Re: Silver Linings
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2019 11:29 am
Wild Mustang wrote:Not sure why people call injuries, a short bench, and recruiting sanctions "excuses". This will never make since to me. People act like SMU should be ranked regardless. Name another program that has been hit with similar injuries and recruiting sanctions over the past few years. No one can because no other program has been hit so hard. We all want a better product on the floor. We all support our program. We all want good things for our players. No one is an apologist for accepting the unfortunate reality that we have endured over the past couple of seasons. SMU was hit hard. Next season we will hopefully have room to breathe and hopefully build our program back what we all want. Pony up!
So, here is the thing... a few recruiting classes ago, we did have valid restrictions on who we could recruit. We were severely restricted on visits, watching games, travel, the whole bit. There is a valid excuse there.
The last two recruiting classes, there have been zero restrictions on our ability to recruit. In the first one, we got Hunt, which is a very nice get. But for a team that desperately needed starters and was super thin, we have CJ White and Young. Both of whom are nice developmental pieces 3 years down the line. But we needed to recruit players who could play now, especially with the William Douglas situation, knowing Foster was going to be iffy with the knee, and knowing Ray was probably not going to be back. We knew all of those things going into the season, and yet he went after developmental players instead of immediate contributors.
Now you have the current recruiting class. Knowing that we are losing 3 seniors and need players to step in immediately, we currently have a JUCO who isn't ranked very high, and two other players who are ranked low. It doesn't set us up for success.
That is the ultimate concern. The "right" coach with these facilities, the school, and the city, should be able to pull in top 250 recruits when needed And yes, there are spots for the developmental guys with your 9-13 scholarships But we aren't filling those spots right now. Jank recruits and handles his team like someone with zero confidence. He doesn't go after big recruits, and he keeps the role of players coach and doesn't install defensive discipline because he is afraid of [deleted] players off and that they will leave. We need to bring in a coach who is confident about what the school, facilities, alumni, and city have to offer.