Recruiting Question

[tcq]

(as I have said for years, and finally fewer doubters now) Bradley simply does NOT have the recruiting prowess to expect blue chippers

Are there Bradley fans out there who you run across who expect the school to get blue chippers? I personally never have. I'm not sure who was ever doubting this.

[tcq]

Yup - still disagree - because sooner or later every coach will agree that he needs better, more talented players if he still keeps losing and can't win -- systems are fine when they win but every coach with a losing system will dump his system if that's what it takes to get better players...

... if you don't care about winning and a 7-26 season is OK by you..then you can stick with your system...
but if you care about winning all we've seen from everyone and all everyone has said on this and other boards since February is we need to get better players - geez - we've heard it a gazillion times...
...so after 6 months of everyone saying a million times that we need to get better players - yet we're whiffing on getting them and it's not happening
- now we change the tune AND SAY ACTUALLY what we need is players who better fit the system...a bit more vague and difficult to refute...

I see some people changing their goals based on how badly we miss on reaching those goals...rather than admit we missed the goals

Do the search yourself and see but ten different threads since the end of the season talk about Bradley getting better players, but only one - this one that only now appears when we've missed on several top targets
- mentions getting players that fit the system better ...interesting... are goals changing??

A good coach and program has a system they like to play. They then like to recruit players to that system. Hopefully those players are good at basketball.

Hopefully the players Geno Ford gets to play the system he wants will be better than the players that have been on the roster the last few seasons. If not, then Bradley will be looking for a new coach in about four seasons. I don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp.

Most importantly, you win the games that are played when the recruits get on campus. That is where wins and losses are tallied. They are not tallied based on what an internet message board or blogger says about the recruiting.

I guess Im a crazy kind of fan who feels like I should wait and judge recruiting successes or failures until the players actually play quite a few games of college basketball. Is this a strange concept?

I do get it...when you are prone to being negative and want to try to have a "sky is falling" attitude it is very easy to point to recruiting "whiffs" and "misses" because it is totally subjective. Others can be reasonable and understand that the fall signing period hasn't even started.

[Old Coach]

Geno recruits to his system. It's why he never offered Alec Peters.

Although it could be argued that Peters would be a better player than say Jake Eastman, I highly doubt that Geno would have recruited a kid like Jake to his program.

[Braves4Life]

Whew! At least Geno didn't make this list -- http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...in-the-country

[tcq]

Geno recruits to his system. It's why he never offered Alec Peters.

As well he should. Why would a coach recruit a player just because other people are recruiting the player or people tell him he should recruit the player?

Coaches who have confidence in what they are doing and are secure in their position don't worry about public opinion. They try to get the best guys they can that work for them.

Again, the beauty in all of this is the proof will be in the pudding once the recruits (highly touted or not) actually get on campus and play college games.

[real fan]

sounds nice but this is 100% untrue - because even if you get players that fit your system precisely but they go 1-26, then you are STILL going to have to go out and get someone else....

the MOST important thing is to get players capable of winning games in whatever system they can or will play...

Coaches at Duke or UNC can kinda have their pick and get who they want - but everyone else on down - and this has even been said by coaches themselves - they have to sometimes get the BEST available players and do what they can with them, but (as I have said for years, and finally fewer doubters now) Bradley simply does NOT have the recruiting prowess to expect blue chippers, and our "system", sad to say, isn't so incredibly good that anyone who fits it is gonna win....

You have no idea on what our system is since Geno is only in his 2nd year , once we get players recruited by Geno we will see what his system is and how well his system works or does not work, last season was bad because of the complete lack of talent and even though I supported Les I have say he brought in players that could not compete at this level.

[Da Coach]

...last season was bad because of the complete lack of talent and even though I supported Les I have say he brought in players that could not compete at this level.

So the injuries to key players had nothing to do with it?
And if he brought in players that "could not compete at this level", how did he manage to win 20+ games every year from 2005-06 through 2008-2009? And how did he manage to take a bunch of players who weren't capable of competing at this level to the Sweet 16 and beat highly ranked teams like Kansas and Pitt? He even found a way to get a lot of those players (who weren't able to compete) onto the All-MVC teams! He must have been one heck of a coach!

[lefty]

It doesn't make any difference what your system is....you always are trying to get better players. Coaches have different systems...some may be easier to recruit to than others. If someone wants uptempo they probably are going to school that doesn't play that way such as WIU and Mo.

I don't think anyone has said that it's ALL about the system but coaches do have their own style and recruit accordingly....and they will always be trying to get the best players possible for what they are trying to accomplish

[tornado]

Geno recruits to his system. It's why he never offered Alec Peters.

Although it could be argued that Peters would be a better player than say Jake Eastman, I highly doubt that Geno would have recruited a kid like Jake to his program.

well I am not alone in thinking Peters is one of the best all around players who plays every aspect of the game well - that our area has ever produced...
so any idea in what area Alec doesn't stack up and who we are targeting that clearly shows this trend of going after the player's qualities that match his system?

[tcq]

It doesn't make any difference what your system is....you always are trying to get better players. Coaches have different systems...some may be easier to recruit to than others. If someone wants uptempo they probably are going to school that doesn't play that way such as WIU and Mo.

I don't think anyone has said that it's ALL about the system but coaches do have their own style and recruit accordingly....and they will always be trying to get the best players possible for what they are trying to accomplish

Best post of the thread. This pretty much sums it up. You have a system and try to get the best players you can to that system.

Right now it is far, far, far too early to know how well Geno Ford is doing at Bradley. He has a track record of doing it at Kent State. We will see if he gets it done at Bradley. Check back in 2015--we will know a lot more.

[tcq]

well I am not alone in thinking Peters is one of the best all around players who plays every aspect of the game well - that our area has ever produced...
so any idea in what area Alec doesn't stack up and who we are targeting that clearly shows this trend of going after the player's qualities that match his system?

I think it would be a stretch to call Alec Peters one of the best players the Peoria area has ever produced.

But to answer your second question--of course Geno thinks Alec Peters is a nice player. From what I have been told is that he thinks Alec would thrive in a system where he doesn't have to move as much. He feels Alec is a standstill shooter who doesn't shoot well on the move. Also, I don't think Geno feels his upside is as high as others.

This is one reason why he loves Omari Grier--his ability to shoot spotting up, off screens, and off the dribble. I have been told by more than one person that if the season started today and he could play Omari Grier would be one of the top two scorers on the team.

Geno may very well be wrong about Alec Peters. It happens. All coaches miss on evaluating recruits sometimes. Is there a coach in history who batted 1.000 here?

I personally don't care what kind of college career Alec Peters has. I hope it is a good one. I only care how good the players are that end up at Bradley. Again, we won't know this for a while.

Evaluating recruiting is not something that can be done accurately in a knee-jerk, in the moment way.

[real fan]

So the injuries to key players had nothing to do with it?
And if he brought in players that "could not compete at this level", how did he manage to win 20+ games every year from 2005-06 through 2008-2009? And how did he manage to take a bunch of players who weren't capable of competing at this level to the Sweet 16 and beat highly ranked teams like Kansas and Pitt? He even found a way to get a lot of those players (who weren't able to compete) onto the All-MVC teams! He must have been one heck of a coach!

Talking about a lot of the players he brought in after the Sweet 16 team, also Al B. got P.O.B. to play for BU if you wish to get technical and it was like a revolving door as far as recruiting mistakes his last few years , we still have 1 here that has not contributed much over 4 years so yes he did not recruit very well his last 4 seasons or we would not have been finishing last 2 years in a row.

[tornado]

I think it would be a stretch to call Alec Peters one of the best players the Peoria area has ever produced....

time will tell....as we can kinda always know more when looking backwards -
but there sure aren't hundreds of kids from the Peoria area who are or ever were better..Maybe Livingston, maybe a couple of the top area kids who starred at the Big Ten level, then after than just who out of the thousands and thousands of "Peoria area" kids who have played basketball over the past - say 40 years (since going back further gets increasingly harder to make comparisons - different era/styles)...have gotten the attention/hype/offers/accolades that Alec has gotten? I'd say it's no more than maybe single digits were unarguably better...out of thousands - so I'd stand by my statement.

[tornado]

Talking about a lot of the players he brought in after the Sweet 16 team, also Al B. got P.O.B. to play for BU if you wish to get technical and it was like a revolving door as far as recruiting mistakes his last few years , we still have 1 here that has not contributed much over 4 years so yes he did not recruit very well his last 4 seasons or we would not have been finishing last 2 years in a row.

again -- just to be fair - there separate issues that forced JL to accept different recruits than he wanted - in other words - he wasn't totally free to choose his own players...an absolutely incredibly rare and even unheard-of fact in college basketball.
On top of that as has been repeatedly proven - he also was only fully allowed to choose his entire assistant coaching staff only about half of his time here.
I am a fan of and a student of college basketball and in all the time I have looked or dug or searched - I have only found FOUR such examples of head basketball coaches who were forced to eliminate multiple coaches who WERE of their own choosing and then forced to accept multiple new replacement assistants that were not fully of their choosing...
Just four times - and guess what - in every case the team did either relatively porly or very poorly the next year and then in all cases the head coach was compltely gone after that.

[tcq]

again -- just to be fair - there separate issues that forced JL to accept different recruits than he wanted - in other words - he wasn't totally free to choose his own players...an absolutely incredibly rare and even unheard-of fact in college basketball.
On top of that as has been repeatedly proven - he also was only fully allowed to choose his entire assistant coaching staff only about half of his time here.

Huh? Where has it been "repeatedly proven" that Jim Les wasnt allowed to chose his entire assistant coaching staff all of these years?

Also where has it been proven that Jim Les was forced to accept different recruits than he wanted?

And the big question is, if any of this were remotely true why would any coach worth his salt stay in a job where he not only DIDNT get the coaches he wanted to work with he was also forced to take players he didn't even want?

No coach would ever do that. If they were good coaches they would leave, call out the school for making such demands, and get a job somewhere else where he is wanted and given the opportunity to do things his way.

I know of no coach who would stay under such god-awful circumstances. It is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard.