2017 Recruiting Class Could Be The Best Yet

[adoraz]

DePaul of all teams with a chance to land 5* Bowen and 4* Tilmon. Would be fantastic to see them get one.

Jays also in on Bowen. 4* Tremont Waters a possibility as well for Georgetown and Creighton. Believe that's it for the major recruits.

Also 3 BE players currently just outside 4* range (top 12 3*).

[GoldenWarrior11]

Marquette's recruiting class is deceptively solid. In John, Eke, Cain and Elliott, we will have a core of players that will stay all four years, and provide toughness and physicality. With Howard/Hauser becoming our new core, we have a plethora of young talent to build on. With Bailey coming next year (and hopefully the second Hauser), Wojo has demonstrated to be a very strong recruiter.

[billyjack]

The problem with your post at the start of the year was that you failed to acknowledge that a majority of Big East Recruits sign early. So Big East is always going to be the pacer, but that's always the high point.

The thing is, looking at the metrics that you espouse, this class is the worst since the league reformed. It's not a great class. 1st class ever where no 5 stars signed.

Also, the problem is that you are seeing more and more guys signed by the p5 schools. Look at flipping Missouri's class for gosh sakes.. That's not a good development for non p5 schools. Only 8 of the top 50 classes this year are non p5. The thing that's so funny to me is folks here want to see the AAC fail, but fail to recognize if they do fail, the ones that benefit will be the P5 schools, not the Big East schools.

And the AAC is in major trouble? Going to have quite possibly 3 teams in the preseason top 25. Some major, major trouble. The problem with folks on here is that they think that the AAC is always going to be like they have. The AAC has never had a year where they've put it all together, winning a lot of the close games. In a lot of ways, they've been the complete opposite of the Big East. While Big East has had everything go absolutely right for making tourney, AAC has had almost everything go absolutely wrong. Could recruiting be better? Sure it could. But they're going to be one of the 7 top conferences this year, and quite probably going forward. It's a top 7, and then everyone else. You can see that in recruiting just this year. 10 of the 12 AAC schools have top 100 classes. CUSA has 5, MWC 4, A10 4, and then no one else more than 2. Top 80 even more pronounced. AAC with 8, CUSA 3, MWC 3, A10 2, Southland 1, Sun Belt 1. What this year has done is put the AAC as being unquestionably in the top 7.

Couple of things in general:

- AAC's Close Losses: I'm the one who pointed this out to you last December. Anyway, you are what your record says you are... and the AAC has some teams that are solid, but are still trying to develop a winning culture... and so their W-L record is accurate... average to solid teams that need to learn how to win. Big East teams, in general, have already solved this, and their coaches as a whole are great.

If we gave credit for "close losses", then Georgetown would've beaten Maryland and won several other games and they'd have made the NCAA's. Also, if close losses matter, then Seton Hall and Providence in the NCAA's should've gotten a ton of props, and Marquette was tied late on the road at F4 bound South Carolina... and Villanova's close losses in the NCAA's would be dismissed as "a team that would've made 2 more Final Fours if not for unlikely losses to NC State and Wisconsin"...

- Big East Lucky To Get 7 Teams/ Things Broke Perfectly For Them: The flipside to this statement, which MUST be understood, is that the trade-off with getting 7 teams in this year was that Watson and Sumner were lost, meaning Xavier probably is a Final Four team, and Creighton is minimum Elite-8 as they rolled through their Watson-led games.

So you can't dismiss our 7 bids AND dismiss the probabilty of possibly getting Final Fours from XU and Creighton. One must be true.

[stever20]

I don't think you can say for certain that either Creighton or Xavier would have been a final 4 team. Xavier was not playing well all year long even with Summer. They were only 15-6 at the time of injury, and 4 of the 5 BE wins were vs Georgetown and St John's. Just had come off of a period of losing 4 of last 5 games. So to say with Summer they would have been final 4 is a reach.

Creighton sure looked great with Watson, but at the time of the injury, due to the soft schedule, they were only #19 in ken pom. So tough to say that they would have gone much further outside of the fact they would have been a top 3 or 4 seed instead of 6, and thus a better early round matchup of course. But to say final 4 is a stretch.

So don't think you can say that Big East had to have had either 7 bids or getting final four from at least 1 of Xavier or Creighton. But then again, I'd argue that even w/o final 4's- the number of units had the injuries not happened and league only gotten 4 or 5 bids would have been at least the same, if not more, than what actually happened.

You are right about Georgetown. The thing I'll say about it is thank God it happened because JT3 finally got shown the door. I just find close games to be a lot about a bounce here and a bounce there. Game played 100 times, one team would win 50 and the other team 50.

I just think the AAC is far more solid than folks here want to make it out. 3 likely top 25 teams in Cincy, SMU, and Wichita. Some up and coming teams in Houston, UCF(seems SO strange to say that). The thing that's strange is looking at them, the key is Memphis, UConn, and Temple. If those 3 can return to where they have been before- the league is super deep. Not sure how anyone objectively could look at the AAC and say they're in major trouble right now.

It's funny, just like in the Big East if we had said 4 years ago Georgetown, St John's, and Marquette had been nothing in the Big East- one would have been majorly concerned- if you had said back when AAC formed that SMU, Houston, and UCF would be as improved as they have- you would have thought with that the AAC would be doing pretty well. But just not the case.

[scoscox]

Without Semi Ojeleye, it'll probably only be two in the top 25.

[scoscox]

- Big East Lucky To Get 7 Teams/ Things Broke Perfectly For Them: The flipside to this statement, which MUST be understood, is that the trade-off with getting 7 teams in this year was that Watson and Sumner were lost, meaning Xavier probably is a Final Four team, and Creighton is minimum Elite-8 as they rolled through their Watson-led games.

So you can't dismiss our 7 bids AND dismiss the probabilty of possibly getting Final Fours from XU and Creighton. One must be true.

Good lord we would've been filthy with Edmond and Myles

[NovaYanks10]

Stever, you say "folks on here want to talk about how the AAC is struggling". This is incorrect - no one wants to talk about them period because they aren't and never will be a competitor. Part of the reason Temple and UConn are struggling is because of the slop in that conference is unmarketable to fans of that team (ECU, USF, Tulane). Coincidentally, these are the teams that you never talk about. Meanwhile, every team in the Big East has made the tournament since its inception except for DePaul.

Feel free to move on to the AAC board if this gets your panties in a bunch.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Competition is a zero-sum game. The reason Houston, UCF and SMU are up right now is because UConn, Temple and Memphis are down.

[stever20]

Competition is a zero-sum game. The reason Houston, UCF and SMU are up right now is because UConn, Temple and Memphis are down.

You see I disagree with that. In a round robin league you are right. But in a 12 team league, it's not like that at all. 12 team leagues can have 7 or 8 teams finishing with .500 or better records. Look at the Sun Belt last year. 8th place team had a 10-8 record. So it's not necessarily an either or- by any stretch.

[JohnW22]

I don't think you can say for certain that either Creighton or Xavier would have been a final 4 team. Xavier was not playing well all year long even with Summer. They were only 15-6 at the time of injury, and 4 of the 5 BE wins were vs Georgetown and St John's. Just had come off of a period of losing 4 of last 5 games. So to say with Summer they would have been final 4 is a reach.

Creighton sure looked great with Watson, but at the time of the injury, due to the soft schedule, they were only #19 in ken pom. So tough to say that they would have gone much further outside of the fact they would have been a top 3 or 4 seed instead of 6, and thus a better early round matchup of course. But to say final 4 is a stretch.

So don't think you can say that Big East had to have had either 7 bids or getting final four from at least 1 of Xavier or Creighton. But then again, I'd argue that even w/o final 4's- the number of units had the injuries not happened and league only gotten 4 or 5 bids would have been at least the same, if not more, than what actually happened.

You are right about Georgetown. The thing I'll say about it is thank God it happened because JT3 finally got shown the door. I just find close games to be a lot about a bounce here and a bounce there. Game played 100 times, one team would win 50 and the other team 50.

I just think the AAC is far more solid than folks here want to make it out. 3 likely top 25 teams in Cincy, SMU, and Wichita. Some up and coming teams in Houston, UCF(seems SO strange to say that). The thing that's strange is looking at them, the key is Memphis, UConn, and Temple. If those 3 can return to where they have been before- the league is super deep. Not sure how anyone objectively could look at the AAC and say they're in major trouble right now.

It's funny, just like in the Big East if we had said 4 years ago Georgetown, St John's, and Marquette had been nothing in the Big East- one would have been majorly concerned- if you had said back when AAC formed that SMU, Houston, and UCF would be as improved as they have- you would have thought with that the AAC would be doing pretty well. But just not the case.

Did you not see the difference between Xavier with and without Sumner? Goodin did good but to say having Xavier's 6'6 athletic freak at point guard who averaged 15 PPG wouldn't have made a difference to get to the final four is a little strange.