bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

bear2be2 said:

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EvilTroyAndAbed said:

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IvanBear said:

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It feels like this loss is going to hurt in a year

---

You sure are Mr. Glass Half Empty.

---

I, personally, am rooting for Miro. I think he'd have grown into a good player for us if given the opportunity. And I hope he does the same at Utah.

---

But not when playing against Baylor!!

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Recruiting rankings should be taken with a grain of salt.

---

Maybe. A lot of people pay much attention to the rankings, in the media and elsewhere.

IowaBear said:

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Sochan was a 4 star…. A pretty highly ranked one at that

---

And a lottery pick, although that was not a certainty when he first came to Baylor.

bear2be2 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

---

I trust CSD knew what was in Little's best interest while at the same time our program's best interest. CSD is not the kind of coach who would kick someone to the curb. LIttle probably knew it would take 2 or 3 years of development to get the playing time he was looking for, and wasn't willing to wait around for that. I can't blame him for going elsewhere to accelerate his development.

---

I think Drew wants to win a championship and is doing what he thinks gives him the best chance to do that. And I don't begrudge him the right.

But I get really tired of seeing posters here rationalize or justify conscious choices as unavoidable outcomes or circumstances thrust upon us.

We are building and managing our roster the way Scott Drew wants to, not the way he has to. And the way we've gone about doing both has objectively and undeniably changed since we won the title.

It is 100 percent Scott Drew's right to build his roster and program the way he wants. And on the whole, he has been wildly successful at Baylor. But can we please stop pretending that the way he has chosen to do those things is the only way to do them in 2024? There are a fair number of coaches building their rosters differently with equal or greater success.

---

Thank you for confirming that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to, I wasn't sure until you were nice enough to clarify that for everyone

historian said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Recruiting rankings should be taken with a grain of salt.

---

Maybe. A lot of people pay much attention to the rankings, in the media and elsewhere.

---

True, but those rankings are subjective and are off all the time. Just look at all the 5 stars who never amounted to anything.

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

Sampson is on record as being against the one-and-done rule and yet still recruited Jarace Walker to Houston. Terrance Arceneaux was seen as a possible one-and-done guy at the time too. He still actively recruits those guys.

If you rise to a certain level, no coach turns down the poisoned chalice. Every program at the top actively recruits likely one-and-dones. UConn went back-to-back and just signed McNeeley. Every recent national champion is currently in for one. Hell, Jay Wright quit the game entirely because he didn't want to operate in the system anymore and even he recruited multiple guys out of NBA factories like Montverde who had a foot in the NBA before they ever stepped onto campus.

That isn't the problem. It's what you surround them with both in veteran players and culture, and Sampson is very good at that.

Heisman25g said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

I trust CSD knew what was in Little's best interest while at the same time our program's best interest. CSD is not the kind of coach who would kick someone to the curb. LIttle probably knew it would take 2 or 3 years of development to get the playing time he was looking for, and wasn't willing to wait around for that. I can't blame him for going elsewhere to accelerate his development.

---

I think Drew wants to win a championship and is doing what he thinks gives him the best chance to do that. And I don't begrudge him the right.

But I get really tired of seeing posters here rationalize or justify conscious choices as unavoidable outcomes or circumstances thrust upon us.

We are building and managing our roster the way Scott Drew wants to, not the way he has to. And the way we've gone about doing both has objectively and undeniably changed since we won the title.

It is 100 percent Scott Drew's right to build his roster and program the way he wants. And on the whole, he has been wildly successful at Baylor. But can we please stop pretending that the way he has chosen to do those things is the only way to do them in 2024? There are a fair number of coaches building their rosters differently with equal or greater success.

---

Thank you for confirming that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to, I wasn't sure until you were nice enough to clarify that for everyone

---

Your sarcasm would be better aimed at those who have told me we have no choice but to recruit the way we do and abandon all but the faintest traces of player development in our program.

I'm looking at this eyes wide open and accepting it for what it is.

We're in the rent-a-roster era at Baylor, and that's fine. But if we're going to stick with this recruiting strategy, we had better learn to win at a much higher level than we have the last three years.

I'm hopeful that next year's team will be the best we've had since the title because we're bringing in the two most accomplished and experienced transfers we've ever had, and we should have enough talent and experience around our freshmen to actually push them into supporting roles. But if we fail once again to reach the second weekend of the tournament in March, we'll be in the exact same spot next year, and I fully expect the same excuses from the same people.

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

Sampson is on record as being against the one-and-done rule and yet still recruited Jarace Walker to Houston. Terrance Arceneaux was seen as a possible one-and-done guy at the time too. He still actively recruits those guys.

If you rise to a certain level, no coach turns down the poisoned chalice. Every program at the top actively recruits likely one-and-dones. UConn went back-to-back and just signed McNeeley. Every recent national champion is currently in for one. Hell, Jay Wright quit the game entirely because he didn't want to operate in the system anymore and even he recruited multiple guys out of NBA factories like Montverde who had a foot in the NBA before they ever stepped onto campus.

That isn't the problem. It's what you surround them with both in veteran players and culture, and Sampson is very good at that.

---

I think the problem is we don't have the infrastructure or on-court discipline in place to push our freshmen into roles that actually help teams win at the college level. We've become a showcase program, and showcase programs don't win in March.

If Edgecombe is getting more shots next year than Roach and Omier, I'll be disappointed but not surprised.

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

bear2be2 said:

---

Heisman25g said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

I trust CSD knew what was in Little's best interest while at the same time our program's best interest. CSD is not the kind of coach who would kick someone to the curb. LIttle probably knew it would take 2 or 3 years of development to get the playing time he was looking for, and wasn't willing to wait around for that. I can't blame him for going elsewhere to accelerate his development.

---

I think Drew wants to win a championship and is doing what he thinks gives him the best chance to do that. And I don't begrudge him the right.

But I get really tired of seeing posters here rationalize or justify conscious choices as unavoidable outcomes or circumstances thrust upon us.

We are building and managing our roster the way Scott Drew wants to, not the way he has to. And the way we've gone about doing both has objectively and undeniably changed since we won the title.

It is 100 percent Scott Drew's right to build his roster and program the way he wants. And on the whole, he has been wildly successful at Baylor. But can we please stop pretending that the way he has chosen to do those things is the only way to do them in 2024? There are a fair number of coaches building their rosters differently with equal or greater success.

---

Thank you for confirming that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to, I wasn't sure until you were nice enough to clarify that for everyone

---

Your sarcasm would be better aimed at those who have told me we have no choice but to recruit the way we do and abandon all but the faintest traces of player development in our program.

I'm looking at this eyes wide open and accepting it for what it is.

We're in the rent-a-roster era at Baylor, and that's fine. But if we're going to stick with this recruiting strategy, we had better learn to win at a much higher level than we have the last three years.

I'm hopeful that next year's team will be the best we've had since the title because we're bringing in the two most accomplished and experienced transfers we've ever had, and we should have enough talent and experience around our freshmen to actually push them into supporting roles. But if we fail once again to reach the second weekend of the tournament in March, we'll be in the exact same spot next year, and I fully expect the same excuses from the same people.

---

Have some self awareness and realize that you're acting like a know it all and talking down to people when you literally state that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to run the program. Everyone already knows this. It's not some profound statement. You're not as knowledgeable as you think you are and everyone around you is more knowledgeable than you think they are.

Heisman25g said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Heisman25g said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

I trust CSD knew what was in Little's best interest while at the same time our program's best interest. CSD is not the kind of coach who would kick someone to the curb. LIttle probably knew it would take 2 or 3 years of development to get the playing time he was looking for, and wasn't willing to wait around for that. I can't blame him for going elsewhere to accelerate his development.

---

I think Drew wants to win a championship and is doing what he thinks gives him the best chance to do that. And I don't begrudge him the right.

But I get really tired of seeing posters here rationalize or justify conscious choices as unavoidable outcomes or circumstances thrust upon us.

We are building and managing our roster the way Scott Drew wants to, not the way he has to. And the way we've gone about doing both has objectively and undeniably changed since we won the title.

It is 100 percent Scott Drew's right to build his roster and program the way he wants. And on the whole, he has been wildly successful at Baylor. But can we please stop pretending that the way he has chosen to do those things is the only way to do them in 2024? There are a fair number of coaches building their rosters differently with equal or greater success.

---

Thank you for confirming that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to, I wasn't sure until you were nice enough to clarify that for everyone

---

Your sarcasm would be better aimed at those who have told me we have no choice but to recruit the way we do and abandon all but the faintest traces of player development in our program.

I'm looking at this eyes wide open and accepting it for what it is.

We're in the rent-a-roster era at Baylor, and that's fine. But if we're going to stick with this recruiting strategy, we had better learn to win at a much higher level than we have the last three years.

I'm hopeful that next year's team will be the best we've had since the title because we're bringing in the two most accomplished and experienced transfers we've ever had, and we should have enough talent and experience around our freshmen to actually push them into supporting roles. But if we fail once again to reach the second weekend of the tournament in March, we'll be in the exact same spot next year, and I fully expect the same excuses from the same people.

---

Have some self awareness and realize that you're acting like a know it all and talking down to people when you literally state that Scott Drew is running the program how he wants to run the program. Everyone already knows this. It's not some profound statement. You're not as knowledgeable as you think you are and everyone around you is more knowledgeable than you think they are.

---

I've said literally nothing about the knowledge base of anyone in this discussion. In fact, outside of a handful of intentional exceptions, I always try to address specific posts and the content within them rather than the person who posted them.

I have respect for most of those I argue with on these boards. I wouldn't post here as regularly as I do if I didn't.

It's not knowledge or passion that I'm calling into question in this discussion. It's what I perceive to be a disingenuous resignation that our recruiting and roster-building model is the only one possible in 2024. It's not. And if this one continues to yield disappointing results in March, as it has the last three years, it is very much within bounds to question the wisdom of it going forward.

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

---

Guys only stay when you commit to them.

Love and Josh O. are still on our roster because we committed roles to them.

Miro Little is gone because we wouldn't.

When you only recruit one developmental player per season, guarantee heavy playing time/usage to five-star freshmen who are as likely as not to bounce after a year and address every perceived weakness through the portal, you're going to have turnover that programs more committed to player development won't have.

And if we want to do that in perpetuity, that's fine. I've come to grips with it. I just want Baylor fans to acknowledge a) that it's happening, b) it's a choice and c) the jury is still very much out on whether it's an effective way to build and sustain a championship-level program.

bear2be2 said:

---

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

---

Guys only stay when you commit to them.

Love and Josh O. are still on our roster because we committed roles to them.

Miro Little is gone because we wouldn't.

When you only recruit one developmental player per season, guarantee heavy playing time/usage to five-star freshmen who are as likely as not to bounce after a year and address every perceived weakness through the portal, you're going to have turnover that programs more committed to player development won't have.

And if we want to do that in perpetuity, that's fine. I've come to grips with it. I just want Baylor fans to acknowledge a) that it's happening, b) it's a choice and c) the jury is still very much out on whether it's an effective way to build and sustain a championship-level program.

---

UConn just won B2B championships with it. It's not the method, it's the execution/injury luck around the method that hasn't paid dividends. If you want to quibble with that, I'm fine with having that discussion, but let's not dismiss it out of hand like it could never work. (And, to be fair, you haven't seemed nearly as adamant about that now as you were in-season.)

As you've said, there are multiple ways to build a successful roster these days. I'm just much more bullish that the path we have chosen can work.

bear2be2 said:

---

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

---

And if we want to do that in perpetuity, that's fine. I've come to grips with it. I just want Baylor fans to acknowledge a) that it's happening, b) it's a choice and c) the jury is still very much out on whether it's an effective way to build and sustain a championship-level program.

---

UConn just did it. Spencer and Newton were both transfers. Caraban and Klingan were underclassmen. Castle was a lottery pick one-and-done. There's your starting 5. They had one player on their entire contributing roster who'd been in Storrs for longer than 2 years.

As I said, Drew is not playing the new game incorrectly. He's following the same blueprint one of the most dominant teams of the modern CBB era is following. The only reason I think Drew needs upperclassmen glue guys is because he's a much different coach than Hurley is, but in terms of the roster model he's pursuing, it's the gold standard right now.

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

---

And if we want to do that in perpetuity, that's fine. I've come to grips with it. I just want Baylor fans to acknowledge a) that it's happening, b) it's a choice and c) the jury is still very much out on whether it's an effective way to build and sustain a championship-level program.

---

UConn just did it. Spencer and Newton were both transfers. Caraban and Klingan were underclassmen. Castle was a lottery pick one-and-done. There's your starting 5. They had one player on their entire contributing roster who'd been in Storrs for longer than 2 years.

As I said, Drew is not playing the new game incorrectly. He's following the same blueprint one of the most dominant teams of the modern CBB era is following. The only reason I think Drew needs upperclassmen glue guys is because he's a much different coach than Hurley is, but in terms of the roster model he's pursuing, it's the gold standard right now.

---

Prepare for the moving of the goalposts... some posters refuse to be wrong.

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

parch said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

---

Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

---

A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

---

Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

---

Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to a plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

---

And at Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston, he signed and played one-and-done freshmen (Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, and Jarace Walker, just to name a few off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more).

And yes, like I said, "we can make a run, but everything has to break right for us," is their ceiling on their strategy. It didn't work this year, obviously for reasons beyond their control.

---

That's our ceiling, too. The only difference is we haven't made a single run since entering the rent-a-roster era.

---

I don't think it's because Drew isn't playing the new game correctly, though. We've consistently brought in quality transfers and high-value freshmen since the new rules went into place. Nunn, RayJ, Akinjo, Bridges were all plus adds and our freshman classes speak for themselves.

I think our base problem has been the same problem just about everyone has had since the new rules came down. We're struggling to get mid-tier, blue collar culture guys we recruited as freshmen to stay 3-4 years and develop into the system without transferring. Very flew players now want to wait their turn. Ten years ago, Little would've been a glue guy for a deep run as a junior/senior. Nowadays you're just not getting those guys to stay unless they're an anomaly or they have some injury issue like Love's had.

---

And if we want to do that in perpetuity, that's fine. I've come to grips with it. I just want Baylor fans to acknowledge a) that it's happening, b) it's a choice and c) the jury is still very much out on whether it's an effective way to build and sustain a championship-level program.

---

UConn just did it. Spencer and Newton were both transfers. Caraban and Klingan were underclassmen. Castle was a lottery pick one-and-done. There's your starting 5. They had one player on their entire contributing roster who'd been in Storrs for longer than 2 years.

As I said, Drew is not playing the new game incorrectly. He's following the same blueprint one of the most dominant teams of the modern CBB era is following. The only reason I think Drew needs upperclassmen glue guys is because he's a much different coach than Hurley is, but in terms of the roster model he's pursuing, it's the gold standard right now.

---

UConn didn't just do it. This is a comparison that probably needs to be retired.

UConn was closer to 2021 Gonzaga in roster composition last year than it was to any of our last three teams.

They had one elite freshman who was fifth on their team in field goal attempts and started three others who were in their program for at least two years in Newton, Karaban and Clingan.

And two of their top three bench players had all been on their roster the year before as well.

UConn had five returning lettermen in its eight-man rotation. If we were doing that consistently, you wouldn't hear a peep out of me about player development. But we haven't.

We've had eight one-year rotation players the last three years and are about to add at least three more this coming season. And we've been lucky to return one or two starters and three quality rotation options per season since the title run. UConn has had way more roster continuity than we have.

The biggest thing that UConn has done that we haven't since our title run is return their highest-usage players.

Sanogo, Hawkins and Karaban were all returners for them in 2022-23. And Newton, Karaban and Clingan were all returners this past season.

They're bringing back an elite core every year to build around. We're rebuilding our core every season.

It's working better for consistency. But they're running a model that has never won a national title. No team without at least a few top end talents has ever won a title.

It's nice for winning games and virtually never underperforming but the upside is capped.

Drew has missed recently but is trying to piece together a team that can win the whole thing. We are closer to the blueprint next year (assuming another quality transfer) than either Houston or Iowa St. Doesn't mean Houston and Iowa St won't consistently win more games but against top end talent, they tend to lock up.

bear2be2 said:

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Mitch Henessey said:

---

bear2be2 said:

---

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Another way to look at it though is that players have to earn their time on the court. Every recruit is not entitled to playing time if they fail to develop. We've had guys like Loveday and Jordan Turner occupying roster spots for years without ever becoming viable rotation players. The transfer portal affords guys like that the opportunity to earn playing time if they know they weren't going to get meaningful minutes for us. Little himself probably understood he wouldn't get meaningful minutes for us until 2 or 3 years down the road. He probably wasn't willing to wait around for that when he could transfer somewhere else and get immediate playing time.

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A lot of freshmen don't look ready to compete at a championship level as freshmen. That was true of all five of Houston's starters last year. If you're constantly recruiting over homegrown players, you'll never find out how good any of them are.

If you had watched Shead, Sharp, Roberts or Francis as freshmen, you would have likely come to the same conclusion you've reached on Little. But where we hit the portal or bring in a five-star freshman to upgrade every potential weakness, Houston relies on its player development and entrusts ever-increasing roles to the guys its recruited into its program.

Objectively speaking, I'd have to say Houston's strategy is working better. They've been one of the most consistently successful tournament teams in the country the past six years, while we've been among the nation's biggest tournament underachievers since our title run.

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Where you and I most differ in our view of our program is that you think Houston intentionally builds around less talented players, whereas I think they simply haven't been able to recruit at the level they would ideally prefer, mostly because they were affiliated with a non-P6 conference until this past year.

It's easy to say "yeah, we don't build around 5* players" when you can't get those guys to come play for you, anyway. I guess the litmus test will be watching what Houston does now that the concern about their conference competition has been removed.

Has UH been more consistent in their tourney performances? Undoubtedly. But their style of roster-building has a pretty clear ceiling. That ceiling is "good enough to make a deep run if things go right." It's a viable strategy, but it's never going to make you the odds-on favorite to win the whole tourney. A healthy 2024 UH is probably no better than their 2021 team, which to be certain, was very good.

I happen to prefer our focus on team-building. While not as consistent, the ceiling is "beat the living **** out of every team in front of you." We saw it in 2021, and we saw it this year with UConn, whose 2024 roster was constructed similarly to what Coach Drew and staff have been aiming for with the last few Baylor squads.

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Between Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston, Sampson has had access to plenty of five-star freshmen.

Like Drew, he's building his roster and program how he wants to as well.

And Sampson has the exact same number of Final Fours at Houston that Drew has at Baylor. And he may well have passed him this year if Shead hadn't gone down against Duke.

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He hasn't though. Houston hasn't recruited at a very high level and it's not for lack of trying. They've missed or been dropped by a ton of top prospects, they've hit one.

They do have great coaching and development though. Now at Indiana, he was starting to hit on elite level guys but we know how that ended.

Both Houston and ISU are experiencing much better success in March post title than BU. At the end of the day what you do in March is the only thing that matters. I personally would rather have their rosters if it meant winning games in March on a regular basis

IowaBear said:

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Both Houston and ISU are experiencing much better success in March post title than BU. At the end of the day what you do in March is the only thing that matters

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And they both have conference hardware, too. This idea that our method has produced a higher ceiling than theirs is true of exactly one year in Drew's entire tenure.

Outside of our 2021 campaign, which was likely just an awesome perfect storm, we haven't done anything that those two programs haven't. And yet our fans talk down to their programs consistently.

We're a one year rental team next year, I don't get how that's closer to the model. Love, Nunn, and Josh O are the only returners and Love is the only one who's elite at something, heck we tried to recruit over Josh O.

next year we'll have at best two potential guys on the roster who will get minutes this year that will likely turn in Wright (gotta see it to believe it) and Josh O. We'll have to rebuild the core again next year. That's fine it's a valid strategy but the best known purveyor of one year teams just got run off from Kentucky for producing a decade of tournament results very similar to ours after we started this approach.

I'd love to be proven wrong and Drew is making win now recruiting decisions but I'm not sold it's great for long term program health.

Just my opinion but our fanbase seems to get caught up in this idea that Bu having all this top end talent actually means something. It means zilch unless you're consistently going deep in March. Give me either of those rosters 10/10 times if it comes with 2nd weekend trips

IowaBear said:

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Both Houston and ISU are experiencing much better success in March post title than BU. At the end of the day what you do in March is the only thing that matters. I personally would rather have their rosters if it meant winning games in March on a regular basis

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I'm fine with swinging for titles via roster construction and striking out at times. We've whiffed for two seasons. I think this roster (assuming at least one more transfer) has more title upside than either of those two.

Those teams have strong floors due to coaching and continuity, I don't argue that.

IvanBear said:

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We're a one year rental team next year, I don't get how that's closer to the model. Love, Nunn, and Josh O are the only returners and Love is the only one who's elite at something, heck we tried to recruit over Josh O.

next year we'll have at best two potential guys on the roster who will get minutes this year that will likely turn in Wright (gotta see it to believe it) and Josh O. We'll have to rebuild the core again next year. That's fine it's a valid strategy but the best known purveyor of one year teams just got run off from Kentucky for producing a decade of tournament results very similar to ours after we started this approach.

I'd love to be proven wrong and Drew is making win now recruiting decisions but I'm not sold it's great for long term program health.

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If this is the route Drew wants to go, I'm OK with it. He's done enough in Waco to earn the latitude to build his roster and program how he sees fit. I just want Baylor fans to be honest with themselves about what it is we are and have become.

We're a reload program with almost no emphasis whatsoever on roster continuity or (year over year) player development.

It's a step. Meaning we don't need vj to be a top 2 scorer to be successful. Roach, Omier, and healthy Love are better more experienced basketball players right now. Obviously Vi's potential is much much higher.

We also have 4 of the borderline sweet spot players bear2 loves. The most in a long time. You tweak just one trait for Love, Roach, Omier, and Wright and they would be pros. Only Ku has that many.

We've heard how that type of player wins games and we have a ton of them next year. Mix in obvious pro talent and we might have something. Full continuity is still in flux. I agree with you it's not ideal. But we've corrected one variable, its a step.

And to me the biggest variable, deficient defensive coaching that was not solely due to roster construction. We've tried to address that but the short time window to work the system makes it dicey.

Lol, you guys are literally proving my point.

"It's a lower ceiling except for the one time it was a higher ceiling and accomplished something neither of those programs ever did."

You're mistaking higher variance for having a lower ceiling. That's not what the term means.

EvilTroyAndAbed said:

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IvanBear said:

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It feels like this loss is going to hurt in a year

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You sure are Mr. Glass Half Empty.

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I thought he had a strong future here. I think he will be missed.

Quinton said:

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It's a step. Meaning we don't need vj to be a top 2 scorer to be successful. Roach, Omier, and healthy Love are better more experienced basketball players right now. Obviously Vi's potential is much much higher.

We also have 4 of the borderline sweet spot players bear2 loves. The most in a long time. You tweak just one trait for Love, Roach, Omier, and Wright and they would be pros. Only Ku has that many.

We've heard how that type of player wins games and we have a ton of them next year. Mix in obvious pro talent and we might have something. Full continuity is still in flux. I agree with you it's not ideal. But we've corrected one variable, its a step.

And to me the biggest variable, deficient defensive coaching that was not solely due to roster construction. We've tried to address that but the short time window to work the system makes it dicey.

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As I said earlier, I'm more hopeful about next year's team than I've been in a while. I love the transfers we've added.

To me, it will be come down to two things.

1) Can we show demonstrable improvement on the defensive end?
2) Can we right size our offensive usage in a way that gets our most efficient offensive players the most shots?

If we complete this roster with a couple of key role players and do those two things, I think we'll have a chance to be really, really good. But if we don't, I suspect we'll be in a similar situation next March and afterward that we were this past year. And constructing our roster the way we do ensures that we'll only get one crack at it with this group before the next inevitable rebuild.

Mitch Henessey said:

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Lol, you guys are literally proving my point.

"It's a lower ceiling except for the one time it was a higher ceiling and accomplished something neither of those programs ever did."

You're mistaking higher variance for having a lower ceiling. That's not what the term means.

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Your logic is flawed. We didn't build our 2021 roster the same way we've built the last three. It was built far closer to the way Houston builds its rosters.

There were almost no similarities in the processes that created our championship roster and the ones we've put together since.

Mitch Blood Green said:

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EvilTroyAndAbed said:

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IvanBear said:

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It feels like this loss is going to hurt in a year

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You sure are Mr. Glass Half Empty.

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I thought he had a strong future here. I think he will be missed.

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I agree, but his success doesn't mean it will hurt us. Both Little and Baylor can be successful with this move.