Transfers

[prhoya]

Jul 20, 2024 6:58:42 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

People on here are obsessed with recruiting super high level players…

Disagree. After all the historical losing, People on here just want a balanced team that can compete in the BE.

[bills]

The one thing about this board that I can say with a lot of confidence is that there is virtually nothing that the entire board would agree on. There are posters who take every 5 Star that considers Georgetown and chooses another school as an example the Georgetown cannot recruit the players who can win the Big East and take us deeep into March Madness. And there are posters who are happy about 4 star freshmen and transfers who look to be an improvement over what we had on the floor in the prior season. I am in the latter group.

[jwp91]

Jul 20, 2024 15:35:37 GMT -5 bills said:

The one thing about this board that I can say with a lot of confidence is that there is virtually nothing that the entire board would agree on. There are posters who take every 5 Star that considers Georgetown and chooses another school as an example the Georgetown cannot recruit the players who can win the Big East and take us deeep into March Madness. And there are posters who are happy about 4 star freshmen and transfers who look to be an improvement over what we had on the floor in the prior season. I am in the latter group.

Great point.

I was looking at some of the player recruiting rating from the late 80s. We simply attracted a higher caliber of player- multiple Top 40 players each year.

A Lewis seemed an interesting prospect because he seemed better than his ranking. His ranking then caught up with him while he was playing exceptionally well and he exited our window for what he cared about. I am of the opinion that we should build some level of relationship with all elite DMV players who pass a character test for lack of a better description. You never know what the future holds in this brave new NIL world.

We can still sign 5* players. PE signed Aminu, but it is a bit like baseball. If you land 3 of 10 (.300), you are a Hall of Famer. Hoyas are a finalist with 5*. Trey McKinney. There has been a lot of smoke with him and the Hoyas. I am not saying we will sign him, but I am saying, “Don’t bet your life that we won’t.” I wouldn’t be shocked if he signed, particularly if the NIL is there. Best I can tell (and this is only my speculation), he was the player being referred to regarding a recent possible commitment….but maybe that is the optimist in me.

[DFW HOYA]

Jul 20, 2024 16:44:10 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

I was looking at some of the player recruiting rating from the late 80s. We simply attracted a higher caliber of player- multiple Top 40 players each year.

In John Thompson's recruiting classes from 1972 through 1988, there were two major areas he signed recruits from: Metropolitan DC and inner city New Orleans. Of his 72 recruits, 49 came from either greater DC or from New Orleans (68%). Yes, there were notable exceptions (Eric Floyd, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning), but the meat and potatoes of Thompson's interest was local, in no small part because the talent level was so good and John didn't like to recruit where he wasn't familiar. In much the same way that, said jokingly at the time, Lou Carnesecca's recruiting budget at St. John's was a bag of subway tokens, the caliber of local recruits in and around DC was too good to ignore.

Fast forward to today. How many of the ESPN Top 100 in 2024 played locally? Three. In 2025? Five. In no small part because Ed Cooley's two prior predecessors were disinterested in the art and politics of local recruiting, Georgetown is not seen as a viable option locally as it once did, especially for those who seek a path to the next level. Just as the aspiring lacrosse player seeks programs that can network him into Wall Street after college, the aspiring basketball player seeks programs that can get him into the pros. "Big Man U" has one player in the NBA heading into next season, and he'll be 38 next month. These kids weren't alive the last time a guard from Georgetown was drafted.

The question is whether Kenny Johnson reopens up those local ties or Cooley simply fishes for seven new players a year from everywhere else.

[SFHoya99]

Jul 20, 2024 10:54:18 GMT -5 prhoya said:

Jul 20, 2024 6:58:42 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

People on here are obsessed with recruiting super high level players…

Disagree. After all the historical losing, People on here just want a balanced team that can compete in the BE.

I'm not talking specifically about the last few years. We had this going way back, maybe even to the old board, but definitely even in the JT3 days. Even as we were going to the Final Four with a talented but not all that regarded roster, people talked about how good we were going to be when we combined McD AAs Summers and Macklin with Wright and Freeman, completely ignoring things like Macklin being nowhere near as good as Hibbert or Summers as Green despite the accolades.

The insistence was always that we can't win without five star recruits, and the constant arguments about recruiting rankings being accurate in aggregate, which, while generally true, is not helpful for a team of 15 individuals.

The formula for winning tends to be to get a number of quality veterans who developed and then add some NBA talent through development or strong recruiting.

We aren't going to get a base without some level of development, without guys that won't go pro immediately or leave immediately. And while the transfer market does bring in the possibility of adding a lot of that depth, in practice that doesn't seem easily done except for a handful of oft cited incidents.

[SFHoya99]

Jul 20, 2024 15:35:37 GMT -5 bills said:

The one thing about this board that I can say with a lot of confidence is that there is virtually nothing that the entire board would agree on. There are posters who take every 5 Star that considers Georgetown and chooses another school as an example the Georgetown cannot recruit the players who can win the Big East and take us deeep into March Madness. And there are posters who are happy about 4 star freshmen and transfers who look to be an improvement over what we had on the floor in the prior season. I am in the latter group.

There are folks in both those buckets and then there are the folks who basically look to turn any piece of news into a bludgeon on Cooley or whomever their chosen target is.

It will not stop, by the way. I've seen this across multiple fanbases, multiple times. These people are so locked in this idea they will never walk it back under any different evidence. The best you can hope for is success and for them to disappear as a result.

[SFHoya99]

Jul 20, 2024 16:44:10 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

I was looking at some of the player recruiting rating from the late 80s. We simply attracted a higher caliber of player- multiple Top 40 players each year.

I'm not even really sure where you found recruiting rankings from the late 80s -- I know the rankings themselves were not overly comprehensive.

I would argue by the late 80s, those classes were getting pretty thin -- often one big star, maybe one kid who was destined to transfer, and then a lot of unknowns. Even the Iverson team which had a ton of pros on it still had guys like Jerome Williams -- who was a JC guy -- or started Boubacar Aw.

If you remove the Mutombo and Iverson gets as they were not straight recruiting battles, you've got Alonzo and Othella and ... over an 8 year period or so.

We can still sign 5* players. PE signed Aminu, but it is a bit like baseball. If you land 3 of 10 (.300), you are a Hall of Famer. Hoyas are a finalist with 5*. Trey McKinney. There has been a lot of smoke with him and the Hoyas. I am not saying we will sign him, but I am saying, “Don’t bet your life that we won’t.” I wouldn’t be shocked if he signed, particularly if the NIL is there. Best I can tell (and this is only my speculation), he was the player being referred to regarding a recent possible commitment….but maybe that is the optimist in me.

I think the big learning from Aminu (and from prior players) is that you need the strong base there around them to win. Five star players aren't likely to stick around very long if they are impacting the game that way, especially nowadays.

In JT3s early years, we actually got 5 McDs AAs in 3 years and also added Top 100 guys in Jason Clark and Henry Sims. And the team was very good -- we can go back and forth about the NCAA flameouts, but the reality was that the team was never quite as good as the prior teams. One McD was never very good for us and transferred out (and later admitted that he realized when he got to Florida that he needed to work), one went pro after two years, one after three.

But we never surrounded those players with quite enough depth. We didn't have a PF next to Monroe or really replace him aside from one year of Henry Sims. Too many Mescheriakovs and Omar Wattads.

Aminu wasn't nearly as good as his hype, but it also wouldn't have mattered much.

[prhoya]

Jul 21, 2024 7:21:59 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Jul 20, 2024 10:54:18 GMT -5 prhoya said:

Disagree. After all the historical losing, People on here just want a balanced team that can compete in the BE.

I'm not talking specifically about the last few years. We had this going way back, maybe even to the old board, but definitely even in the JT3 days. Even as we were going to the Final Four with a talented but not all that regarded roster, people talked about how good we were going to be when we combined McD AAs Summers and Macklin with Wright and Freeman, completely ignoring things like Macklin being nowhere near as good as Hibbert or Summers as Green despite the accolades.

The insistence was always that we can't win without five star recruits, and the constant arguments about recruiting rankings being accurate in aggregate, which, while generally true, is not helpful for a team of 15 individuals.

The formula for winning tends to be to get a number of quality veterans who developed and then add some NBA talent through development or strong recruiting.

We aren't going to get a base without some level of development, without guys that won't go pro immediately or leave immediately. And while the transfer market does bring in the possibility of adding a lot of that depth, in practice that doesn't seem easily done except for a handful of oft cited incidents.

Fans can have their own ideas on how to build a winner, but the problem has been that the true decision-makers, incl. Cooley, have recruited like "we can't win without five star recruits" and missed, without having a clear plan B or C.

I agree that the formula for winning you mentioned is reliable, but this past Final Four showed that free transfer and NIL have added several formulas for winning that didn't exist until last year or so.

As you know, I'm a big proponent of balance and experience, and unfortunately we're lacking again this year. Will Cooley have an opportunity to develop the underclassmen he recruited? Time will tell if they'll stick around.

[HometownHoya]

Things come together if you keep grinding. I'd like us to have an older roster but can't complain about the talent Cooley has put together.

[SFHoya99]

Jul 22, 2024 0:01:41 GMT -5 prhoya said:

Fans can have their own ideas on how to build a winner, but the problem has been that the true decision-makers, incl. Cooley, have recruited like "we can't win without five star recruits" and missed, without having a clear plan B or C.

I know this is your thing from the first transfer season, but I can't see how this is in any way accurate for the 2024 freshman class or the last transfer season. We've been in on what, about ten different big men? How is that not having a clear plan B or C? Just because a plan didn't necessarily succeed to meet your criteria, doesn't mean there wasn't one.

Since we have a team with talented players, none of whom were actually five stars, I don't understand how you think Cooley subscribes to this.

Are we going to be ten years down and despite any additional information, are you still going to be trumpeting this?

I agree that the formula for winning you mentioned is reliable, but this past Final Four showed that free transfer and NIL have added several formulas for winning that didn't exist until last year or so.

I never said there weren't formulas. I said that the formula that Georgetown needs to compete on includes development. And the reason for that is that we're never going to be near the very top of NIL or as a transfer destination. At least until and if we ever get back to be a very winning program.

We are ill suited as a university and a program to pursue several of the options for winning paths. Therefore, it would be a bad move to focus on those.

As you know, I'm a big proponent of balance and experience, and unfortunately we're lacking again this year. Will Cooley have an opportunity to develop the underclassmen he recruited? Time will tell if they'll stick around.

Yes. That will be his job. Any alternative is unrealistic for the state of the program. If we improve and play well, I suspect the key players will stick around, and we'll lose a few people who lose the PT battle, which is what happens at the vast majority of programs.



At least point, I think what you want is either what we don't have or some unrealistic thing. The fact that we were 2-38 in the Big East coming in and that we had no NIL apparatus ... our 2024 freshman class was very, very strong. Our '24-25 transfer class shored up a number of weaknesses.

Yes, we're young. Yes, we're thin at bigs. But we brought in better defenders, we brought in an additional ballhandler and driver, and we brought in a ton of athleticism and more general size.

[78HOYA78]

Great observations. I just looked at a recruiting website and it appears there is only one 5 - star recruit coming to the Big East.

[jwp91]

Jul 24, 2024 8:02:28 GMT -5 78HOYA78 said:

Great observations. I just looked at a recruiting website and it appears there is only one 5 - star recruit coming to the Big East.

And that includes UConn.

5* are very talented but if we are honest they frequently come with unhelpful baggage too. If you are not one piece away from accomplishing something, a year of a great player may nto be worth much. See Aminu. (We always had that Syracuse game).

[DFW HOYA]

Jul 24, 2024 10:09:02 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

If you are not one piece away from accomplishing something, a year of a great player may not be worth much. See Aminu.

One of those "what if" players who's largely forgotten just three years later.

In the fall of 2020, he's the #16 player in the nation, choosing Georgetown over Georgia. The next season, the Hoyas go 6-25 (for that matter, Georgia went 6-26). Patrick Ewing encourages him to test the draft waters if he so chooses. but he is welcome back. His guardian (Shaun Harmon) responds on Twitter that "I have told certain individuals before and will state it personally myself so it will be clear Aminu is not testing the waters regardless of what might be said by anyone else he has declared for the upcoming draft and is committed 1000% to that process!!!"

Mohammed enters the draft. He is not drafted. He signs a free agent offer sheet with the 76ers but the sum is not guaranteed and he is waived. Two years into the G-League he is the 10th leading scorer on the Delaware Blue Coats at nine points a game. Had he stayed, he was still better than Brandon Murray. Had he transferred, he sits a year but reemerges in the era of the transfer portal and NIL.

[hoyaguy]

Jul 24, 2024 12:39:48 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Jul 24, 2024 10:09:02 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

If you are not one piece away from accomplishing something, a year of a great player may not be worth much. See Aminu.

One of those "what if" players who's largely forgotten just three years later.

In the fall of 2020, he's the #16 player in the nation, choosing Georgetown over Georgia. The next season, the Hoyas go 6-25 (for that matter, Georgia went 6-26). Patrick Ewing encourages him to test the draft waters if he so chooses. but he is welcome back. His guardian (Shaun Harmon) responds on Twitter that "I have told certain individuals before and will state it personally myself so it will be clear Aminu is not testing the waters regardless of what might be said by anyone else he has declared for the upcoming draft and is committed 1000% to that process!!!"

Mohammed enters the draft. He is not drafted. He signs a free agent offer sheet with the 76ers but the sum is not guaranteed and he is waived. Two years into the G-League he is the 10th leading scorer on the Delaware Blue Coats at nine points a game. Had he stayed, he was still better than Brandon Murray. Had he transferred, he sits a year but reemerges in the era of the transfer portal and NIL.

That was a lot of bad seasons ago that I think people would just rather forget. That being said:

Aminu was a weird case because his high school didn’t do him any service since the competition was too weak to make him evolve his game. Shooting needed to be or become a strength of his to make the league realistically. In the right team with the right coach he definitely could’ve been a very impactful college player. He shouldn’t have really come into a bad college team and expected to carry a squad. If I was him after that terrible season, I would’ve transferred to improve my game.

[prhoya]

Jul 24, 2024 7:37:51 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Jul 22, 2024 0:01:41 GMT -5 prhoya said:

Fans can have their own ideas on how to build a winner, but the problem has been that the true decision-makers, incl. Cooley, have recruited like "we can't win without five star recruits" and missed, without having a clear plan B or C.

I know this is your thing from the first transfer season, but I can't see how this is in any way accurate for the 2024 freshman class or the last transfer season. We've been in on what, about ten different big men? How is that not having a clear plan B or C? Just because a plan didn't necessarily succeed to meet your criteria, doesn't mean there wasn't one.

First, if you read it carefully, I used "has been" and "have recruited," as in the past. Cooley did use this approach when he went after Hunter Dickinson, the top (or one of the top) big transfer last year, and had to sign Supreme late. He learned from that failure and did a wider search this year.

Jul 24, 2024 7:37:51 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

I never said there weren't formulas. I said that the formula that Georgetown needs to compete on includes development. And the reason for that is that we're never going to be near the very top of NIL or as a transfer destination. At least until and if we ever get back to be a very winning program.

We are ill suited as a university and a program to pursue several of the options for winning paths. Therefore, it would be a bad move to focus on those.
...
Any alternative is unrealistic for the state of the program.

Disagree. Why would the program be ill suited or "any alternative is unrealistic"? That’s a very pessimistic view.

Jul 24, 2024 7:37:51 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Yes, we're young. Yes, we're thin at bigs. But we brought in better defenders, we brought in an additional ballhandler and driver, and we brought in a ton of athleticism and more general size.

And hopefully they’ll stick around after March 2025, but the team is lacking balance now and that could lead to another bottom-third-of-the-BE season, which could lead to another mass exodus. Hopefully, we still have open scholarships for a surprise or two.

[SFHoya99]

Jul 25, 2024 11:11:36 GMT -5 prhoya said:

First, if you read it carefully, I used "has been" and "have recruited," as in the past. Cooley did use this approach when he went after Hunter Dickinson, the top (or one of the top) big transfer last year, and had to sign Supreme late. He learned from that failure and did a wider search this year.

Then how is your point relevant? I was talking about what strategy we need to pursue in the future, and you said the problem was that Cooley was pursuing five stars with no plan B. How is that a problem if that is not what Cooley is doing now?

The original transfer season is not necessarily completely irrelevant, but given the differences we've seen, surely we can acknowledge the timing and lack of NIL apparatus played a very big role?

Disagree. Why would the program be ill suited or "any alternative is unrealistic"? That’s a very pessimistic view.

A program situated where we are -- coming off 4-56 or whatever it is -- can hardly successfully pursue a strategy of 5 star recruiting. Furthermore, we are unlikely to compete long term as we do not have a competitive advantage in any way with the top recruiting schools in the country. Recruits do not care about academics on the whole, aside from one here or there. Georgetown is not a party school. We do not have the pedigree of the top programs, and we also haven't won in 20 years. We do have decent facilities but not better than others, and our home court is boring compared to Allen Fieldhouse or Cameron Indoor. Our long list of NBA players has been whittled down to almost nothing.

For the Big East, I suspect we have a decent NIL bag. But not compared to the truly big schools, especially ones that can share a budget with big time football -- or those with sugar daddies like Arkansas.

Pursuing a strategy relying on outpaying someone or on recruiting the elite players who can go where they want is a failing strategy. It's exactly what you just criticized Cooley for -- going too big and not getting the player.

We will recruit and we will get transfers, but if the team is going to get back where we want to be, we will need to play well as a team and develop players. We do not have the budget to buy a team or get a group of 5 stars.

And hopefully they’ll stick around after March 2025, but the team is lacking balance now and that could lead to another bottom-third-of-the-BE season, which could lead to another mass exodus. Hopefully, we still have open scholarships for a surprise or two.

Retention is a key necessary part of almost any winning strategy. But certainly for one founded on some level of development. And with the new rules and NLI situation, retaining players has become harder and their reasons for staying and going more varied.

Where you and I differ is that I don't really think this last off-season is necessarily a big indicator of Cooley's ability, relative to other coaches, to retain.

Yes, we're going to lose some guys to higher money offers we don't think is worth it. Other guys who didn't get PT or don't see future PT, will likely go. A coach can certainly build a culture and basically re-recruit guys, but at some point, choices will be made by players and the staff in terms of retention. It's inevitable.

The question is simply the percentage of people retained out of those you want to retain, and whether you pick the right guys. We can not judge the last off-season on the latter yet; that evaluation has yet to be written.

As to the former, we did not lose many players we wanted to retain, and perhaps even none at the price tag that came along. Of course, we didn't retain a ton, either, so the whole year reeks of an incomplete in terms of Cooley's retention ability.

I think if we improve and show promise on a young team, Cooley will be able to craft an excellent story of progress -- but the reality is that PT and NIL will trump that for many players.

We'll see. If we cannot retain core players at some level of consistency, we simply will not ever improve.

[Admin]

Additional discussion on coaching contracts has been moved to the thread titled "The current state of our Hoya basketball program".