IU Basketball Recruiting

As we have all been told repeatedly, Mike Davis' greatest strength is his recruiting. Well, here we are in the heat of the 2006 recruiting battle and Mike has ZERO verbal committments. In fact, most of his targets are no longer even mentioning IU... Mike Conley and Greg Oden, to name the biggest. And other key in-state recruits are coming out of the woodwork commenting on how IU didn't even recruit them... Indiana Mr. Basketball Luke Zeller, Luke Harangody, and Dominic James.

So if Mike is able to have a wonderfully successful 20-15 year against a cupcake pre-B10 schedule and a weak B10... the future looks so bright. Glad I will be saving my money for other things.

ClubJockey on Peegs spent a very long time putting together his thoughts on D1 recruiting and analyzing IU's efforts to date. This is one of the best posts I've seen in a long time. Please feel free to argue anything you disagree with. I'm curious if anyone can find anything. Beware... Long... but a good read!

IU Recruiting - ClubJockey on Peegs.com

I think I’ve attended one too many “Business communication seminars” lately, as I am about to use one of the techniques they preached at us in one of those freezing, poorly-lit, ugly hotel conference rooms to make this post about IU’s recruiting…

“Purpose, Process, Payoff”… Gag…

Okay, so what is the “Purpose” of IU’s recruiting SUPPOSED to be? I guess there are several ways of saying much the same thing, but I’d say the purpose of recruiting is basically to do the following:

1) Stock the team with high-talent, high-character, high-academic student athletes to best allow the team to win as many games as possible (i.e. to give you the players you need to win a Banner)

2) Provide for the development of the program (i.e. keep the talent flow such that there is a constant rate of high talent, high character, high academic student athletes so that the team is always good and has very few, if any drop-offs)

I would think that’s basically the “purpose” of any major University’s recruiting. Now some schools (and I’m thinking Memphis and Cincinnati and some SEC schools as an example) seem to lose sight of the balance in that… They tend, for whatever reason, to sometimes forget about the “high-character” and “high-academic” part of the equation more than is “polite”. Conversely, schools such as Harvard and Yale and the Military academies and the like tend to err on the side of academics and character and will sometimes maybe eschew the “talent” part of the equation. However, most really excellent big-time universities tend to fall soundly in the middle and they’re able to achieve a balance… They may take a player now and then that has more “talent” than character or academics… but they balance that out by bringing in 3 or 4 kids to that one with plenty of both and another kid that maybe has lots of character and academics and replaces moxy for talent.

But I think that more or less gets at “Purpose”.

What’s the “Process” of recruiting?

There’s a lot of answers to this one as well… on one level the answer is probably close to “there are as many different processes as there are kids to recruit.” which is probably true. But I’m more interested in the over-arching process than the details of how a specific kid is recruited (at least for now… we’ll get back to that specific piece in a while). I’d say basically this is the “Process” by which most recruiters operate:

1) Evaluate and understand (know?) what you need and want (two overlapping but slightly different things). By this I mean a coach needs to know what he needs to recruit. If he’s got no guards, he needs to recruit guards… if he needs a leader he needs to get a leader… if he needs a defender…etc, etc…

2) Evaluate and understand (know?) the talents and capabilities (potential?) of the players you have to choose from. Can you tell a Calbert Cheaney from a Charlie Miller? Can you tell a Kirk Haston from a Richard Mandeville? Can you tell a Devin Harris from a Brandon Fuss-Cheatham? Can you find a Brian Sloan or a Steve Eyl or an Aaron Johnson? Brad Miller, Jim Rowinski, and Steve Scheffler or Jessen Grey, Daryl Pegram and Lucas Steijn?

3) Close the deal and get the kid on campus…. And not just the KID… but the CLASS… Part of that is knowing when you’re wasting too much time and effort in a losing battle. And part of that is also knowing and understanding ALL the tools you have to be able to make the sale… Campus life, location, academics, history, style-of-play, development potential, etc… AND it’s the ability to make and use allies… connections… friendships… with people that can not only help you today, but down the road… High School coaches, AAU coaches, Parents, Alumni, Scouts, other coaches, etc, etc…

That is more or less the “Super-Process” that drives the recruiting at pretty much EVERY D1 program. Again, there are schools that tend to do it differently, like many of the Ivy’s and the Military Academies… and there are those that….ummm…. “cut corners” or take unfair advantages with that third piece of the process. But for the most part, that’s the strategy… Know WHAT I want, Know WHO I want, Get what and who I want. HAVE A PLAN.

There’s a second-tier process, too… How do I use home visits… How do I scout… How do I use official visits… When do I use JCs… Shoe camps….What’s my plan-B… A lot of times preliminary scouting is done by your network… some high school or AAU coach will call on the phone and say “Hey… there’s this freshmen on this team you might want to take a look at…” and that kid gets put on the “follow” list to see if the potential begins to develop, etc…

The third-tier process involves when and how a coach makes an offer… what, if any conditions are on that offer… and the direct, face-to-face stuff (if it happens, bad stuff like cheating and guarantees of playing time happen here primarily).

What’s the “Pay-off”?…

Well, I think it’s an elevation to the top of the heap and a consistent place up there for the very long haul.

Before Tom Izzo took over for Jud Heathcote at Michigan State, the Spartans were usually a good team but not ALWAYS a top 3 pick, and they RARELY were much of a factor in the NCAAs (Magic Johnson and Scott Skiles aside). Since Izzo has taken over, MSU has won another NCAA banner and they have ascended to the very top of the Big Ten. MSU is the real constant power in the conference now. They’re ALWAYS a top-3 team and they ALWAYS seem ready to make a run and they’re ALWAYS a tough out in the NCAAs.

A lot of that, I think, is the pay-off for some outstanding recruiting on the part of Izzo.

Here’s a breakdown of recruiting RSCI top 20, top 50, and top 100 kids from some of the name schools since RSCI started counting in 1998:

Michigan State: 7 top 20, 3 in the 21-50 range, 14 over all top 100 kids

That is nearly 1 top-20 kid per class for the last 8 seasons, and 2 top 100 kids per class. Over half their kids are top 50.

Duke: 12 top 20, 4 in the 21-50, 18 top 100.

That’s closing in on 2 top-20’s per season and 3 top-100s. Again, well over half are top 20, let alone top 50.

North Carolina: 10 top 20, 6 in the 21-50, 19 top 100.

Kentucky: 6 top 20, 4 in the 21-50, 11 top 100.

Connecticut: 5 top 20, 9 in the 21-50, 18 top 100.

Kansas: 6 top 20, 4 in the 21-50 and 16 top 100.

The story is much the same at Arizona and Syracuse, and you can trace the rise of Illinois with similar back-to-back-to-back good classes.

And these schools almost never flop on a class entirely.

That is good recruiting… that’s good purpose, process and payoff…

Okay… lets look at IU recruiting…

Historically, IU ranks behind only UNC, Duke, Kentucky and UCLA for McD’s all Americans and we’re tied with Kansas.

Since Davis has been in charge:

We’ve never gotten through the fall period having used all our rides, and as far as I know we’ve never gotten through the spring period having used them all either…

Of the players Davis has brought in, only one of them should have been a four-year graduating senior last year, so they all should still be on the team… except that one guy (Perry).

Assuming Bracey makes the NBA, 6% will have left early for the NBA…. 0% if he fails.

50% will not finish 4 years at IU.

50% are in their first or second year on the team.

The experienced players the year after this one will be:
Wilmont
Vaden
White
Ratliff
Allen
Shaw

This is assuming no one else leaves early.

This shows beyond any doubt that in the Purpose category IU is NOT doing anything to develop a team, given that youth is such an acceptable excuse for awful play… there is no way the consistency is there to maintain a high level of excellence achieved by the top-level programs (which we once were). So we’ve failed at that purpose.

Nearly half of the kids we’ve brought in have faced high levels of academic pressure, and so far two have been declared academically ineligible… which is the most I can find in the B10 over the past 5 seasons…

And given the talent levels exhibited by some of the other players, one has to wonder about the “high-talent, high-character, high-academic” stuff… though I think we get good marks for character… which needs to be applauded.

Process?…

Davis has been quoted in the papers as saying he’s come to the realization (this is post 02) that he needs to recruit shooters… and saying that he learned a valuable lesson in that before that point he’d never recruit kids like Hornsby or Coverdale… Yet he still hasn’t done it…

It also seems that Davis is conflicted about the need for a pure point guard…. Does he need one or want one?

We’ve been faced with a need in the post since Newton left… yet we’ve passed on Wes Green and Kyle Visser and Chris Hunter and Monty St. Clair and a thousand other kids (seemingly) and we’ve signed Rothbart, Steijn, Pegram, and JGA… And White and Ben Allen and Pat Ewing. When White leaves what will we have?

We’ve repeatedly had players (Green, Visser, Dominic James, Luke Harangody, Luke Zeller to name a few) that have been quoted as being highly confused and perplexed about the way they have been recruited… Add AJ Ratliff to that list as well, by the way…

Two of the players most commonly held up as examples of Davis’s recruiting prowess are DJ White and Robert Vaden… while neither of them proves Davis can’t recruit… given the special circumstances, its certainly obvious they do not prove he CAN recruit either... One kid grew up with Davis and only ever seriously listed two schools... he was wearing IU gear as a freshmen. The other had perhaps the most bizarre “recruitment” in recent history… can anyone name the 5 schools that Vaden visited? Listed? Thought about?

Every single piece of evidence we have is that the Indiana high school coaches and AAU programs regard Davis with either ambivalence or disregard largely… he has no real “Indiana Network” for recruiting… he has no real Midwest network either… He has his dwindling contacts in the mid south… Marsh’s Florida contacts, and Rupp out west and in Swaziland and the Christmas Islands…

Just this year alone we’ve had the Zygis story… the Harangody story… the Vaughn story…. The kid from the region who is maybe or maybe not a recruit story… the Shawn Davis story….

We’re the only program I’ve ever heard of in my entire life that has exhausted all our allotted official visits in a single year. And even at that point we failed to sign 5 players.

Official visits are sales pitches… they are NOT tools to evaluate players… you do not bring in a kid for an official visit unless you know you want him…. IU is out in some strange orbit with this one.

We’ve had Julius Ashby… we’ve had Larry Turner…. We’ve had a Mystery Recruit every year… we’ve had Charlie “The Great Pumpkin” Villanueva.

We’ve certainly had no plan B… and most people feel there really isn’t a serious plan A either.

Depending on what you believe… and last year at this time most of the people supporting Davis did believe it… we actually sacrificed Dominic James so as not to make Mike Conley unhappy… And supposedly we did the same thing with Chris Hunter for Sean May and about 8 forwards for Charlie Villanueva… It’s a recurring pattern…

This is a process? This is knowing what you want and need… effectively evaluating the players at hand… and getting a class in? and working a plan?

Payoff…

Well… here we are…. Coming off the worst three seasons in a row in nearly half a century… About to go into a season that has all but completely mortgaged the future of the program for one year… with the intent to see if we can do well enough in one year to forget the last three seasons and what might be coming down the road.

Yet we’re told to give Mike Davis a break because he’s a good recruiter and we should only criticize him for what he’s really not good at… yet that same line gets doled out every time he does get criticized…

As bad a recruiter as Davis is, given the context of being the head coach at Indiana University, I struggle to find something that is more reasonable to criticize him for, unless its his coaching abilities…