Needs-Style Recruiting Table, Post-'11 Update

[SFHoya99]

Position	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-2016
PG	Starks	Starks	Starks
PG
SG	Clark	Trawick	Trawick	Trawick
G	Trawick	Bowen	Bowen
/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /
SF	Thompson	Thompson	Porter	Porter
SF	Porter	Porter	Whittington	Whittington
/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /
BIG	Sims	Lubick	Lubick	Adams	Bolden
BIG	Lubick	Ayegba	Ayegba	Hopkins
BIG	Ayegba	Adams	Adams	Bolden
BIG	Adams	Hopkins	Hopkins
/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /
UT	Benimon	Benimon	Bolden
UT	Bowen	Bolden
UT	Hopkins	Whittingon
UT	Whittington
/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /
NEEDS	PG, G	PG, G	PG, G	PG (2), G (2), SF, BIG	ALL
/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /	/ / / / /
OPEN	0	1	5	7	12

[SFHoya99]

Have we suddenly gone too far the other way? For the past few years we've struggled to put together an effective big man rotation. We've watched as we've rarely had more than two (at best) effective bigs, as we've consistently played small either at PF or SF or both -- or played lesser players just to maintain some size.

There's no doubt we needed to get bigger.

And the team has. It didn't get that elite center -- the close to 7' shotblocker (or even that 6'9" shotblocking center in Rakeem Christmas or Ochefu).

To my mind, it did the next best thing. There may not be a true elite player in the bunch (and that may be a blessing seeing as we didn't get the best years of Greg Monroe, for example), but getting long size at the 3, complemented by reasonable size and bulk at the center was a great move.

Playing Thompson, Porter and Whittington at the 3 will improve the defense and hopefully the rebounding vastly as the team gets much longer without sacrificing much perimeter quickness versus recent years. (I don't expect any of them to stay with a guard, but did our guards do that anyway)? Playing small at the three was a bigger deal than small at the 4.

Porter and Whittington may get some time at the 4, but given the roster makeup, I doubt it's much early on. And while I don't necessarily see superstars in the bigs sections, we have a lot of them -- Lubick, Moses, Adams, Hopkins and later Bolden. There's height and in some cases bulk. They should rebound, defend and hopefully develop some O. And keep the SFs at SF. We'll more than likely see some kind of transfer from the bigs at some point, but we finally have enough to take one (but not much more). Not all of these guys have to pan out.

The issue is what's happened elsewhere. As great as it was to come back from vacation and see a commitment from Mr. Porter, in the short term, the transfer of Vee Sanford is more a problem than Porter's commitment is a benefit, I think. In the short term.

We have no backup PG for next year. Clark is dreadful at it in almost all aspects -- he's not a great dribbler nor is he a great distributor. He's best as a finisher off the ball, and if he's forced into a creator role I think he will go from a strong complementary player to hurting the team. He could improve -- I could be wrong -- but it's asking a good player to do something he's not good at.

Bowen showed potential in areas, but he's not even a guard yet, much less a PG. And Trawick is a freshman who was a 2 in HS. Not exactly the backcourt I want out there.

The first 2012 commit must be a PG, or at least a combo capable of handling it. The team doesn't need a player to dominate the ball, but our turnover troubles can't get worse. We need someone capable of handling pressure and defending the PG spot. Right now, we're too dependent on Markel.

We're also just thin at guard period. I know - everyone says Hollis should be a 2; Bowen is a 2 -- but positions up the spectrum are very tough. I wouldn't count on either of those happening (though I've slotted Bowen there as a junior).

[SFHoya99]

What is going to be exciting is a lineup that runs with 6' - 6'5"+ - 6'8"+ - 6'8"+ - 6'8"+ across the boards at some point.

[Dhall]

The 2011 recruiting is 3/5 happenstance. We missed on our targets other than Trawick and Hopkins and then went after the best players available who had either decommitted (Adams) or were previously unrecruited (Whittington and Porter). We won't know for 2 years whether this class is a success or failure, but I don't think it was intentional. Most other schools get their ducks in a row earlier than March/April. Kansas excepted this year of course, but they are screwed because they had so many pros, a problem I wouldn't mind.

[KirbyKeger]

I would definitely not want to be Kansas right now. The pros theyre losing never got them to the promise land, and now they are incredibly thin in the front court. Missed on Hopkins. Missed on Porter. They're likely to lose Deandre Daniels to Duke too, although Murphy reclassifying to 2011 might change that (still hearing Daniels will be a blue devil). They're losing reed, morningstar, the morris twins, selby, and mario little. Thomas Robinson was recently charged with assault. That is one program that is going to have a roughhhh season.

[SFHoya99]

DHall, I don't know if it's so much about blame as simply what does this lack of guards bode for the future.

With 13 schollies, I'd like to see more or less four guards, two SFs, and four bigs, with three projects/young players of varying positions. I'm not sure we have three guards who can play at the level we'd like for next year, much less four. Meanwhile we're flush with bigs and even our SFs would likely swing more that way (Benimon, Porter, Whittington).

I don't mind loading up on bigs and seeing who pans out, but the lack of PG is something that has been coming for YEARS -- even had Sanford stayed it would have been a concern.

[Dhall]

Apr 21, 2011 17:25:30 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

DHall, I don't know if it's so much about blame as simply what does this lack of guards bode for the future.

With 13 schollies, I'd like to see more or less four guards, two SFs, and four bigs, with three projects/young players of varying positions. I'm not sure we have three guards who can play at the level we'd like for next year, much less four. Meanwhile we're flush with bigs and even our SFs would likely swing more that way (Benimon, Porter, Whittington).

I don't mind loading up on bigs and seeing who pans out, but the lack of PG is something that has been coming for YEARS -- even had Sanford stayed it would have been a concern.

I agree it's a problem at PG. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but Starks looks to me like a guy who at best won't kill us but won't really be a major plus on the floor. People ripped me when I said Joe Toumou, so I'll say Joey Brown instead. But that's ok if you have a team full of scorers and defenders and rebounders - we'll see about that. And if Starks gets injured, which happened to him in high school, then what? This is why I say our current roster and incoming recruits could not have been by design.

One area where I am an optimist though compared to others is that I still believe big time in Clark. He played injured this year which made his ballhandling look worse. If he's healthy and his minutes are managed, people will be eating crow about him, even his ball skills.

[KirbyKeger]

Yeah, this board has gotten seriously carried away with the clark hate. Sure, he was not great in the second half of the season, but the guy has shown he is a legit, seriously talented player. People need to stop writing him off completely. Its almost as though some people on here pretend he won't exist next season. Everybody put all of their eggs in the Hollis basket as soon as the season ended, and while I'd love to see him breakout too, I don't think its necessary to attack Jason nonstop. If he plays with a chip on his shoulder, a lot of people are gonna owe him an apology because when Jason gets aggressive, he's truly an amazing basketball player. Also, people don't seem to remember how many clutch free throws he hit for us late in games this season. He has the potential to be a great leader for this team next year.

[HometownHoya]

Apr 21, 2011 21:28:51 GMT -5 KirbyKeger said:

Yeah, this board has gotten seriously carried away with the clark hate. Sure, he was not great in the second half of the season, but the guy has shown he is a legit, seriously talented player. People need to stop writing him off completely. Its almost as though some people on here pretend he won't exist next season. Everybody put all of their eggs in the Hollis basket as soon as the season ended, and while I'd love to see him breakout too, I don't think its necessary to attack Jason nonstop. If he plays with a chip on his shoulder, a lot of people are gonna owe him an apology because when Jason gets aggressive, he's truly an amazing basketball player. Also, people don't seem to remember how many clutch free throws he hit for us late in games this season. He has the potential to be a great leader for this team next year.

I don't think anyone has but its more that a greater improvement can be expected from our younger players. For JC, we want him to work on one thing, his handle. He can finish at range, the hoop, and midrange. While working on his handle his consistency at finishing there will be improved. He will be a Captain due to him being a senior but we know he is a respected member of this team. I sure hope he does play with a chip on his shoulder because I agree with you, an aggressive JC is a great JC.

The reason people are talking about Hollis is because he has shown flashes of brilliance and dominance greater then JC but less consistent then JC. While JC was our 3rd scorer, Hollis was our 4th and we expect them to both improve to be our 1A and 1B, thus greater improvement from Hollis.

In fact, Jason may be the most important factor to our handle since Vee is transferring. Markel is our only primary ball-handler and he is still a breakout away from being a fulltime BE guard. Jason needs to be comfortable with the ball and facilitating the offense. He is more of a SG then a PG so he needs to finish his opportunities and find his spots.

[NTAMM]

Jason Clark’s ability to be a distributor and creator on offense was hampered by the lack of productivity in the front court. To be a distributor or a creator of shots for teammates required two things the Hoyas did not have last season: (1) bigs in scoring position to receive the pass; and (2) bigs that can finish around the basket.

At the end of the season, teams took away the ability of both Clark and Freeman to drive to the basket and score in half court sets. Opposing teams did a good job collapsing on the guards on drives. Opposing teams did a good job rotating over front court players when Freeman or Clark beat their defender off the dribble. Seldom were Hoya bigs in a position to receive the pass in scoring position when the defense collapsed on Clark. Down the stretch, the Hoyas’ front court was weak, at best. The Hoyas offense primarily consisted of passing the ball around the perimeter, with the Hoya bigs (Vaughn, Lubick, Sims, Benimon, Ayegba) receiving the ball 20 feet from the basket, in positions where they were no threat. Again, Clark really had nobody to distribute the ball to who was a threat to score – except Freeman and Thompson.

Improved play in the frontcourt will allow Jason Clark to be more effective as a scorer, distributor, and creator. His play will be key to the Hoyas’ successes in 2011-2012.

Apr 21, 2011 16:03:36 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

We have no backup PG for next year. Clark is dreadful at it in almost all aspects -- he's not a great dribbler nor is he a great distributor. He's best as a finisher off the ball, and if he's forced into a creator role I think he will go from a strong complementary player to hurting the team. He could improve -- I could be wrong -- but it's asking a good player to do something he's not good at.