Miller and Austin were health concerns, and Miller should have never been a one-and-done guy after he tore his ACL.bear2be2 said:It's not as ridiculous as you think. Our track record with projected one-and-done talent is pretty bad.Mitch Henessey said:This is a patently absurd take. We're not getting guys who are consensus #1 picks coming into the college game, and once you get outside the top 5-6 picks, it becomes a matter of personal preference or team needs that determine draft position. As long as guys who are projected first round picks are still going in the first round (Kendall Brown is the only guy we've had recently who didn't), I don't think you can make this argument without having some type of agenda.IvanBear said:I don't understand why elite freshman keep coming here, they come out lower draft picks than they were projected going in, yeah you get the minutes Drew promised you but they don't get materially better throughout the season. At some point you have to make a business decision that sure maybe Baylor's paying me slightly more than (idk use KU as an example) but the coaching I'm getting is going to cost me in the long run.bear2be2 said:The frustrating part to me is VJ Edgecombe would be an absolute perfect hustle guy. But because of his pedigree, he's being shoehorned into a showcase role he doesn't have the basketball chops to handle efficiently.Big12Fan2024 said:Everyone can keep trying to convince me how great Edgecombe is and maybe he will be a NBA all star one day, but Robert Wright runs circles around him as a ready to play college basketball player and will at the end of the year as well.bear2be2 said:
Robert Wright should be our recruiting template -- elite, polished high school players that don't have NBA measurables.
The measurables aren't necessary to win at the college level -- as players like Drew Timme and Norchad Omier prove every year -- and polish goes way farther than raw athleticism/talent.
Give me polish over flash all day, every day. I want core of elite skill players surrounded by project athletes in the hustle roles.
With today's performance, he's now shooting 35.8 percent from the field and 26.7 percent from 3. And only today did Roach pass him for the most field goal attempts on the team.
We're basically repeating the exact same mistakes we did with George and Walter. We're not doing these freshmen any favors by exposing them beyond their levels of expertise. And we're actively hurting the team in most cases by doing so.
I don't understand why we can't do what most other elite programs do with elite freshman talent and mold them into the roles that best fit the team. If showcasing/overexposing these players is a condition of getting these guys on campus, I'd rather let them go elsewhere and go back to building our teams the way we did before the national title.
Jarace Walker, who was a one and done at Houston, is having way less professional success than any of the guys we've seen drafted in the first round in the past 5 years. Based on your posting history, I would assume you believe that Kelvin Sampson is a far superior coach to Scott Drew (but please correct me if I'm off on that), so it doesn't seem to be a matter of excellent college coaching making any sort of discernable difference.
Perry Jones -- Had to stay a second year because of falling stock; drafted in late first round after Year 2; washed out in three years.
Quincy Miller -- Fell to the second round; washed out in three years
Isaiah Austin -- Had to stay a second year because of falling stock; health kept him from being drafted after Year 2
Kendall Brown -- Fell to late second round; washed out in three years
Keyonte George -- Fell out of lottery; moderately successful albeit inefficient through first two years
Ja'Kobe Walter -- Fell out of lottery in a weak draft; in the G League after four really bad games
We've had far better luck with under-the-radar guys who worked themselves into first-round picks -- Jeremy Sochan and Yves Missi -- than we have with the guys who came in with one-and-done expectations.
I get that you guys hate it, and I see your point. I also see what Drew is trying to do. I've written extensively in the past, so I'll spare you all the details, but the strategy is to recruit one high level talent that will be around for a year, and then surround that one player with experienced players and athletic bigs. Injuries wrecked it in 2022. The EJ injury left a multi-year hole in our roster construction, too. Sochan and Missi developed early and ended up being one year guys, which is awesome, but also left roster holes.
I, too, would prefer that George, Walter, and now Edgecombe shoot far fewer threes. However, I see it less as a discipline issue, and more as a calculated gamble that the superstar talent develops into a star player and completely elevates the ceiling of the team. That gamble has gone bust the last two years, and I'm as disappointed as anyone by it. But I think you're confusing intentionality for lack of discipline.
