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Wake Forest Basketball Recruiting: Juke Harris Commits!!

I'm not too concerned about Forbes' recruiting for a few reasons

1) I feel like the talent on WF's current roster is comparable to what Forbes had @ ETSU. Obviously the ETSU roster was better suited for his style of play but the overall level of talent is similar (esp with 2 of his former recruits on our roster). His current WF HS recruits (Okpomo - McCray) appear to be consistent with or slightly better than his ETSU recruits

2) I also feel like ETSU under Forbes was comparable to a lower/middle part of the ACC (already better than our last 2 regimes). So if assumptions #1 & #2 are accurate, we're already ahead of the last 2 regimes

3) The coaching upgrade will close our gap w/ the top part of the ACC a lot quicker than recruiting imo. I thought Mannequin was an adequate recruiter (def an improvement over Bz) & that our talent gap within the ACC was much closer than the coaching gap (including player retention/development). So if Forbes' coaching chops are as advertised, I believe he can produce post season caliber teams on an ongoing basis without a significant upgrade in talent. I feel like Forbes (or any above avg coach) would have taken at least a couple of Manning's teams to the NCAAs.
 
I certainly agree that we want to recruit at the highest level possible. The issues we are running into are (1) coming off of an awful 10 year stretch while these kids were growing up. It's been mentioned, but many of our recruits were 6 the last time we made the field of 64. We have devolved into an absolute joke of a program under the previous 2 regimes. (2) Forbes hasn't had time to build relationships and sell recruits on Wake. His strong suit is building personal relationships and that's very difficult to do over zoom and text messages. Many of the guys we are going after have had much more time to get to know other staffs. (3) He's unproven at the ACC level. If my kid was a top-100 talent and I spent my entire life getting him to a level where he can essentially go and play anywhere in the country, I'm sending him to a school and coach who I KNOW can take care of him and get him to the next level. Forbes will build that rep but it might take a few years.

Last thing I'll say is let's look at all mid major coaches who jumped to the ACC over the past decade. Evaluate their first full recruiting class compared to what Forbes ends up with. I imagine it'll look somewhat similar. I think Keatts brought in one 4 star guy his first class and Young was able to reel in two 4 star guys. If we end up with 4 guys in the top-175 range then that's a class to be proud of, especially if its highlighted by a top 60 guy like Weston, or someone like him. Let's just see how things shake out.

The Keatts comparison to Forbes is interesting, given their respective mentors. He has it rolling (recruiting-wise) but the annual turnover is curious. If the Dennis Smith situation ends up very poorly for State, I wouldn't be surprised to see Keatts looking at other jobs. On the other hand, any sanctions would likely hit about the time Roy and K retire so riding out the storm wouldn't be a bad option either.
 
Are any likely Forbes recruits in that 300-500 range of Manning's latest recruits?
 
Daivien Williamson was 2-star unranked when he picked ETSU
 
VC shows the slight majority of our outstanding offers being 2-stars. That is a little misleading as the list gets updated when schools are removed from consideration so my guess would be that most of the Forbes offers have been 3 stars or above.
 
 


This is the second player originally from Ireland that Forbes has recruited in this class. He's flying under the radar because he just started playing basketball in the US in January.
 
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I think it's a compression knee sleeve. He's wearing them in most of the pictures I've seen.
 
 
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