We just got a football commit form a 4 star DT from here in Va Supposedly the 2nd best DT from VA...GREAT news of course
Now football has been doing fairly well with recruiting recently, we are certainly not on the level talent wise with the OSU or Alabama or any of the top ten programs. But Fedora and his staff are out there and getting solid talented players that are being sought by a LOT of big time schools.
They are doing this with ALL of the NCAA crap hanging over the football program ... the possible sanctions etc the negative recruiting all of that
The SAME info is out there for football players,, their families, coaches etc and RIVALS to trash and attack us( and they ARE dong it!!!) .......YET the commitments still come
Meanwhile Roy can NOT get a commitment to save his life .We lost Ingram to the Dark Side and will likely lose Giles as well.
IMO NONE of the TOP players we want are gonna commit to us UNTIL we get that NCAA situation settled. Which in all likelihood will not be before late Winter/early spring 2016
Point being.... What am I missing here??? how can the football program ,with arguably a GREATER chance of penalties levied against it, continue doing pretty well recruiting wise , while the basketball program is just STUCK, grinding our gears and HOPING that we can get someone,, hell anyone, to commit to us BEFORE the NCAA rules.
Someone offer a reasonable explanation please
Thank You
Key, as you can see from the replys the answer you are asking for is not the answer many want to consider. Good folks here for sure but seriously afraid many want to bury their head in the sand while clinging to the mantra " it is all about the NCAA cloud that has surrounded us". But if that were true recruiting would have been shut down well before this last recruiting cycle or this one we are now in. I would love to be able to tell ya, when the NCAA announces their final decision on punishment it wil be back to green flag racin for our basketball recruiting, I would love to join that chorus. Problem is the NCAA issues is a big time problem, of course other programs are using that against us but that is not the only problem, IMO it may not even be the largest obstacle we have to over come.
The bigger problem IMO is we have allowed UNC to become branded as a bad place for the bigger talents to go if they want to play as a freshman. Even when we have got really talented guys the trend has been that they under achieve the over hyped expectations as freshmen. Take guys like JMM, Barnes, JP, Dexter, PJ, all very hyped coming out of high school and olny Barnes had what you would consider solid freshmen seasons and even he watched his draft position drop while at Carolina. These kids watch hard how draftability of their peers happens, does it drop or does it increase. JMM went from a huge recruit to being a low second round pick, I am not sayaing UNC hurt them as players but addressing the perception that freshmen do not excell at UNC. These kids are looking to excell as freshmen and move on to pay days, doesn't matter if some of the kids we have got were grossly over hyped, it is perception we battle more so than reality.
One of the issues is that UNC has always been known as the place a lot of the really good kids went, the kids that were great ambassadors for the college game both on as well as off the court. But we have had some real head cases in our midst over the last few years, PJ, Graves, Larry Drew, the twins, Ed Davis, and Lmac have all had locker room issues or off court issues that have been embarassing and in far to many cases involved law enforcement. There has been severe damage done to our image by these guys.
Look right now, there is a thread discussing a alum game between current UNC NBA players vs Ky NBA players, and even UNC fans assume we will lose? You think back and tell me in the past when that would have been the assumed out come, kids now days look very hard at who is playing big time roles in the NBA and who are the tar Heels doing that today? Who is the projected NBA all star these kids look to imulate now, it used to be guys like Mike, Worthey, Brad, Jamison, VC, sheed, ect, who is it now? There is a real reason kalipari stated that draft day is the biggest part of his program, definite reason he makes such a point to be there front & center on draft night because it sells the kids being recruited. It is spinning perception and in the perception game we are losing big time. That is all without the extra added problem of the NCAA cloud.
IN football we are able to sell playing time early on so our staff is going out on the offensive. YOu watched our football team last season and you are a well considered defensive player being recruited you already know you can play at UNC before you would be able to at most other programs, perception is just the opposite for the basketball team and basketball players are more sensitive to playing early as freshmen. Ky rode 3 freshmen to a title a while back, duke just rode 3 freshmen to titles last season, our last 2 titles we rode jr & sr players to both of them. YOu see a difference, a difference that NCAA clouds do not explain?
Syracuse got hammerred by the NCAA, we have not been yet, what program had the better recruiting season for 2015 or 2016, them or us? frankly I don't even know because I have not looked to see who the cuse is bringing in as freshmen this coming season or who they have in the bag so far for 2016 but it would not shock me to find out that they stil beat us even with NCAA bans and scholly reductions.
I am not suggesting the NCAA issue is not a problem or that it is not a major problem but I will tell you as I have tried to tel others, it is not the only problem and it may not even be the biggest problem. I hope it can get back to green flag racin when the NCAA finally rules on us and hands out the punishment they want, I am afraid the caution flag will still be out for us, we will not automatically become on par with Ky & duke in the recruiting scene because our perception is a major issue that may take years to re-establish.
