Greer would be glued to the bench on any good Big Ten teams. He’s grown from cover-your-eyes to “he won’t make many mistakes, but he won’t make many plays either”.
As I said earlier, Nance is the only guy who starts on a good Big Ten team. Boo is a bench guy. Audige is a 15 minute guy. Young is a 15 minute guy. Berry is a 15 minute guy. Beran, Greer are clear ‘break glass in case of emergency’ players. Who knows about the freshmen.
Indiana is an average B1G team and Miller Kopp starts for them, so using him as a comp for our players, we do have some talent.
Superior basketball players in talent and ability. That they aren't well developed is a different story. Carmody and staff were far better at developing the talent he recruited except for the bigs. His bigs never really got better under him iirc.
How do you measure talent and ability? If a player's supposed talent never translates to on court results ever, are they actually talented?
So, no evidence that Collins has recruited superior and more talented players. Just your own delusions.
Why don't you lay out the minimum evidence that you would require be provided to satisfy you in regards their talent?
Conference win/loss record. End of season accolades from either media or B10 coaches. Professional basketball career trajectory after leaving school.
Would you agree that Collins' recruits were "higher rated" than Carmody's?
Ratings can and often do get it wrong. Once a player steps on campus, the ratings are irrelevant. Talent will always manifest itself in some form that is observable. A player’s mental makeup is part of the talent evaluation. If Collins is recruiting loads of players who don’t have a desire to improve, that’s on him as a recruiter, no different than if he recruits players who can’t shoot or rebound.
Ok, so by your metric it seems there hasn't been a talented player at NU for about 20 years, and we can't know much about the current team until after they graduate and and have a professional career, or not.
What is your criteria? You still haven't articulated it. Wins/losses is the most best and most accurate criteria. We can't call Collins' last 4 recruiting classes among the most talented at NU ever, and also accept that the on court results are among the worst 4 year stretch in modern NU history. Those two facts don't go together.
Development is definitely a problem. But my view is that Collins biggest problem is talent identification. The best development coach in the world wouldn't turn guys like Ash, Benson, Falzon, Rap, Brown, Kopp, Beran etc into all conference players. It's on Collins that he spent so much recruiting effort on guys who are marginal contributors at best. How many of Collins recruits vastly overshoot their recruiting rankings? BMac and Pardon and that's it. How many have underperformed? A ton.
It’s just not that simple; those facts actually can go together. If the Big10 is the best it’s ever been in its history over these years, for example, then better NU recruiting will not lead to more NU wins.
The B10 was overrated last year based on tournament results. And the B10 was plenty strong during the Carmody years.
I did an analysis of adjusted strength of schedule Carmody vs. Collins years on The Rock and it was worth 2 points per game. That’s meaningful. Even if it’s not completely explanatory, it’s an example of needing to think more holistically before drawing conclusions.
If Collins were a better coach, he would know that, for all his efforts, his team still faces a talent deficit. As such, he would limit possessions and try to play in the 60s.
I agree. It’s hard to argue against the best players we had with BC. Shurna, Coble, Juice, Crawford or VV. But one or two good players don’t make a team. This year’s roster is far more athletic than any roster BC recruited.
We’re a hard-nosed, physical, defensive team. You wanna play hard-nosed defense, battle for boards, and give a few guys bloody noses, then I’m your guy.
You also need a strong PG to run things if you want to play fast. I've never seen a basketball team play fast without a very good PG orchestrating. On top of that you need a good rebounding big to secure possession and kick off the fast break. Collins biggest recruiting weaknesses have been at these two positions. So his own recruiting doesn't match with what he claims he wants to do.
Sure, when I say we're more athletic, that is only in comparison to prior NU teams.
That’s different. You can do that and not play slow. It also won’t attract most guys looking to go the NBA.