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You've got a hellva memory then because that was damn near 20 years ago.
Cremins' Recruiting Discussion
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Techster
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Those were my middle school and high school years, then it happened for a bit under Hewitt. Recruiting coverage was no where near where it is now, so the only coverage of recruiting really were the elite guys that heard about in magazines and newspapers...and GT seemed to be in the mix and signed one or two a year it seemed.
You can make an argument for both GT football and basketball that recruiting took a turn in the wrong direction for us with the proliferation of internet era recruiting.
Oof. C62 with the gut-punch off the ropes. jayparr goes down hard!
Seriously though, I don't remember a top 10 every year but I do remember we signed Georgia Mr. Basketball every dayum year. Pablo Machado was the first I remember not panning out really.
MtnWasp
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That started change in the second half of the Cremins era. it started with Dennis Scott and then Kenny Anderson leaving early. And culminated with Al Harrington (who is a big Tech fan) skipped college entirely. That was the end of the Cremins model of team building.
What has emerged that has fundamentally changed the landscape since the 1980s is that elite high school talent developed a tangible market value. A market value creates a potential that pulls toward equilibrium (thus all the under the table shenanigans involving AAU, college, Apparel representatives and agents forming networks to get player's and their families perks; and now the G-League with lega compensation).
But the GT community holds the steadfast expectation that her programs do not indulge the Black Market for talent, clinging instead to nostalgic notions of amateurism and integrity. Yet, some fans still expect to land elite talent which has a market value without affording the Institute the freedom to engage the market. I wonder if those fans are aware of the internal contradiction of their thinking.
First, this doesn't belong here so I hope the mods can move it to a more appropriate thread because I think this is an excellent post.
I don't think most of the folks that complain about our recruiting are cognizant of the dynamic you highlight here. Can it (high level 'cruitn') be done above board? Yes but it just looks different than it did when Cremins and Hewitt (yes, Hewitt) did it.
We have to mature beyond star-chasing expectations, unless we're willing to get dirty. I'm on the record that I don't care as much about being "clean" because, as evidenced by our current probationary status, even "clean" is dirty depending on which way the NCAA wind is blowing.
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@kg01, I considered moving this, but it's not completely off target given the posts preceeding. It would be good to see this thread get back to Miles Kelley. If the comments re him have dried up, let's move on until we get our next top 100 recruit. Thanks.
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GTHomer
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As a compromise, could it be copied to a new topic for discussion? I agree with @kg01 that the premise of that post could be discussed further.
I was at GT when Cremins arrived and still amazed at how quickly he turned our program around. Those last few Dwayne Morrison years were ugly...
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These posts were moved from the Miles Kelley thread.
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The big time top 10 recruits: Dennis Scott, Stephon Marbury, Kenney Anderson, James Forest, Tom Hammonds, Bruce Dalrymple, Dwayne Ferrell, Malcom Mackey, Chris Bosh, Derrick Favors,, and Thadius Young. Also there are 18 more players who were in the top 50 at least!!!
lauraee
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Yes
mstranahan
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I can't find any list that puts Forest, Hammonds, Dalrymple, Ferrell, or Mackey in top 10 category. (Given that recruiting info was sparser back then than it is now, possible that I missed lists or they're not available on line.) I would also add Best, Crittenden, Glover as big time recruits during that run
MtnWasp
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I think many of us imprinted on the Bobby Cremins model of program building. The desired model is that there is a magic coach out there who can recruit for Gt at the highest levels without regard of industry changes.
And these changes pertain to the yearly small number of high school elites who's talent is impactful on the court. These are the players ranked very highly, the ones who fans and coaches covet because they are ready to help college teams win immediately.
Those industry changes began with the arrival of ESPN. ESPN coverage turned NCAA MBB into a big money maker and BOOM, we have a market. The first entity to want to tap into that market was, naturally, the NBA. College players had star power and the draft and rookies were marketing boon to them. The NBA tried to preempt the NCAA by tapping into the High School talent wellspring, but that more often than not burned NBA teams as for every Kobe or LeBron, there were five kids who did not have the maturity to handle the demands of the NBA or the early money.
So, there is a market to bridge "almost ready" talent to get them ready to help NBA teams. There is money on the bridge. The bridge is an opportunity to get in on a ground floor of a future major money maker.
The NCAA has struggled to balance the amateur status of their athletes and all the revenue. This has resulted in (winning) coaches and NCAA executives making big money and the expanded operating budgets of athletic administrations based on the largess, but having to shield the revenues from the players. This has created an enormous disequilibrium, like building a house with a basement in a swamp and then keeping the basement dry.
Shielding the revenues from the players has created an enormous untapped market which is an irresistible attractant to those who want to tap into it. In this case, there has developed an under-the-table network of AAU coaches, college coaches, Apparel company representatives and "agents" or influence brokers, all looking to cash in on this market, looking for a skim of the river of money looking to find it's way to the receptive players and their families. The NCAA has clearly taken the stance that they will be perfectly willing to look the other way as long as the NCAA as an institution is not publicly embarrassed, i.e., all of it is supposed to stay underground and out of site, a few non-revenue generating sacrificial lambs to keep up appearances of legitimacy (like GT) notwithstanding.
Once the Feds shed some light on the underground sausage-making plant, it created an opportunity to shift the market above the table to the G-League. But what drives that market is the same, it is competition in trying to tap an untapped market which is the monetary value of teenage basketball talent.
This is what sunk Cremins. Cremins recruited based on handing a talented players sole possession of a spot on the floor. It was theirs. But that was at a time when college basketball stardom was a goal in and of itself. Once this was not enough, his results sagged. Hewitt recruited elites based on the promise to get them to the League ASAP. But, he sacrificed team results in the process and his model flubbed completely as he could not market the crap play on the floor to GT fans.
So recruiting of high school players looks pretty much like it did in the 1980s until the August before their Senior seasons. That is after the big July camps finish. That is when a player's market value is established and negotiated within the industry that brokers that market. So it is at this time that players segregate themselves into two camps, those with a market (impact) value and those that do not. Josh Pastner and Daryl LaBarrie can work their butts off to establish the inside position on Nassir Little, but as soon as Little established a substantial market value, the non-player GT became instantly marginalized by bonafide players in the market.
Should it be different for Jabari Smith, Alex Fudge and Deebo Coleman?
What constitutes being a legitimate player in the market is different now than it was during the first half of Cremns' time at GT. I think that the current (and future) GT coach is caught in an impossible situation: they face the expectation that they should be able to do what Cremins did in the manner that he did it. But that is not possible. The smallish and aging Gt faithful expect to regain market success without understanding the market and without playing the market as it currently exists. They want the elites, but they want them under the condition of old school amateurism and integrity. There is the hint of denial in the attitude.
I fear that for any Gt coach to recruit to expectations would require the current coach to have a time machine.
IMO, under the constraints of such expectations, the staff is taking the very best approach to a rebuild that can be done: via coaching acumen, get the most out of the flawed players that can be landed constrained by old school integrity. Getting inside postion on the players that fall just outside those with a money value (maybe Deebo Coleman?) will really help. Maybe we get lucky and a one and done will have those old school values also, but I wouldn't bet a plug nickle on that.
I actually think that we are seeing a rebuild being pulled off in front of our noses even though fans don't want to believe it because we are not winning the recruiting wars that fans believe to their core are needed to rebuild.
The arrival of the Portal maybe be the next great thing since Bobby Cremins for Gt basketball. Here we see that our staff is getting, on the rebound, those players who were sold by recruiters as having a market value, but quickly learned that they did not. These players have the talent to be developed into winning college players, and GT's old school, nose-to-the-grindstone attitude will carry more weight with these players after their let down in the first go-'round.
And these changes pertain to the yearly small number of high school elites who's talent is impactful on the court. These are the players ranked very highly, the ones who fans and coaches covet because they are ready to help college teams win immediately.
Those industry changes began with the arrival of ESPN. ESPN coverage turned NCAA MBB into a big money maker and BOOM, we have a market. The first entity to want to tap into that market was, naturally, the NBA. College players had star power and the draft and rookies were marketing boon to them. The NBA tried to preempt the NCAA by tapping into the High School talent wellspring, but that more often than not burned NBA teams as for every Kobe or LeBron, there were five kids who did not have the maturity to handle the demands of the NBA or the early money.
So, there is a market to bridge "almost ready" talent to get them ready to help NBA teams. There is money on the bridge. The bridge is an opportunity to get in on a ground floor of a future major money maker.
The NCAA has struggled to balance the amateur status of their athletes and all the revenue. This has resulted in (winning) coaches and NCAA executives making big money and the expanded operating budgets of athletic administrations based on the largess, but having to shield the revenues from the players. This has created an enormous disequilibrium, like building a house with a basement in a swamp and then keeping the basement dry.
Shielding the revenues from the players has created an enormous untapped market which is an irresistible attractant to those who want to tap into it. In this case, there has developed an under-the-table network of AAU coaches, college coaches, Apparel company representatives and "agents" or influence brokers, all looking to cash in on this market, looking for a skim of the river of money looking to find it's way to the receptive players and their families. The NCAA has clearly taken the stance that they will be perfectly willing to look the other way as long as the NCAA as an institution is not publicly embarrassed, i.e., all of it is supposed to stay underground and out of site, a few non-revenue generating sacrificial lambs to keep up appearances of legitimacy (like GT) notwithstanding.
Once the Feds shed some light on the underground sausage-making plant, it created an opportunity to shift the market above the table to the G-League. But what drives that market is the same, it is competition in trying to tap an untapped market which is the monetary value of teenage basketball talent.
This is what sunk Cremins. Cremins recruited based on handing a talented players sole possession of a spot on the floor. It was theirs. But that was at a time when college basketball stardom was a goal in and of itself. Once this was not enough, his results sagged. Hewitt recruited elites based on the promise to get them to the League ASAP. But, he sacrificed team results in the process and his model flubbed completely as he could not market the crap play on the floor to GT fans.
So recruiting of high school players looks pretty much like it did in the 1980s until the August before their Senior seasons. That is after the big July camps finish. That is when a player's market value is established and negotiated within the industry that brokers that market. So it is at this time that players segregate themselves into two camps, those with a market (impact) value and those that do not. Josh Pastner and Daryl LaBarrie can work their butts off to establish the inside position on Nassir Little, but as soon as Little established a substantial market value, the non-player GT became instantly marginalized by bonafide players in the market.
Should it be different for Jabari Smith, Alex Fudge and Deebo Coleman?
What constitutes being a legitimate player in the market is different now than it was during the first half of Cremns' time at GT. I think that the current (and future) GT coach is caught in an impossible situation: they face the expectation that they should be able to do what Cremins did in the manner that he did it. But that is not possible. The smallish and aging Gt faithful expect to regain market success without understanding the market and without playing the market as it currently exists. They want the elites, but they want them under the condition of old school amateurism and integrity. There is the hint of denial in the attitude.
I fear that for any Gt coach to recruit to expectations would require the current coach to have a time machine.
IMO, under the constraints of such expectations, the staff is taking the very best approach to a rebuild that can be done: via coaching acumen, get the most out of the flawed players that can be landed constrained by old school integrity. Getting inside postion on the players that fall just outside those with a money value (maybe Deebo Coleman?) will really help. Maybe we get lucky and a one and done will have those old school values also, but I wouldn't bet a plug nickle on that.
I actually think that we are seeing a rebuild being pulled off in front of our noses even though fans don't want to believe it because we are not winning the recruiting wars that fans believe to their core are needed to rebuild.
The arrival of the Portal maybe be the next great thing since Bobby Cremins for Gt basketball. Here we see that our staff is getting, on the rebound, those players who were sold by recruiters as having a market value, but quickly learned that they did not. These players have the talent to be developed into winning college players, and GT's old school, nose-to-the-grindstone attitude will carry more weight with these players after their let down in the first go-'round.
forensicbuzz
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Thin Gold Line. He'd bring in 1-2 top-ranked kids each year and play them nearly 40 minutes a game. Showcase them and send them to the NBA.
forensicbuzz
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Well...Martice Moore didn't really pan out for US. He was ACC rookie and then transferred to Colorado and did great for them. That hurt.Oof. C62 with the gut-punch off the ropes. jayparr goes down hard!
Seriously though, I don't remember a top 10 every year but I do remember we signed Georgia Mr. Basketball every dayum year. Pablo Machado was the first I remember not panning out really.
Well here I am a little early! In the 1979-1980 a player by the name Brook Steppe was a very good jr guard. He was a lot of fun to watch! Then the next year was coach Morrison's last year at Tech and Steppe became a unavailable player for his Sr. year! So the next year being Cremin's first year coaching Tech he was soooooo luckey that Steppe got to play his last year under Cremins who had a shout out of a player like Steppe that his first year of recruiting he was able to get Mark Price and John Salley who both were All Americans and also Tech jerseys retired!!! Do you think if Steppe had not gotten a year playing for Cremins what do y'all think of what Cremins future would have been like??
tbglover
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mstranahan
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Missed that one in my googling. Tons of memories watching him play. Sigh