The 2025 Freshmen Class is unreal.
- Thread starter Padsfs07
- Start date
It is interesting. Go look at all the rosters and ask yourself who is going to Final Fours?
teams that usually dominate their. conference and have a strong three man group, some with age some with talent
Don’t sidestep. You clearly didn’t go look at the rosters. You’re telling me what you think, not what you know. In the last decade there were 36 final four teams. Other than Duke, how many were led in scoring by a OAD freshman? Do you want to guess?
Its like a game of cards. A thread is started, it goes around the table and the same people cry and moan. The hand is over, a new thread is dealt and it starts all over. LoL
Last edited:
once again don't necessarily know why we are infactuated with talking about the past but okay
if u wanna look at this year (you dont want to) 80% of the top teams have good freshman talent
I will reject the red herring and continue the discussion we were having since you didn’t answer the question.
The answer is 1. Only one team other than Duke has made a final four in the last decade with a freshman as their best player —- it was Gonzaga in 2021.
In the last decade, if you include Duke in the data, that means 8.3% of final four teams had a freshman OAD lead in scoring and 91.7% that did not. Pretty obvious what that means.
Last edited:
He made up that number entirely. I posted the real numbers in the above post. If winning championships and/or making final fours are the criteria, the data does not lie.
You don't need a team full of em, no. You need 1 or 2 that will be future 1st rounders and/or lottery picks. Surround them with high level college portal dudes. That's my philosophy, but I'm not here to make anyone agree with me.
Well, I’d love for you to make me agree with you. What makes you say you need 1 or 2 freshman in the rotation? Are you just winging it, basing it off a feeling? Or did you come to that conclusion after reviewing something concrete? I’m easy to convince if you have something substantial.
well lets say right this second on jan 3rd would u take cam boozer as your starting 5 man
or wilson as your starting 4 because they are the best in their positions
Give me the best players. I don't care if they are Freshman or portal kids. The only Freshman I'm referring to are elite, future lottery picks. If you can find a future first round portal dude, get him. Most of those dudes leave when they get guaranteed 1st round projections, so the likelihood of that seems to be lower. If I can grab 2 Freshman that will be lottery picks in the next draft, I'm grabbing them, and surrounding them with very good college basketball players from the portal. Now, did I say this was the only way to win in college basketball? No. This is just my philosophy.
Cal Era faltered when he started to regularly miss on the difference makers in the class.
Idk. Depends on what my roster is…you can’t really do those hypotheticals because rosters aren’t built in a vacuum. If you get one player, that means another player won’t accept the role and you get a different one and so on. Butterfly effect. Point is simple:
- OAD as best player = ZERO titles in the last decade.
- OAD as best player = 8% of final four teams in the last decade
- Maybe the greatest freshman class in college basketball history and by far the best team has ZERO freshman starters.
There’s really not even a debate if anyone is being honest. No one would ever look at champions or final fours and decide OAD are needed. The only way you decide OAD are needed is if you DECIDE BEFOREHAND that OAD are needed and outright REFUSE to look any objective facts. I’m just being real, feel free to refute me with FACTS.
Cal faltered because he was getting the 2nd, 3rd or 4th best high school Freshman at their position, and then he was back loading his roster with Freshman. Every year was basically a brand new roster, full of Freshman. He sprinkled in some portal dudes towards the end, but the nucleus of our roster was always Freshman.
I believe Moreno is too low at #25. If we can keep him for next season, he could be an all conference caliber player.
I’m hearing you say it’s your preference. I’ll never argue with someone about their preference so I’ll leave it alone. If someone says you NEED OAD I’ll feel free to debunk the living hell out of it because it doesn’t stand on two legs. It’s the tooth fairy. I respect preference though, I’d prefer to have one per year if they aren’t the best player myself
i guess, if you value numbers than you do you
i value the fact that other players simply are better, theres a reason why wilson is getting drafted and mo will never get drafted hes simply better
So close eyes and ignore literally every bit of data and go with a hunch? If that’s your preference, you can’t argue with that lol.
Im just saying…I wouldn’t be saying OAD are NEEDED. If you say that, you best be able to back it up, because I have a portfolio of all the evidence of that right here:
EVIDENCE THAT YOU NEED OAD:
- Because I like ‘em
- Nothing else
I’m hearing you say it’s your preference. I’ll never argue with someone about their preference so I’ll leave it alone. If someone says you NEED OAD I’ll feel free to debunk the living hell out of it because it doesn’t stand on two legs. It’s the tooth fairy. I respect preference though, I’d prefer to have one per year if they aren’t the best player myself
Being a blueblood, I think we have the ability to think outside the box a tad. Sprinkle in a little of what Duke does. Grab the ultra elite Freshman. Surround them with good to great college basketball players. So now you've got a good college basketball team, and you've also got a stud (or two) Freshman that ESPN will cover the entire season. Win games, grow your brand.
well its a deeper situation than that, your forgetting factors such as the tourney being volatile, coaches being good with certain players, so raw numbers are flawed
For me personally, I’m really weird on this topic. And I’ll be very transparent with you. I have an agenda: I do not want to die before I see Kentucky pass UCLA in national championships. This is why I’ve closely analyzed what championship DNA is and I’ve come to very specific conclusions. I absolutely do not think the PR stuff matters, biggest brand stuff matters, etc. Dan Hurley, Billy Donovan, Jay Wright —- all had the same formula and won two titles. I want us to build that way and it doesn’t require freshman. I can go into detail why I think overreliance on them hurts you badly, but I’ll keep it short —- I’m good with one really good one per year as long as they aren’t the best player.
How is 41 years of data? Is that flawed? I have studied this subject more deeply than you’d believe. You just don’t want to hear facts and that’s fine —- just be honest from now on and say, “I like having the best freshman. I don’t care what the results are —- it’s what I like.”
once again your "results" dont show who the better player is
we all know who the better players are
your results show who the better teams are
well i dont think having lesser players is going to help is the point im making
esp in the sec: we are going to have the best player on the floor not too often
how can you tell me that having the lesser players is a good thing, thats the point im trying to make
Do you have any facts to make your point with or just untestable hypotheticals?
Based on what? Literally, he said nothing other than “I feel like it”.
i mean my take isnt wrong idk what to tell you
louisville game they had the best player on the floor, same with zaga, same with unc, same with ark last year, and tenn last year
thats why i couldnt understand the outrage when we lost to ark last year, like yes i get the emotional stuff but they had the better players? so we were hoping we would win by way of better coaching?
bro mikel brown, wilson, ike being better than anyone on our team isnt a "i feel like it" take
its facts
Your point is that having the best player on the floor leads to the most wins right?i mean my take isnt wrong idk what to tell you
louisville game they had the best player on the floor, same with zaga, same with unc, same with ark last year, and tenn last year
thats why i couldnt understand the outrage when we lost to ark last year, like yes i get the emotional stuff but they had the better players? so we were hoping we would win by way of better coaching?
no, what i am saying is NOT having the best player on the floor isnt gonna help
otega and friends hasnt worked well this year
wilson and otega and friends wouldve been amazing
You don’t want to base everything on failure to achieve in a specific year. We don’t meet the championship DNA criteria ourselves. That doesn’t mean we aren’t building with the right formula.
Stay with me for a minute and let’s hammer this out. Your belief is that having the BEST player will win you the games on the highest stage right? And that’s usually going to be the top rated high school player… am I correct? Simple yes or no.
no, hacing the best player on the floor coupled with a bunch of bums wont win anything, look at rutgers last year, they LEGIT had the best players on the floor in every game, the problem was that they didnt have help
im not saying built a team with one superstar and surround him with bums, you just cant be underwhelming at every position and thats why we have an underwhelming record
Well then I guess, I feel like it, too. I REALLY felt like it after the Gonzaga game watching Ike go to work.
I’m not saying it’s insurmountable or dooms our season, but I would say most of the teams in the conference have a better “best player” than us. Depending on how JQ plays going forward
Right. So let me rephrase this. Having the best player and good players around them? Best player usually is top high school player according to you, right?
Then, I can’t help you. Some people don’t have the ability to be objective. That’s why you lose a game, look at what the other team had and say “Aha! That’s why we lost. We don’t have THAT!” You can’t logically speak to that kind of thinking. It’s pointless, that’s just raw emotion and as fans we all have it. If we want to be honest about these topics, I’m the kind of guy who has done a lot of work in this area and will show unapologetically what the facts are AND I’m willing to change my mind as the facts change. This means I’m easy to DEFEAT as I don’t view it as a loss. I view it as learning.