling to say we’re ok with getting 2 star guys because we didn’t get the original targets. I don’t know why that’s so controversial.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 97spiderfan
MrTbone said:
6 of the 12 A10 teams who have 2018 commits include at least one 4-star recruit in their upcoming class. That’s nearly half the league, including Duquesne who is a perennial bottomdaeller in the A10. We have never to my knowledge signed a 4-star guy in spite of generally being highly competitive in the conference.

I agree that success begets success, but a strong recruiter finds ways to land these guys. I just feel like it’s settling to say we’re ok with getting 2 star guys because we didn’t get the original targets. I don’t know why that’s so controversial.
Click to expand...

If you look at the average star ratings for teams in the A10, the bottom four are Davidson, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, and Fordham. They are essentially the same four every year. Take from that what you will.
 
Our average stars when we landed the "troika" of Buck, Nick and Grant (2016) had to be in the top 4 in the conference. If it was not then it just confirms that the star ratings are reliably invalid. If our average star ratings for 2016 was quite high, then 2016 has to be excluded from 2011's "summary" (above) to be anywhere near accurate.

The positive of 2011's post, if it is true, is that Davidson and Richmond must be doing a GREAT job of identifying guys who are better than their star ratings suggest ("diamonds in the rough"). Otherwise, UR and Davidson would not consistently outperform their "average recruiting star ratings," as they seem to do. If we can get a few more classes like we did in 2016, I could care less about average star ratings.
 
fan2011 said:
If you look at the average star ratings for teams in the A10, the bottom four are Davidson, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, and Fordham. They are essentially the same four every year. Take from that what you will.
Click to expand...
It means we have a coach who is a poor recruiter, but who is a great player developer and X and O's coach, given where we end up finishing most years. It is a shame that Mooney can't recruit better than he does, because if he could, I think he checks the other boxes to make us a consistent NCAA team. I'm tired of hearing it will come though, it hasn't come in 12 years, and when it does come it is the exception to the rule. We are already on Option G for our one spot next, why this would surprise anyone associated with our program is beyond me. As TBone said, we have a closing problem. We can identify the talent we want and get on that talent early, we just can't close.
 
  • Like
Reactions: spider23
97spiderfan said:
It means we have a coach who is a poor recruiter, but who is a great player developer and X and O's coach, given where we end up finishing most years. It is a shame that Mooney can't recruit better than he does, because if he could, I think he checks the other boxes to make us a consistent NCAA team. I'm tired of hearing it will come though, it hasn't come in 12 years, and when it does come it is the exception to the rule. We are already on Option G for our one spot next, why this would surprise anyone associated with our program is beyond me. As TBone said, we have a closing problem. We can identify the talent we want and get on that talent early, we just can't close.
Click to expand...

I agree. The question is, is this a Mooney problem or something inherent to the program? Three of the bottom four schools are the smallest schools in the A10, and they happen to be competitive in the A10 as well. I tried to find a list of enrollment size for every D1 college basketball program to see if all small schools had trouble recruiting, but I couldn't find a comprehensive list. I would love to get the honest opinion on recruiting differences between types of schools from someone like Beilein who has recruited at the small, but successful, liberal arts college as well as huge research institutions in a P5 conferences.
 
Last edited:
not a coincidence that Beilein became a better recruiter as he moved up to bigger schools.
 
There are absolutely going to be systemic/institutional challenges to recruiting at a place like UR. I’m not laying the blame exclusively at Mooney’s feet, I’ve said that many times. What I’m saying is that we have a closing problem, plain and simple. I think it’s ultimately on the HC to address that though. If Duquesne can land a four star recruit in a new coach’s first class, then I see no reason we can’t too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 97spiderfan
MrTbone said:
If Duquesne can land a four star recruit in a new coach’s first class, then I see no reason we can’t too.
Click to expand...
I keep seeing this as a reason we should recruit better. where are you guys getting this? verbal commits?
Duquesne's "4 star" recruit is Gavin Bizeau. 6'10" - 181 lbs
I repeat ... 181 lbs.
the 4 star ranking looks like a mistake. 4 star means top 100 I think. he's not ranked. he's not even in the Rivals or Scout systems.
If verbal commits is accurate, he chose the Dukes over IUPUI, Boston University, Akron, Ball State, Indiana St, Miami (OH), and Toledo.
nothing wrong with that list. but that's not the list of an accurately ranked 4 star recruit.
 
next example is Davidson. same story. they have a ton of 2 star kids on their roster. their "4 star" is Kellan Grady. if he was top 100 in the country with obvious strong academics, he'd have higher offers.

Davidson, UR, Brown, Dartmouth, Iona, St Joe's, Creighton, Yale, Holy Cross, Siena, Northwestern, Northeaster, Boston Univ, URI, Towson, Bowling Green, Penn
nice list, but not a 4 star kid's list.
 
spiderman said:
I keep seeing this as a reason we should recruit better. where are you guys getting this? verbal commits?
Duquesne's "4 star" recruit is Gavin Bizeau. 6'10" - 181 lbs
I repeat ... 181 lbs.
the 4 star ranking looks like a mistake. 4 star means top 100 I think. he's not ranked. he's not even in the Rivals or Scout systems.
If verbal commits is accurate, he chose the Dukes over IUPUI, Boston University, Akron, Ball State, Indiana St, Miami (OH), and Toledo.
nothing wrong with that list. but that's not the list of an accurately ranked 4 star recruit.
Click to expand...
I was pulling this strictly off of the A10 2018 recruiting rankings, they listed that Duquesne had signed a four star.
 
SLU's two 4 star kids look legit based on their offers. huge offers. Ford is very good at getting recruits to come his way.
 
Ulla1 said:
Here is vcu's 4-star who by one service 247 (which now is a composite of the old "Scout" and "247") grades Vincent Williams a low 3-star and ranks him as #414 nationally.

https://247sports.com/Player/Vincent-Williams-46045128

Compare to Tomas Verbinskis who was graded higher, ranked 3-star and came in #416 nationally in his class.

https://247sports.com/Player/Tomas-Verbinskis-94599
Click to expand...
A) Star ratings are clearly flawed, we can all acknowledge this
B) Stipulating the point above, it means the ratings are universally flawed but I expect you can still gauge the class ratings relative to one another
C) The case above is for different classes, I don’t know that you can simply compare their ranking head to head, and maybe not the grading as well.

Regardless, my point continues to be that we regularly struggle, it’s less a criticism as it is an observation.
 
Glad that he has an offer from Iona, since he plays for their prep school. If they didn't like him, no use in us wasting our time. Seems like a nice talent though, let's see what happens.
 
OK, I'll give credit where due. This sounds like a legit talent, nice job to get the official visit coming in late in the game. Now, let's close the deal. Seems like another one that has a ton of offers and likely waiting for the "big boys" in the spring. Let's blow him away on the visit!

I'm thinking instead of Shriners maybe a Segway parade :).
 
  • Like
Reactions: urfan1
coaches may see otherwise, but looks really talented, athletic ... and extremely raw. I'd think he would need a year in the program before really contributing. and that's ok with our roster. lot of upside here. I'm interested. very impressive late recruit.
 
spiderman said:
coaches may see otherwise, but looks really talented, athletic ... and extremely raw. I'd think he would need a year in the program before really contributing. and that's ok with our roster. lot of upside here. I'm interested. very impressive late recruit.
Click to expand...
Yes, I watched his h.s. season highlights and that is my impression as well spiderman, lot of raw talent. Actually reminds me of Phoenix Ford's highlights a bit. I would be happy if we could get him, again I am hoping he loves his visit and not wanting to wait until spring.
 
In a few years, Phoenix, KO, and Soul would be a rather mobile front line...
 
According to verbalcommits and 247 he was offered by Minnesota in May and Seton Hall in August. They both still have spots open, I wonder what happened there?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

UR80sfan

How high is Dji Bailey's ceiling?

Replies
55
Views
3K
UR Basketball Board
urfan1
urfan1
SFspidur

Jovan Milicevic - 2024 Offer

Replies
10
Views
2K
UR Basketball Board
8legs1dream
8legs1dream
spider23

Recruiting '16 - '24 Classes

Replies
8
Views
989
UR Basketball Board
spiderman
spiderman
mojo-spider

2023 Richmond Spiders Football - Opponent's Countdown - North Carolina A&T

Replies
53
Views
4K
UR Football Board
DTSpider
D
spider23

2023 Offseason Grade

Replies
33
Views
2K
UR Basketball Board
spider23
spider23
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back