SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6413
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-17-21 07:54 PM - Post#320901
In response to mrjames
Apologies to Mike if that crossed a line, and apologies to the board — it is not my intent to run anyone off. I thought I was replying in kind to the “take it from those who know†comment. But that was probably replying in kind to something I said, and so on. Anyway, it is never my intent to ratchet things up to a level where our debate is anything other than good natured discussion of a topic we are passionate about. Every once in a while the guy at the bar gets carried away when the guy at the next stool says he knows better, and then he goes and throws a punch. Seems dumb in the morning. Or sometimes ten minutes later. So apologies all around.
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Streamers
Professor
Posts: 8258
Loc: NW Philadelphia
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-17-21 08:26 PM - Post#320902
In response to mrjames
A couple of reactions to this. That 5-7 head to head record included a number of games where injuries and thus matchups played a big role. What’s unclear is whether that favored one team significantly over those 12 contests. It does speak volumes about HCA though.
Here is where I completely agree with you:
“What's more is that Penn had BY FAR the most productive player in terms of total output over those four years, masking how much further the Quakers are behind in average talent.“
That may be your strongest argument.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3586
Reg: 02-15-15
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-17-21 08:50 PM - Post#320903
In response to mrjames
I think you’re essentially a paid Harvard shill.
Yeah, I'm gonna take a break from this place for a bit.
I highly recommend it. Tough crowd in here. I have been in your shoes a few times. Please come back but take some time to get some air.
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Mike Porter
Postdoc
Posts: 3618
Loc: Los Angeles, CA
Reg: 11-21-04
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-17-21 10:37 PM - Post#320904
In response to PennFan10
Yikes... I'm guessing COVID lockdown times and no season (aka one less escape for us big fans) is taking it's toll.
We've run in circles on this before and no one seems willing to reconsider their positions, BUT...
While I don't always agree with everything Mike says or believes, he certainly isn't a Harvard shill (he praises Yale, Princeton, and even Brown recruiting!), and frankly he is right that Penn's current recruiting is weakness of the current staff.
That said, being honest with ourselves that Coach Donahue is not a great recruiter, doesn't mean that he isn't a great overall coach, strategist, and representative of Penn. I think he is all those things, but I also think our recruiting just is not where it needs to be for Penn to be battling every year to win the Ivy League. That doesn't mean we don't get good players or even good classes (we have, and I think very highly of 2019 class and other individual players), but we honestly miss on too many of the star quality kids and we've really missed on depth.
You can make excuses all day (I see LOTS of them in this thread), but I suggest many of you are looking at it the wrong way. It's not that Harvard, Yale, or even Princeton are always edging us out (though they surely have won more than we have).
That's far from the biggest problem. If you follow Penn's recruiting closely, you'll quickly see a very common pattern. Penn gets in early on an intriguing prospect (say their junior year), intriguing prospect gets more noticed, Penn does NOT land intriguing prospect. Penn moves on to second tier of prospects (say when they are a senior), Penn tries to land second tier prospect who is more a diamond in the rough and hopes for the best (I mean we literally had to take a Juco transfer at the last minute to have a warm body because we failed so hard on landing a big).
I think the staff does a brilliant job identifying and even getting in early with really good kids, but we have a really bad (like really bad) close rate on those first priority recruits and most of the time it is to non-Ivy schools. That is the problem in a nutshell.
If you follow who we are on in the junior year, we almost never land those kids (only a select few), whereas I often see Harvard, Yale, and Princeton closing a much larger share of their own priority targets.
Bottom line, it is a CLOSING problem, and I'm not sure this staff is setup to succeed. I'm not advocating that Penn should part ways with Donahue, but if we continue to miss on the recruiting trail I would advocate for shaking up the assistants (and I wouldn't wait long) and targeting a hungrier, more dynamic lead recruiter (would have loved to see Michael Jordan join the staff).
Take off the red and blue colored glasses, take a deep breath, and watch for the Penn recruiting patterns and you'll see it too.
I mean nychoops is super well connected, ridiculously knowledgeable, and objective (what skin does he have in the game?), yet so many of you basically dismissed his insight because it didn't match up with what you wanted to be true. It doesn't mean our current staff are lazy or bad, but are any of them true grinders who are relentlessly trying to close? I don't get that from outside looking in on our mentions, social media, etc. and again, closely is our problem.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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02-17-21 11:36 PM - Post#320907
In response to Mike Porter
What Mike said above.
Don't objective results mean something at some point?
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6413
Reg: 11-22-04
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02-18-21 12:00 AM - Post#320910
In response to TheLine
The objective results of what, though? Ranking of recruiting classes? We’ve upped our level of play significantly in the Donahue years. Who wins in the world of ranking recruiting classes is interesting, and at this stage we do it well enough for it to correlate some to performance. But compared to Princeton, for example, I find it hard to be certain we are being outrecruited when the teams are so close overall.
I get the Brodeur point, and in many ways I agree — I actually think we underestimate just how good he was. We got markedly better immediately upon his arrival. But we can’t ignore the best players when evaluating the recruiting. They are part of the overall picture, too.
Finally, and apologies if we are going around the same circle, I’m just not sure why we need to beat ourselves up over this. We can compete with Harvard while getting outrecruited. And the more we compete with them, the more we can turn the tide on the recruiting.
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Jeff2sf
Postdoc
Posts: 4466
Reg: 11-22-04
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02-18-21 12:08 AM - Post#320911
In response to SomeGuy
sg, you might wanna take the timeout mike's taking. you're on tilt.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6413
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 12:18 AM - Post#320913
In response to Mike Porter
Agreed that what nychoops said is the most concerning thing anyone has said here. Not ignoring what he said at all. If true, that would be negligence that would indicate a problem. There could be reasons that Penn couldn’t keep in touch (sanctions), and there could be reasons why Penn didn’t keep in touch with a certain player (academic or basketball reasons). But if they could keep in touch and were interested in the player and didn’t do it, then yes, that is a big problem.
Also, please don’t assume that, simply because I haven’t changed my mind, I am not open to or interested in other viewpoints. Obviously I am not convinced that there is a recruiting problem. I think that is a reasonable viewpoint to maintain, though obviously not a common or popular one.
I am actually probably quite close to Mike Porter’s take in a lot of ways — I think this is a great staff overall. Recruiting is just one piece of it, and may not be their strongest suit.
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Condor
PhD Student
Posts: 1888
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 07:13 AM - Post#320914
In response to SomeGuy
I would love to see how the Penn fans would treat Amaker were he their coach. Even without Towns and Aiken, Amaker had the superior recruits, but could not win a single NCAA bid over the last four years. Many wanted Dunphy out because he couldn’t win in the tournament. Amaker can’t get into the tournament with the “best†recruits and now he has become our standard.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 09:41 AM - Post#320915
In response to Condor
Objective results = results on the court.
AJ Brodeur was a generational talent, and Penn had only one superlative season* during his four years.
Ivy league records those four seasons:
2017 : 6-8
2018 : 12-2
2019 : 7-7
2020 : 8-6
Results matter. Those are meh results.
What happens when AJ is gone?
* Bear with me Jeff. I'm trying to make a point. I get that 2018 wasn't really superlative. But compared to the other three years, it was. And that team put a scare into a Kansas team stocked with NBA level talent.
Edited by TheLine on 02-18-21 09:46 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3586
Reg: 02-15-15
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02-18-21 10:20 AM - Post#320916
In response to TheLine
I don't doubt nychoops information or perspective, but it is a limited perspective. I know the staff is not negligent or ignoring recruits. Recruiting is specific for each recruit and the contact can vary widely based on a number of factors.
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TheLine
Professor
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Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 10:46 AM - Post#320917
In response to PennFan10
I get that. And I'm sure nychoops gets that as well. nychoops also has no axe to grind.
Putting subjectiveness aside, the objective results on the court have been OK at best, and that's with a generational talent in AJ playing at Penn for the past four seasons.
Something isn't adding up.
I and others are observing that the coaching staff is missing out on what appear to be their primary targets and then have to move on to secondary and tertiary ones. Seems to be an issue.
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TheLine
Professor
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Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 10:51 AM - Post#320918
In response to TheLine
And on to my defense of Mike James.
These forums have a tendency of being echo chambers, with outside contrarian opinions discounted or discarded despite reality. No surprise given how news has been weaponized in our country and objective facts are conveniently ignored when they don't fit the preferred propaganda.
Sometimes you need to listen instead of reflexively discounting an opinion that doesn't fit your mindset. You might learn something.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32837
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 10:59 AM - Post#320919
In response to TheLine
I think you are dramatically overstating things. Only one post said anything even remotely personal, followed by a quick apology. Let's not turn differences of opinion on sports into perceived victimization. Sharp exchanges on opinion are not bad things.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 11:09 AM - Post#320920
In response to palestra38
I'm not talking about the sharp exchange. Just that the message from nychoops and mrjames were not what the majority of the board wanted to hear so were summarily dismissed. Contrarian opinions are a good thing, especially when popular opinion (Penn is doing great!) doesn't appear to match objective reality (Ivy league record has been spotty at best).
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6413
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 11:59 AM - Post#320921
In response to TheLine
Those meh results are actually the biggest improvement of any team in the league comparing the last four years to the prior four.
Comparing the last five years to the prior five, on average we gained 11 games per season on Harvard overall and 4 games in conference. The problem is that in the prior five we were 12 and 6 games behind them. So even with that big gain, we have remained behind. But the fact we are behind has to do with where we came from, not with how this staff/team is doing. You can’t just flip a switch and go from 7th to 1st. The process starts with pulling up to somewhere in the middle, say, theoretically, 4th.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
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New 2021 Recruiting Thread
02-18-21 12:10 PM - Post#320922
In response to SomeGuy
Yeah, but 2018.
And Penn had a generational talent and still couldn't build on the 2018 success.
So I'm not buying the results of the past four years as an incremental improvement story and that we should expect future incremental progress. Sure, the past four years were better than the suck of the period between Zack and AJ, but that's a really low bar.
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Jeff2sf
Postdoc
Posts: 4466
Reg: 11-22-04
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02-18-21 12:36 PM - Post#320923
In response to TheLine
people have brought up the difference between dunphy and donahue. there are two:
1. Sometimes one learns a little bit. So yeah, I was ready to shake things up with Dunph at the end of his tenure. I didn't want him fired but I wasn't sad to see him go. While we ended up in the crapper, I don't think we were necessarily destined to continue the success we had previously but certainly we'd have been better off had Dunph stayed.
2. More important though, when Dunphy won with the best player during their sophomore year, they BUILT ON THAT SUCCESS. That was the start of greatness. Not the peak, not the plateau. I don't want to get hung up on the performance in the Ivies per se. If they were a KenPom top 100 team and just got edged out by a better ivy team, so be it. But that's not what happened and you all know it.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3586
Reg: 02-15-15
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02-18-21 12:36 PM - Post#320924
In response to TheLine
It's not a low bar. That's the point. Improving and creating long term success doesn't happen in just 4-5 years when it took 10 to destroy it. To think we can just change our coach and improve our trajectory is lunacy. Many more examples of this being a failed strategy than a successful one. You have to stay the course and look at the longer term.
And nychoops is a great voice but his perspective is VERY limited (by his own admission). Its not an excuse its a fact. His point may still be right but not just based on his limited evidence (I have contrary evidence).
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Jeff2sf
Postdoc
Posts: 4466
Reg: 11-22-04
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02-18-21 12:37 PM - Post#320925
In response to Jeff2sf
also, i don't REALLY want steve fired. Instead, I want him on notice. I want the next bad year to result in him being fired. Instead, with all you pollyanna's what will happen is the next bad year will get you guys to where I am this year and then we'll have to wait at least a year or two more.
I can't believe how lucky steve was to have a global pandemic wipe this year out. It was going to be gruesome.
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