Updated 2014 ESPN Rankings

[MCIGuy]

Apr 11, 2014 12:36:21 GMT -5 daytonahoya31 said:

You have to put Copeland over Wright and Summers. At the end of the day, he's ranked almost 20 spots higher than what both were ranked by the end of their senior seasons. That's a sizable advantage. and copeland played at brewster, so the competition was just as good - probably even better in spots - that Summers and Wright faced. Had Copeland not been a fifth year guy, he would've been a McDonald's All American lock

Wright was a three time First Team All Met in DC. The first since Adrian Dantley I believe. Plus he was a McDAA and a Jordan Classic participant. Hard to put Copeland above him in terms of what he did before college.

[daymondmyles]

And Summers was a 5 star and ranked 23 overall by Rivals. The numbers he put up his senior season were ridiculous.

[Deleted]

Wright's Rsci was 28 and Summers was 26

[Deleted]

Apr 11, 2014 7:43:38 GMT -5 cosmopolitanhoya said:

I have a question for those who have followed up recruiting closely over the past few years during the JT3 era

If you were to rank every one of our recruits coming out of high school, not solely based on the # of stars attached to their names on rival/scout, but their actual skils and levels of play, does Peak/Ike crack top 5?

My ranking would be something like...

1. Greg Monroe
2. Otto Porter
3. Austin Freeman
4. Dajuan Summers
5. Chris Wright

honorable mention: jeff green / Vernon Macklin
But any of yall think peak or ike are better than any of these guys in their 4th year of high school?

It’s an interesting question but nearly impossible to answer. The main reason is from 2006 to 2008 there wasn’t really a ton of video out on players floating around the internet. Unless you went to national tournaments or saw them play locally you had to depend on press clippings and the evaluation of others.

Also add in the fact not all classes are created equal

[MCIGuy]

Apr 10, 2014 22:06:24 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Apr 10, 2014 1:25:20 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

III's ideal offense is using up 30 seconds of the shot clock so his players can truly figure out "what the defense is giving them" and then take the appropriate action. Okay, there was some snark in that remark, but I suppose I'm tired of the drumbeat that we have to get back to the Look-For-The-Backdoor-Cut offense to thrive (daytona, that may not have been your message but it has been the message of others). Frankly I like how the offense evolved this year and that individual players were actually taking it upon themselves to drive and create more often. Who gives a bleep about spacing when you only use it to open up a lane that a teammate will spring towards for a backdoor basket? Spacing should alos lead to drives, drives and more drives. And besides Gtown faltered this year not because of the offense but because the defense wasn't up to par and quality depth went out the window without Whittington and Smith.

Next of all I don't understand this notion to throw Mikael under the bus. Granted Mikael shot like garbage this past season and before, but when he was on the floor with Josh he actually would at times stand 17 feet or more from the basket. He did so because he was actually far more willing to take a jumpshot than Nate. Nate almost never took a jumpshot. When Nate was on the perimeter it was only to set screens or to toss (force) some pass for a backdoor cut basket. Thus there was more spacing issues when Josh was on the floor with Nate, than there were when Josh was on the floor with Mikael. It can be argued that Mikael looked his best when playing PF alongside Josh. Surely he looked better in that capacity than he did when he was playing center alongside Nate as the power forward. Of course I do have greater trust in Paul and Isaac to make their perimeter shots and therefore be more effective from the perimeter than I do Mikael. But funny how people weren't making the same complaint against Nate (that he could not spread the floor because he wasn't a threat from the perimeter) for most of the three years he started.

Offensive Ranking by Season:

2005 - 31
2006 - 10
2007 - 2
2008 - 24
2009 - 57
2010 - 10
2011 - 39
2012 - 38
2013 - 78
2014 - 44

Yes, by all means, let's stay away from those years with Top 10 offenses.

No one in their right mind should be designing anything with Mikael in mind. Our ideal situation may just be him never playing another minute.

Right, the old efficiency angle. And I grant that III has had some very efficient offenses over the years. Yet I still like to look at the methods. When the Hoyas had the #2 efficient offense they got there by using up a large chunk of the shotclock thereby limiting possessions, they were patient and waited, sometimes frustratingly so, for the best possible shot and had the fortune of having a big man in Hibbert shooting a ridiculous fg %, a long range shooter like Wallace who was more deadly than most when he got a clean look and a clutch All-American/BE Player of the Year in Jeff Green , to take those shot attempts when they finally decided it was okay to look for a score. Of course a team can’t always have these unique ingredients on its roster going into every season. And they shouldn’t have to. In fact whenever the Hoyas were in the top 10 in efficiency I would have gladly exchanged that for an offense that was about 15 to 20 slots down the efficiency rankings, but much more willing to increase the pace and possessions. The one exception was Greg Monroe’s soph team. That team was the most perfect blend of efficiency and offensive aggression in III’s reign. The problem with that team was that it wasn’t as serious in taking care of business and beating the inferior teams like Jeff and Roy’s teams did. And the defense on that squad wasn’t much to write home about.


I realize there are huge fans of the offense in those early years of III. I can respect that. I simply haven’t been as impressed and always wanted to see an offense that incorporated more running, more drives, more screen and rolls, and more points off of defensive pressure. One major reason why I feel this way is because I still believe that eat-up=clock-backdoor-cuts-wait-to-see-what-the-defense-gives-you approach is a liability whenever the team gets down by double digit. If the Hoyas are down by ten or more points late in the first half or throughout the second half, I have little confidence they can come back from such a deficit.

It would be interesting to learn how efficient were the offenses of teams who won the title over the last 10 seasons. I have heard that most of the teams that go far tend to have high-powered offenses, but I'm thinking not all of them were all that efficient.

[SFHoya99]

I don't entirely disagree with you, MCI.

I just think the hatred of the offensive system is a little heavy sometimes, given our best offenses were all when we were running it. And the "can't come back" thing is strange to me, too -- those teams could come back just fine.

But I do think our team needs to run more next year. And when Josh Smith isn't in the game, I don't see any point to running the ball through the center. I think a lot of the Otto Porter high post with White would be great. High pick and rolls with DSR and White/Copeland. And I'd love to see us run more. I just don't think it's a cure-all.

[daytonahoya31]

Apr 11, 2014 13:28:06 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Apr 11, 2014 12:36:21 GMT -5 daytonahoya31 said:

You have to put Copeland over Wright and Summers. At the end of the day, he's ranked almost 20 spots higher than what both were ranked by the end of their senior seasons. That's a sizable advantage. and copeland played at brewster, so the competition was just as good - probably even better in spots - that Summers and Wright faced. Had Copeland not been a fifth year guy, he would've been a McDonald's All American lock

Wright was a three time First Team All Met in DC. The first since Adrian Dantley I believe. Plus he was a McDAA and a Jordan Classic participant. Hard to put Copeland above him in terms of what he did before college.

except at the end of the day, Wright came in at 34 nationally and Copeland comes in at 16. Hard to argue with a 20 spot disparity.

[rockhoya]

Apr 11, 2014 16:54:40 GMT -5 daytonahoya31 said:

Apr 11, 2014 13:28:06 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Wright was a three time First Team All Met in DC. The first since Adrian Dantley I believe. Plus he was a McDAA and a Jordan Classic participant. Hard to put Copeland above him in terms of what he did before college.

except at the end of the day, Wright came in at 34 nationally and Copeland comes in at 16. Hard to argue with a 20 spot disparity.

Nationally is usually used in the context of rcsi....so no, it's not necessarily hard to argue your point.

[daytonahoya31]

I will say this. Copeland was dominant for one year - this year. The potential has always been there, but it took him a while to put it all together. Now he's a monster.

Chris was dominant for three years, and did some unprecedented things in DMV high school hoops. So I can see MCI's point. hard to argue either way. Cope def has a brighter upside. If he continues to improve and evolve, we may only have him for two seasons. But as a point guard myself, I absolutely loved Chris and was one of his biggest supporters, even when everyone was hating on him

[MCIGuy]

Apr 11, 2014 16:54:40 GMT -5 daytonahoya31 said:

Apr 11, 2014 13:28:06 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Wright was a three time First Team All Met in DC. The first since Adrian Dantley I believe. Plus he was a McDAA and a Jordan Classic participant. Hard to put Copeland above him in terms of what he did before college.

except at the end of the day, Wright came in at 34 nationally and Copeland comes in at 16. Hard to argue with a 20 spot disparity.

I thought we were talking about their entire high school careers and the impact they made. Besides, as we seen with Otto, sometimes rankings are simply wrong and guys are either overvalued or undervalued. Plus some years the competition for the top 30 or so spots is tougher than other years. Many variables come into play when you compare where Wright was ranked to where Copeland was ranked. And need I say Wright didn't need a fifth year before the recruiting gurus all but discovered who he was?

[stafford72]

Both of these players were highly regarded. Isn't that enough?? You also cannot absolutely compare the ranking of one year with that of another. Not to mention that these rankings by their very nature are not entirely objective. Let's just hope that our new recruits have productive college careers.

[calhoya]

Apr 11, 2014 16:41:41 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

I don't entirely disagree with you, MCI.

I just think the hatred of the offensive system is a little heavy sometimes, given our best offenses were all when we were running it. And the "can't come back" thing is strange to me, too -- those teams could come back just fine.

But I do think our team needs to run more next year. And when Josh Smith isn't in the game, I don't see any point to running the ball through the center. I think a lot of the Otto Porter high post with White would be great. High pick and rolls with DSR and White/Copeland. And I'd love to see us run more. I just don't think it's a cure-all.

Agree with this and MCI. Running more is more appealing to me personally, but even more importantly it may be better suited to some of the players on next years's team. Take away Smith and most of the others should be able to play quicker. Even those who are not particularly fast, like DSR, are strong and able to create shots. Use that. Love the full court defense this year. Also totally agree with MCI that the slower tempo shortens the game---a great strategy when you are ahead of a quality team. However, if the game is close or the the Hoyas trail, that offense makes a comeback very difficult.

[daytonahoya31]

Apr 11, 2014 18:37:04 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Apr 11, 2014 16:54:40 GMT -5 daytonahoya31 said:

except at the end of the day, Wright came in at 34 nationally and Copeland comes in at 16. Hard to argue with a 20 spot disparity.

I thought we were talking about their entire high school careers and the impact they made. Besides, as we seen with Otto, sometimes rankings are simply wrong and guys are either overvalued or undervalued. Plus some years the competition for the top 30 or so spots is tougher than other years. Many variables come into play when you compare where Wright was ranked to where Copeland was ranked. And need I say Wright didn't need a fifth year before the recruiting gurus all but discovered who he was?

MCI read my previous post, up a few on this page. I think you will agree with it.

[MCIGuy]

daytona, I saw it after I posted my last remarks. It's all good. I think we also both agree Copeland has the most upside coming into college.

[bmartin]

I expect that this coming season we will have an offensive and defensive style of play for when Josh Smith is on the floor and a substantially different plan when he is out - somewhat like the 2005 & 2006 Roy or not-Roy lineups, but even more so.

I would love to see the non-Josh minutes with 3 freshmen on the floor and playing aggressive switching man to man on defense and spreading the floor and looking for mismatches to drive, post-up, and draw the help and dish.

[gujake]

Apr 11, 2014 16:32:27 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Right, the old efficiency angle. And I grant that III has had some very efficient offenses over the years. Yet I still like to look at the methods. When the Hoyas had the #2 efficient offense they got there by using up a large chunk of the shotclock thereby limiting possessions, they were patient and waited, sometimes frustratingly so, for the best possible shot and had the fortune of having a big man in Hibbert shooting a ridiculous fg %, a long range shooter like Wallace who was more deadly than most when he got a clean look and a clutch All-American/BE Player of the Year in Jeff Green , to take those shot attempts when they finally decided it was okay to look for a score. Of course a team can’t always have these unique ingredients on its roster going into every season. And they shouldn’t have to. In fact whenever the Hoyas were in the top 10 in efficiency I would have gladly exchanged that for an offense that was about 15 to 20 slots down the efficiency rankings, but much more willing to increase the pace and possessions. The one exception was Greg Monroe’s soph team. That team was the most perfect blend of efficiency and offensive aggression in III’s reign. The problem with that team was that it wasn’t as serious in taking care of business and beating the inferior teams like Jeff and Roy’s teams did. And the defense on that squad wasn’t much to write home about.

I realize there are huge fans of the offense in those early years of III. I can respect that. I simply haven’t been as impressed and always wanted to see an offense that incorporated more running, more drives, more screen and rolls, and more points off of defensive pressure. One major reason why I feel this way is because I still believe that eat-up=clock-backdoor-cuts-wait-to-see-what-the-defense-gives-you approach is a liability whenever the team gets down by double digit. If the Hoyas are down by ten or more points late in the first half or throughout the second half, I have little confidence they can come back from such a deficit.

It would be interesting to learn how efficient were the offenses of teams who won the title over the last 10 seasons. I have heard that most of the teams that go far tend to have high-powered offenses, but I'm thinking not all of them were all that efficient.

Efficiency is just points per possession. It's not some kind of mathematical witchcraft. There is merit to wanting more possessions when you are the better team, but it's absolutely not worth a 15 to 20 slot drop in the rankings. Your post basically reads to me like "I don't care how good the offense was because I prefer a different playing style."

I am personally not a fan of III's offensive system either, but it does work. I know it's the offseason and the offense is always fun to talk about, but defense was a far bigger problem this past year.

For what it's worth, almost all of the title winners over the last 10 seasons were extremely efficient on offense. They were each ranked 39th, 4th, 2nd, 18th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd... both of the outliers being UConn.

[gujake]

As for the new guys, count me as someone who thinks both Copeland and White will start from day one. I think Peak will play a lot as well.

[michaelgrahmstylie]

I thought White was really good at getting Okafor the ball in the post. Maybe we can see a lot of that with Josh.

[MCIGuy]

Apr 11, 2014 21:32:43 GMT -5 gujake said:

Efficiency is just points per possession. It's not some kind of mathematical witchcraft. There is merit to wanting more possessions when you are the better team, but it's absolutely not worth a 15 to 20 slot drop in the rankings. Your post basically reads to me like "I don't care how good the offense was because I prefer a different playing style."

I am personally not a fan of III's offensive system either, but it does work. I know it's the offseason and the offense is always fun to talk about, but defense was a far bigger problem this past year.

For what it's worth, almost all of the title winners over the last 10 seasons were extremely efficient on offense. They were each ranked 39th, 4th, 2nd, 18th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd... both of the outliers being UConn.

Thanks for providing the info regarding title winners. So now let me ask how many of those teams also had an offense that limited possessions? The limiting of possessions in my eyes led to an inability to quickly separate the Hoyas from the teams it played. This meant not building double digit leads until late in the second half. This meant at times shooting something crazy like 55% to 62% for a half and only being up by eight points or still having put up less than 40 points in that half (when more aggressive teams who shoot such a high percentage would be putting up around fifty points). This meant too often being unable to put inferior teams away which in my opinion caught up to the Hoyas a few times in NCAA tournament play.

Maybe I'm dead wrong about thinking a 15 to 20 drop on the efficiency level would be perfectly acceptable in exchange for a faster offense. But considering the results of every NCAA tournament appearance other than 2006 and 2007, can we say the style of offense used by III is ultimately doing his team any favors? It is not that I ever champion scrapping the offense. Instead I have always asked for increasing the pace, running more and allowing for more individual improvisation all the while keeping the basics of the offense mostly intact. And by the way to III's credit I saw more of that this past season. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the defense wasn't up to par not to mention that the Hoyas were without the talents of a couple of key players.

I probably made a bad decision to even discuss the topic. I think we are all tired of reading the same opinions again and again. So let me end my part by saying I like many of the principles of the offense but I feel it needs to be used in a more aggressive form to better suit the talents of the very good players that the Hoyas, more often than not, have on its squad.

[johnnysnowplow]

Apr 11, 2014 21:32:43 GMT -5 gujake said:

I am personally not a fan of III's offensive system either, but it does work. I know it's the offseason and the offense is always fun to talk about, but defense was a far bigger problem this past year.

For what it's worth, almost all of the title winners over the last 10 seasons were extremely efficient on offense. They were each ranked 39th, 4th, 2nd, 18th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd... both of the outliers being UConn.

As you said, the D is the issue. And for what it's worth, almost all of the title winners in the last 10 seasons were pretty efficient on D as well. 10, 3, 8, 13, 8, 21, 1, 17, 6, 12. Clearly this is not breaking news, but the balance of O and D is what wins championships. Since 07/08, we haven't had a single team balanced enough to rank in the top 30 in both Adj O and D. For the first time since probably 08, it seems like we should have the personnel to rank highly on both sides of the ball. Time will tell.

As far as the offense goes, I'm of the belief that JTIII actually does a pretty good job building his offensive for the players he has. It may not always be from day one, but by mid-season he's usually got a good handle on how to play to his players' strengths.