DSouthr, your posts often require a lot of thought and typing, so I had to shorten some of my responses lol!
Kinda confusing honestly, I am not sure I understand what you are saying? But I think any discussion of this must start with an understanding of how difficult the results that we would all love to see actually are. It starts with the fact that we have just spent 5+ years with a negative spot light shining down on us every single day by the national sports media. That isn't something that you just toss off once the spotlight is finally turned away. And keep in mind it still is not totally turned away, it is still today hard to find an article from the national media that does not want to bring up the NCAA issues and as well keep in mind that the NCAA may have stated that our basketball (men's) program committed no punishable offense the NCAA still has not handed down the punishment and when it does a new national discussion will be inspired that will not look good for us. While the worst may be past us, the not knowing how our basketball and football programs will come out of this, the whole thing is still very much here and is still on the minds of recruits. And yes, this is still very much at play for this 2017 class recruiting as I spoke to in a post above.
That's what I was asking. I wasn't really sure what point was being raised about our offer strategy with the amount of data WWJD provided, so I provided my 2 cents on what I think the current recruiting strategy is.
Concerning the NCAA issues, "5+ Years" is a quote that should not be thrown around so often, because it's just inaccurate. I'm not taking away from it's severity or it's impact, but it has not been 5 straight years of this. The timeline also supports this. In fact, I'd even argue that the football stuff had less of an impact than the current situation does. What's more, between 2012 (Football sanctions) and 2014 (McCants' 15 seconds of fame), we had hardly anything to impact our recruiting. Willingham's comments were nowhere near as damning as something the NCAA could actually do to us.
It is still very much an uphill slog for us, for Roy and especially for this 2017 class where relationships were formed before the NCAA released the current NOA. To not acknowledge that is keeping our head buried in the sand. AS we so often see, successful recruiting is all about perception, it is about creating that perception in a recruits mind that this place will serve his needs above all others. Fans want to think it is about reality more than perception, it isn't, not sure it ever has been. It is like we vote for a politician not for what he will actually do but because the perception is created that the politician will do exactly what we all want and even knowing they never do we still vote for that person because of the perception rather than the reality.
I've been trying to talk reality since my first post in this thread. The problem is so many cannot accept the idea that our strategies may not be working. Let me give the scenario we've heard many times in the past few recruiting classes: Early Traction with some recruits, Generic Complements from them, But currently not looking to be the favorite of those players. The same ones on this board will keep repeating "It's Early" and "The later, the better".
(We are here) One by One, we start missing out on recruits as they either lose interest, or keep us in their final list but never visit. Those on this board blame the NCAA.
You can tell me this is an overreaction if you'd like, but this has been the case for the past 2 recruiting classes. If things are truly as you say, then this shouldn't be considered far left.
And what creates perception, a bunch of lies usually, but lies that those we want to say yes to us find easier to believe. There has been a steady stream of lies and we know they are lies that have been lodged against us for a long while now and the more those lies have been told the easier they have become to believe. The lies that have been told about us that got us in the negative spotlight by the media were not the only things but they allowed the rest of the lies to seem to have cred. Lies like Roy does not star freshmen, when he actually has what, 4 out of the last 5yrs or so years or Roy holds his freshmen back from being one & done? What is Roy supposed to do, push a kid out the door that isn't ready for the NBA like Kalipari did with Skal?...
So then what is the problem we're trying to back here? You can't blame the NCAA for all of our recruiting woes, then flip around and tell those who raise concerns about our recruiting to calm down. I'm not saying you specifically, but there are those who do just this. And they know who they are.
That is where the problem is found, perception may not be grounded in reality but it sure can dictate reality. Teams like duke and Ky get great talent, more than we have been able to snag for the last several years now and if you get to put a more talented team on the floor, a team of multiple top 10 players in a single class then the lesser talented team has to work harder for what they get and that is at least for now our reality. The teams that get to field the multiple one & done talents are going to win more because at the end of the day it comes down to the talent more than any other thing. There is talent outside of the top 20 players in the country but most of that talent takes longer to show itself on the court.
The "perception" of our program is that we aren't recruiting at an elite level at the moment.
Personally, I couldn't care less about what our recruiting rank is, but I do mind how our players end up performing. In 2017, we will lose at least 4 players on our team, and possibly 2 more to the NBA. We could be looking at a tough season if we don't fill those shoes.
Now we can just sit around and pretend certain guys in this class will suddenly fall in love with UNC, but that hasn't happened since, guess who? Harrison Barnes.
I would love a class with some guys that could come in and contribute solid minutes their freshman year. Regardless of their rank. But we don't have that, and there's a chance we may not get that, regardless if many of us can admit it or not.
It is a tuff spot, Roy has spent a lot of time in tuff spots over the last few years and a lot of the tuff spot situations we have been in have been made extra tuff by the expectations of UNC fans themselves, we have become our own worst enemy far to often. For example, we just ended our season by making it to the NCAA title game but sadly few UNC fans seem to realize that, all most seem to recall is that we lost that game? Some how out of a GREAT season, we fans seem to have snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory?
I remember a great season. I remember one of the greatest runs and toughest losses I've ever experienced. I also remember the 3 previous seasons we had, such as the 10+ losses, PJ Hairston fiasco, very painful Dook losses and NCAA tourney exits, while missing on top recruits who could have turned our program in the right direction. There has been plenty of good and plenty of bad, and I don't have a selective memory.
The problem with our fanbase is we have those who want to sacrifice Roy to the Basketball gods bickering with those who want to paint Roy as perfect cross of god and Dean Smith. Criticism is considered blasphemy and those who don't go bow to their Roy Shrine every night are "not real fans".
And even now, with every one of us knowing that our recruiting right now is a uphill battle we still expect to snag any top talent we want. We see Robinson commit to a mid major and we figure crap, how are we losing recruits to a mid major? We see Tillman pick Ill and we wonder ILL, how the heck are we losing players to Ill? We don't look or really even care what the reasons the kids relied on to make their choice, we feel like we lost with a couple of lesser front court guys that we have no chance with higher rated front court guys, like we have lost even before we actually lose?
While we are on the downswing of this NCAA drama, I don't dispute it still has an affect on us. I doubt many recruits understand or even care about the jargon of the NOA other than it could be sanctions. We have the University to blame for keeping this going for so long.
That being said, we did miss out on Tilmon and a few others, and this has happened to us before. But there are 2 things that are different than before:
- We're losing a lot of good players next year
- We don't have any other recruits favoring us at the moment.
Even in 2015 and 2016, we had guys who were at least solid leans, regardless of where they committed to in the end. That is concerning. Some of you say we are "monitoring other guys" but we haven't seen any information suggesting such a thing since the July period began. Perhaps will see a flurry of offers before July ends, because following that is the Quiet Period, and recruits do start checking their priorities, contrary to belief.
No, it's not time to panic, and most of us are not panicking. And I wish people would stop relating discussing recruiting issues to panicking. Regardless of our recruiting class outcome, I'm going to enjoy the 2016-17 season, and hope to see the Heels win it all.
But at some point in time, the outcome of our 2017 recruiting is going to affect the direction of UNC Basketball. I just hope it's for the better this time.
