College Basketball Chatter

@DaveTelep: Best prospect from the two top local AAU teams picks Maryland. Not sure that's ever happened before? #historical

Click to expand...

Mark Giannotto ‏@mgiannotto 1m .@alex_prewitt More impressive: Wiley is Team Takeover; Trimble is DC Assault. Turgeon has officially passed JT III as area's top recruiter

Click to expand...

Like I said smitty, just be happy we're headed off to the Big 10, maybe we'll see you there in a few years. It kind of sucks that just as Maryland is about to get rolling we'll be leaving Duke and UNC back in the ACC but I'll take getting to match up with Indiana, Michigan St., Michigan, Ohio St. and so forth.

Good luck to you, but UNC just hauled in 3 of the top 20 recruits in 2014 and they are almost assuredly going to land another one in the top 25 (most likely a top 15 guy) as well. Trimble and Wiley are what, the 44th and 56th best prospects?

You guys just aren't at our level.

For your sake, I hope they don't end up as average players like some of their recent stud recruits.

mschmidt64 said:

Good luck to you, but UNC just hauled in 3 of the top 20 recruits in 2014 and they are almost assuredly going to land another one as well.

You guys just aren't at our level.

Click to expand...

When Maryland was pulling in a bunch of 3 stars every year you could say that but there isn't much difference from a guy ranked 15th-20th vs. a guy ranked 40th-45th or so. And rankings are not some absolute barometer of talent, hell, this time last year Nate Britt was a 5 star and nobody knew who Roddy Peters was, now Peters is ranked above him in every ranking.

UNC has a nice recruiting class in 2014 for sure but all you need to compete at the highest level of college basketball is to pull in 4 star, top 50-100ish types every year with a 5 star mixed in now and again.

Simpleton said:

When Maryland was pulling in a bunch of 3 stars every year you could say that but there isn't much difference from a guy ranked 15th-20th vs. a guy ranked 40th-45th or so. And rankings are not some absolute barometer of talent, hell, this time last year Nate Britt was a 5 star and nobody knew who Roddy Peters was, now Peters is ranked above him in every ranking.

UNC has a nice recruiting class in 2014 for sure but all you need to compete at the highest level of college basketball is to pull in 4 star, top 50-100ish types every year with a 5 star mixed in now and again.

Click to expand...

Well, you can have the top 100 guys and I'll take the top 25 guys.

mschmidt64 said:

Well, you can have the top 100 guys and I'll take the top 25 guys.

Click to expand...

And the teams probably won't be far off from each other.

It's one thing to get a bunch of mega top 5 studs like Durant, Rose, Love, Anthony Davis, Gilchrist, Wiggins and so forth but generally speaking each year I don't think there's much difference between the guys ranked in, say, the 20's/30's versus the 40's/50s, generally speaking.

Guys like McLemore and Otto Porter who are about to go top 5 were ranked somewhere in the 35-50 range if I remember correctly.

If Maryland is on the cusp of entering UNC/Duke territory then so is about 50% of Division 1 Programs.

You had a nice run from 2001-2002, but since then you fell back into the pack. I'm sorry if I'm a little skeptical that pulling a 44th and 56th rated prospect are signs that your program is transforming into a powerhouse, but once again you are well behind UNC that year in talent and it's not particularly close. Besides, NC State has been pulling higher ranked recruits than that for years and they still are mediocre.

For example, NC State recruited:

2009: 2 Four-Stars and a Three-Star (DeShawn Painter, Richard Howell, and Scott Wood)
2010: 3 FIVE-Stars (CJ Leslie, Lorenzo Brown, Ryan Harrow)
2012: 1 FIVE-Star and 2 Four-Stars (Rodney Purvis, TJ Warren and Tyler Lewis)

So that's quite a nice variety of five and four star players, but they still sucked compared to UNC and Duke's hauls and they finished in the middle of the ACC.

You're talking about entering Duke/UNC territory from a historical perspective, I'm basically just saying Maryland is about to be a perennial top 25 team again who should be competing for conference titles, making tournament runs and such on a yearly basis.

And don't talk to me about NC State, everybody knows those bitches are/have been horribly coached and no matter the "talent" they get they'll never amount to much of anything. I found their top 5 ranking coming into last season comical and next year the wheels really should fall off with all the defections.

There's a big difference between a team like NC State going around and rounding up guys that are ranked high according to sites and Maryland getting on guys like Peters, Wiley and Layman before anybody really knew much about them and then having them blow up into 4 star types or better.

Case in point, Tyler Lewis. That joke was a 5 star according to some and all it takes is about 10 minutes to realize this guy isn't anywhere close to that kind of player on the college level. Basically I think they recruit based off rankings and end up with headcases like Purvis/Barber or completely overranked guys like Lewis. Combine that with their shitty coaching and annual underachieving is what you get.

Look at the composition of Louisville these past 2 years, a team that won a title and damn near won another if they could've gotten by that stacked Kentucky team in the Final Four the year before.

Look at the composition of Michigan State just about every year.

These teams aren't built on a bunch of top 10 recruits, the vast majority of their guys are ranked in the 25-75 area who stick around for 3-4 years, that's all I really want from Turgeon recruiting-wise.

Fair enough. And I can see Maryland becoming a consistent top 25 team.

I'm just saying the Duke-UNC legacy is to always be right there at the top. There are usually other teams that are there with them -- but those teams change in and out constantly, but UNC and Duke are always there. That's what makes them UNC and Duke, not that other teams can't match them for a season here or there.

mschmidt64 said:

Fair enough. And I can see Maryland becoming a consistent top 25 team.

I'm just saying the Duke-UNC legacy is to always be right there at the top. There are usually other teams that are there with them -- but those teams change in and out constantly, but UNC and Duke are always there. That's what makes them UNC and Duke, not that other teams can't match them for a season here or there.

Click to expand...

It would take 15-20 years for Maryland to get on that blue blood level from a historical perspective, I just think going forward, on a year to year basis, there's no reason Maryland shoudn't be able to compete at the highest level with the area talent.

And I think we can both agree with the sentiment of fuck NC State, I will thoroughly enjoy watching them win about 5 ACC games next year.

Crazy but Notre Dame is starting ACC play this year. How do you think they'll do?

Time to fire up this bad boy, Maryland plays UConn tomorrow in Brooklyn and next Tuesday you have Kentucky/Michigan St. and Kansas/Duke.

And just for Tony, I'll say Notre Dame finishes 5th in the ACC.

Simpleton said:

Time to fire up this bad boy, Maryland plays UConn tomorrow in Brooklyn and next Tuesday you have Kentucky/Michigan St. and Kansas/Duke.

And just for Tony, I'll say Notre Dame finishes 5th in the ACC.

Click to expand...

I'll sign up for that. That's better than you thought they'd do when the rumors of ND to ACC started.

Tony D said:

I'll sign up for that. That's better than you thought they'd do when the rumors of ND to ACC started.

Click to expand...

That's just this one season, long term I think they'll be behind Duke, UNC, Syracuse, Louisville and then somewhere in the 5-9 range most years with teams like NC State, Pittsburgh and such. I don't think they will ever be one of the headliners, they'll probably be right around the middle of the pack most years.

Simpleton said:

That's just this one season, long term I think they'll be behind Duke, UNC, Syracuse, Louisville and then somewhere in the 5-9 range most years with teams like NC State, Pittsburgh and such. I don't think they will ever be one of the headliners, they'll probably be right around the middle of the pack most years.

Click to expand...

I agree they'll never be on par with this schools. Those 4 are basketball first schools and have a history. If ND is at the front of the next tier I'll take that. I think moving to the ACC will help ND's recruiting and already has. Hopefully, every few years they'll be up there with the top schools like they did in Big East with Syracuse, UCONN, Louisville, etc.

If the Celtics play their way out of the Wiggins race, Julius Randle will do just fine.

I'm curious to see what Randle measures in at, if he's only around 6-8 I'm thinking he has an Elton Brand type of career, which is nothing to scoff at but guys like Wiggns, Exum and Parker probably have more potential.

I think Young is the 2nd best prospect on that team, I'm looking hard at him and Gary Harris if the Bulls get that Bobcats pick this year.

Initial impressions on Wiggins is that he looks like an athlete first, basketball player second to me, I don't like the speed he plays the game with, he seems a bit out of control. Parker looks like a better Carmelo Anthony to me honestly, kind of a marginal (relatively speaking) athlete like Carmelo but he doesn't seem like a guy who would be as much of a chucker as Anthony can be sometimes.

Wiggins is no LeBron, I can already guarantee that right now, he looks like a Vince Carter to me, still a great player and prospect but there is no chance on God's green Earth this dude ends up as good as LeBron.

I'd take Anthony Davis over him without thinking twice as far as recent prospects go.