5* Wesley Yates

7,330 Views | 48 Replies | Last: 7 mo ago by bear2be2
Crawfoso1973
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Big-O!-Bear said:

Some y'all people need church.
We all need church. You have anything to contribute to the topic being debated?
Crawfoso1973
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bear2be2 said:

Crawfoso1973 said:

Your concerns about bringing in a ball dominant PG and pushing someone off the roster were 2 false dichotomies you generated in your own mind, to then take and argue with others. Same with now arguing needlessly about our roster composition. I am pretty sure our staff knows what they are doing.
There was no dichotomy. You continue to misrepresent my positions and leave out very important qualifiers to all of my points.

I prefaced basically every point I ever made about our point guard position with, "If we can find a distributing point guard, great." That means I was never against the idea. Just as I've said at least four times in this thread that "I'm all for adding five-star talent," and you continue to suggest that I'm against recruiting one-and-dones.

The words before the "but" matter. It would be nice if you'd stop leaving them out when reframing my argument. Hell, it would be nice if you'd stop reframing my arguments altogether as I'm fairly certain my words can stand on their own just fine.

And positing thoughts or concerns is not arguing. Go look in this thread at who first took an argumentative tone. Same with the point guard discussion. I shared a personal opinion and others quite needlessly turned it into a contentious debate. Once a back-and-forth has begun, I'm not going to let others misrepresent my point, and I'll clarify if there seems to be confusion, but only one person has turned a discussion about recruiting into a personal referendum on the other's loyalty to our program and Scott Drew -- the defense of whom (once again) is not necessary because he's not being attacked.
Of course I don't disagree that a team with veteran players is an advantage. Where I disagreed is the idea that somehow we lost in the 2nd round of the tournament due to Sochan and Brown "not being physically and emotionally ready to carry a team."

We lost in the 2nd round due to injury. Period. We had a 6 man rotation after losing Cryer and EJ. 7 man rotation if you count Bonner who gave us some hustle minutes. Sochan was a beast down the stretch and in fact DID carry our team from my vantage point.

Bad luck with injury was what derailed our 15-0 start, not our roster composition. I trust our coaches that they know what they are doing. Keyonte will be our only one and done this year, what is the complaint?
bear2be2
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Crawfoso1973 said:

bear2be2 said:

Crawfoso1973 said:

Your concerns about bringing in a ball dominant PG and pushing someone off the roster were 2 false dichotomies you generated in your own mind, to then take and argue with others. Same with now arguing needlessly about our roster composition. I am pretty sure our staff knows what they are doing.
There was no dichotomy. You continue to misrepresent my positions and leave out very important qualifiers to all of my points.

I prefaced basically every point I ever made about our point guard position with, "If we can find a distributing point guard, great." That means I was never against the idea. Just as I've said at least four times in this thread that "I'm all for adding five-star talent," and you continue to suggest that I'm against recruiting one-and-dones.

The words before the "but" matter. It would be nice if you'd stop leaving them out when reframing my argument. Hell, it would be nice if you'd stop reframing my arguments altogether as I'm fairly certain my words can stand on their own just fine.

And positing thoughts or concerns is not arguing. Go look in this thread at who first took an argumentative tone. Same with the point guard discussion. I shared a personal opinion and others quite needlessly turned it into a contentious debate. Once a back-and-forth has begun, I'm not going to let others misrepresent my point, and I'll clarify if there seems to be confusion, but only one person has turned a discussion about recruiting into a personal referendum on the other's loyalty to our program and Scott Drew -- the defense of whom (once again) is not necessary because he's not being attacked.
Of course I don't disagree that a team with veteran players is an advantage. Where I disagreed is the idea that somehow we lost in the 2nd round of the tournament due to Sochan and Brown "not being physically and emotionally ready to carry a team."

We lost in the 2nd round due to injury. Period. We had a 6 man rotation after losing Cryer and EJ. 7 man rotation if you count Bonner who gave us some hustle minutes. Sochan was a beast down the stretch and in fact DID carry our team from my vantage point.

Bad luck with injury was what derailed our 15-0 start, not our roster composition. I trust our coaches that they know what they are doing. Keyonte will be our only one and done this year, what is the complaint?
The first paragraph and second two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand with my point.

When Sochan and Brown (and everyone else in our original rotation) were playing their optimal roles, we were a national title contender. Once we lost one of our most explosive scorers (Cryer) and our best defender (JTT), everyone had to carry more of the load than they should have, and virtually all of them suffered. We had a lot of side dishes and no main course.

To win a national title you need a main course. We had two in 2021. After our injuries this past season, we had a lot of guys trying to be that main course and none that were capable of carrying the team.

To my original point, freshman are typically less equipped to be that guy than are standout players with experience. All I've said, and I'm still not sure why it's so controversial, is that I want to keep some older guys with main course ceilings in the program/on the roster at all times, so we don't have to ask any freshman to fill that role. Some of these guys are talented enough to take that role over and if they do, awesome. But I don't ever want to be in a position where we're asking a freshman or freshmen to come in and lead our team.

And you continue to mistake my posts as criticisms of our players and coaching staff. They're not. I've said nothing negative about Brown or Sochan. I've only pointed out that as talented as those guys are, and as well as they played for most of the season, neither was ready at any point in this season to be the No. 1 player on a national title winning team. That's not a knock on them. That's true of most freshman. Which brings us back to my original point.
Crawfoso1973
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Who said our staff is against keeping veteran players in our program? What or who are you arguing against? Next year we will have exactly one anticipated one and done player. One.
EasyE
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Soo.... about Yates, who has seen him play?
bear2be2
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Crawfoso1973 said:

Who said our staff is against keeping veteran players in our program? What or who are you arguing against? Next year we will have exactly one anticipated one and done player. One.
No one. No one at all is attacking or critiquing our staff. You don't need to jump to their defense. They're not being attacked.

I'm just looking at the quality of our high school recruiting, seeing the types of players we're now consistently in on and expressing an opinion. I have no idea why you've been so defensive in this thread.

It's just an opinion based on the fact that we've never in our history recruited at the level we are currently. So now that we have access to higher level recruit, I'm interested to see how that impacts our roster composition over time, if at all. I'm personally hoping our strategy doesn't change too much and that we can find a way to mesh this one-and-done talent with the types of quality juniors and seniors we've been so good at developing and adding through transfer pipelines. That's it. I'm still struggling to understand why this has caused such a debate.
bear2be2
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Another early exit got me thinking about this thread from two years ago. Interesting trip down memory lane.
Big Bear
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Easy math..
TWD 1974
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Oso del lago said:

Some y'all people need church.
I would also point out a couple of things. This thread begins with a discussion about a certain 5* prospect coming in, who would be another one-and-done, and as has been discussed by some here ad infinitum, one-and-done's don't work. The reality is that the young man mentioned, did not come to Baylor, signed with Washington, was in fact a 4* prospect, hurt his foot, missed the entire year, and is on nobody's radar for the draft. My point to all of these things is the absurdity of the argument.
1. I think we could all (or hopefully, most of us) could agree that the historic goal to any winning program is to recruit young people of good character and the highest level of talent. 2. We would mostly agree it is better to have such talent for 4 years rather than one.
3. Here lies the problem, if we are given a list of the top 50-100 High School Juniors in any year, it is possible we will identify a few--usually 5 or less, that look to be top level draft picks when they become 19. Such a list would not have identified Sochan, as he was in Europe and unrated. It would not have listed Missi, as he had barely started playing the game and was expected to play this year in high school. So, 50% of our lottery picks were not considered to be lottery picks until after they had come to Baylor.
4. The task to recruiting remains getting the best talent available, knowing full well that at any point that player is told by multiple reliable pro scouts that they're getting $30mm guaranteed money, that player is gone. 99 out of 100 players in that position will leave. If you recruit to avoid that possibility, good luck. After a year or 2, it won't be necessary, because no 4 or 5* will be returning your call.
Guitarbiscuit
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bear2be2 said:

I hope that in pursuing all these one-and-dones, we don't abandon the formula that brought us our national title. College basketball's a grown man's game and we need to save enough scholarships to get and stay old around the freshmen we're bringing in.

Elite high school talent is great, but as we saw this past season with Brown and Sochan -- and before that with Perry Jones, Quincy Miller and Isaiah Austin -- most of these guys are not ready physically or emotionally to carry an elite college basketball team as freshmen.

As consistently good as Kentucky has been under Calipari, they only have one title with their formula -- and that came only because they were blessed enough to have a couple of guys in Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who were mature enough at that age to carry a team. But those guys are exceedingly rare. And several of their attempts to re-bottle that lightning have been disastrous.

And I think a strong argument can be made that Coach K's shift toward one-and-done talent wasn't a particularly successful strategy. Only one of his five titles followed that formula.

I think we need to be careful here and view those guys as supplemental pieces to a team built around star juniors and seniors. Some of these freshmen will end up being main course guys, but most will be side dishes. And you don't want to end up with a meal full of side dishes -- or worse meal after meal of side dishes.

The get old, stay old strategy was the one that put us in an elite strata of college basketball. I hope we don't forget that as our profile rises.

Very well written, bear2be2. I'm even less inclined to want any one and done players under any circumstances. I'm somewhat of a black and white guy. However, I think it's fair to say that if we do get more one and done's (which we will) then they should be used as supplements only or pieces to round out what is already a good team. Hopefully CSD will move back more into "player development" mode after 3 years of revolving door teams.
bear2be2
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Guitarbiscuit said:

bear2be2 said:

I hope that in pursuing all these one-and-dones, we don't abandon the formula that brought us our national title. College basketball's a grown man's game and we need to save enough scholarships to get and stay old around the freshmen we're bringing in.

Elite high school talent is great, but as we saw this past season with Brown and Sochan -- and before that with Perry Jones, Quincy Miller and Isaiah Austin -- most of these guys are not ready physically or emotionally to carry an elite college basketball team as freshmen.

As consistently good as Kentucky has been under Calipari, they only have one title with their formula -- and that came only because they were blessed enough to have a couple of guys in Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who were mature enough at that age to carry a team. But those guys are exceedingly rare. And several of their attempts to re-bottle that lightning have been disastrous.

And I think a strong argument can be made that Coach K's shift toward one-and-done talent wasn't a particularly successful strategy. Only one of his five titles followed that formula.

I think we need to be careful here and view those guys as supplemental pieces to a team built around star juniors and seniors. Some of these freshmen will end up being main course guys, but most will be side dishes. And you don't want to end up with a meal full of side dishes -- or worse meal after meal of side dishes.

The get old, stay old strategy was the one that put us in an elite strata of college basketball. I hope we don't forget that as our profile rises.

Very well written, bear2be2. I'm even less inclined to want any one and done players under any circumstances. I'm somewhat of a black and white guy. However, I think it's fair to say that if we do get more one and done's (which we will) then they should be used as supplements only or pieces to round out what is already a good team. Hopefully CSD will move back more into "player development" mode after 3 years of revolving door teams.
This was written following the 2022 season after our first prolonged foray into the world of one-and-done recruiting. I've come closer to where you are since. All of our one-and-done players since the championship have been good kids, but none but the first two, who at least have a shared conference championship they can boast, have helped us win anything of note.

I want junior and senior starters. You can't have that guaranteeing freshmen starter minutes and heavy usage. In the future, I'd just as soon pass on known five-star one-and-done types. They simply don't help you win in March.
TWD 1974
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bear2be2 said:

Guitarbiscuit said:

bear2be2 said:

I hope that in pursuing all these one-and-dones, we don't abandon the formula that brought us our national title. College basketball's a grown man's game and we need to save enough scholarships to get and stay old around the freshmen we're bringing in.

Elite high school talent is great, but as we saw this past season with Brown and Sochan -- and before that with Perry Jones, Quincy Miller and Isaiah Austin -- most of these guys are not ready physically or emotionally to carry an elite college basketball team as freshmen.

As consistently good as Kentucky has been under Calipari, they only have one title with their formula -- and that came only because they were blessed enough to have a couple of guys in Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who were mature enough at that age to carry a team. But those guys are exceedingly rare. And several of their attempts to re-bottle that lightning have been disastrous.

And I think a strong argument can be made that Coach K's shift toward one-and-done talent wasn't a particularly successful strategy. Only one of his five titles followed that formula.

I think we need to be careful here and view those guys as supplemental pieces to a team built around star juniors and seniors. Some of these freshmen will end up being main course guys, but most will be side dishes. And you don't want to end up with a meal full of side dishes -- or worse meal after meal of side dishes.

The get old, stay old strategy was the one that put us in an elite strata of college basketball. I hope we don't forget that as our profile rises.

Very well written, bear2be2. I'm even less inclined to want any one and done players under any circumstances. I'm somewhat of a black and white guy. However, I think it's fair to say that if we do get more one and done's (which we will) then they should be used as supplements only or pieces to round out what is already a good team. Hopefully CSD will move back more into "player development" mode after 3 years of revolving door teams.
This was written following the 2022 season after our first prolonged foray into the world of one-and-done recruiting. I've come closer to where you are since. All of our one-and-done players since the championship have been good kids, but none but the first two, who at least have a shared conference championship they can boast, have helped us win anything of note.

I want junior and senior starters. You can't have that guaranteeing freshmen starter minutes and heavy usage. In the future, I'd just as soon pass on known five-star one-and-done types. They simply don't help you win in March.
Perhaps you should put together a list of prospective one-and-dones you think we should pass on. If you do, and more than half of your selections end up as actual one-and-dones you may have a new career. After Cooper Flagg this year, who are the surefire lottery picks? I agree with the premise that you can have too many top level freshman, but sometimes that's where you end up. Saying no to any 5*s is basically killing off your program. For me, finding the mix of younger talent anchored by seniors is the key. Folks on this site are railing about the missed freshman free throws. What I see is a team with a number of older players and only one was taking it to the hoop and getting to the foul line. After RayJ, some of the older players were leaning on the Freshman.
bear2be2
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TWD 1974 said:

bear2be2 said:

Guitarbiscuit said:

bear2be2 said:

I hope that in pursuing all these one-and-dones, we don't abandon the formula that brought us our national title. College basketball's a grown man's game and we need to save enough scholarships to get and stay old around the freshmen we're bringing in.

Elite high school talent is great, but as we saw this past season with Brown and Sochan -- and before that with Perry Jones, Quincy Miller and Isaiah Austin -- most of these guys are not ready physically or emotionally to carry an elite college basketball team as freshmen.

As consistently good as Kentucky has been under Calipari, they only have one title with their formula -- and that came only because they were blessed enough to have a couple of guys in Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who were mature enough at that age to carry a team. But those guys are exceedingly rare. And several of their attempts to re-bottle that lightning have been disastrous.

And I think a strong argument can be made that Coach K's shift toward one-and-done talent wasn't a particularly successful strategy. Only one of his five titles followed that formula.

I think we need to be careful here and view those guys as supplemental pieces to a team built around star juniors and seniors. Some of these freshmen will end up being main course guys, but most will be side dishes. And you don't want to end up with a meal full of side dishes -- or worse meal after meal of side dishes.

The get old, stay old strategy was the one that put us in an elite strata of college basketball. I hope we don't forget that as our profile rises.

Very well written, bear2be2. I'm even less inclined to want any one and done players under any circumstances. I'm somewhat of a black and white guy. However, I think it's fair to say that if we do get more one and done's (which we will) then they should be used as supplements only or pieces to round out what is already a good team. Hopefully CSD will move back more into "player development" mode after 3 years of revolving door teams.
This was written following the 2022 season after our first prolonged foray into the world of one-and-done recruiting. I've come closer to where you are since. All of our one-and-done players since the championship have been good kids, but none but the first two, who at least have a shared conference championship they can boast, have helped us win anything of note.

I want junior and senior starters. You can't have that guaranteeing freshmen starter minutes and heavy usage. In the future, I'd just as soon pass on known five-star one-and-done types. They simply don't help you win in March.
Perhaps you should put together a list of prospective one-and-dones you think we should pass on. If you do, and more than half of your selections end up as actual one-and-dones you may have a new career. After Cooper Flagg this year, who are the surefire lottery picks? I agree with the premise that you can have too many top level freshman, but sometimes that's where you end up. Saying no to any 5*s is basically killing off your program. For me, finding the mix of younger talent anchored by seniors is the key. Folks on this site are railing about the missed freshman free throws. What I see is a team with a number of older players and only one was taking it to the hoop and getting to the foul line. After RayJ, some of the older players were leaning on the Freshman.
You can start by looking at the McDonald's All-American rosters. Anyone with NBA measurables is gone at the first opportunity.

This isn't as difficult as some of you make it. There are always exceptions, like Sochan and Missi. But no one minds losing overachievers whose play and impact earned them early opportunities at the next level. It's the players who were anointed before they stepped foot on campus (like Brown, George and Walter) that I'd let go elsewhere.

The juice isn't worth the squeeze while they're here and you're left rebuilding your roster when they leave.

I'm ready to get off the treadmill.
bear2be2
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And saying that recruiting outside of one-and-done circles will kill your program, when a) our program was objectively better before we were swimming in that pool and b) the teams in our own league ahead of us have built better teams without them is straight up cognitive dissonance.

The teams that are actually winning in March aren't recruiting the way we are. And we don't have to either. That isn't how we built our program.
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