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Wake Forest Basketball Recruiting: Juke Harris Commits!!

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JOJESMA said:
Does Bobi Klintman stink?
Does Cam Hildreth stink?
Does Parker Freidrichsen stink?
Does Marqus Marion stink?
Does Juke Harris stink?
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That doesn't really address the point buckets is making imo

I'm not really bothered by it anymore, but each of those recruitments are outliers compared to the norm. Bobi and Parker committed to us after decommitting from other programs. Marion looks like a diamond in the rough. England and Denmark are basketball backwaters - I can't imagine these guys flying under the radar if they played in Spain, France, Italy, or Germany. Juke is one HS recruit, an elite recruit, but our luck with 1 player classes has historically been miserable.

That being said, when I dove into the recruitments and what the prospects say about Forbes and the staff, it made a lot more sense to me. Is it sustainable? I have no idea. I sure hope it is because we've got some really talented players on the roster rn
 
Only a few programs can rely on high school recruiting going forward, especially American high school recruiting. I wish we could go back to the days where Wake could get a few guys who were top 15 players in NC, maybe an international guy, maybe another guy from the south and contend for a tourney spot in a competitive ACC. But we can't.

What other 1 player classes have we had except for Josh Howard?
 
PhDeac said:
Only a few programs can rely on high school recruiting going forward, especially American high school recruiting. I wish we could go back to the days where Wake could get a few guys who were top 15 players in NC, maybe an international guy, maybe another guy from the south and contend for a tourney spot in a competitive ACC. But we can't.

What other 1 player classes have we had except for Josh Howard?
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GREG MCCLINTON AND CAM STANLEY ERASURE
 
Forbes will look to bring in the best talent he can, whether it is via transfer, grad transfer, international, or high school.

So far, HS recruiting hasn't been a huge part of the equation (but not for lack of trying). I think it comes down to success... If we make the NCAA Tourney and have a decent run, I suspect '25 HS recruiting will yield better results.
 
I really am not concerned at all about our high school recruiting. It's way more efficient with resources and time to just knock it all out in a month every year after the season if that yields results (which, the talent has, but the overall has not).
 
PhDeac said:
Only a few programs can rely on high school recruiting going forward, especially American high school recruiting. I wish we could go back to the days where Wake could get a few guys who were top 15 players in NC, maybe an international guy, maybe another guy from the south and contend for a tourney spot in a competitive ACC. But we can't.

What other 1 player classes have we had except for Josh Howard?
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it's all relative; i think it's reasonable that wake recruits at least in the middle of the ACC

we've had a lot of long recruiting processes and whiffs the last few year
 
Great quote from Ish on Jeff Teague's podcast: "Wake Forest always recruited NC kids and they would use that be like "Duke and Carolina ain't offering y'all" so we used that to go play them."
 
With the extra Covid year and schools looking first to the transfer portal, there are fewer HS players signing with power conferences than ever before. That means, good HS players (not the super-star highly rated kids) that in the past would be the third or forth signee on a power conference team, are now going to mid-majors. That is the market inefficiency right now.

This helps explain why mid-majors (e.g., FAU, San Diego State, Princeton) are now more competitive than ever with power conference schools, even though NIL and the portal would seem to give the advantage to Power Conference teams. Just look at the Ivy League. No transfer portal gains only losses; no fifth year players; so, logic says the Ivy League must be down.... Nope, the Ivy League was rated as the #12 conference last year (out of 32), up from 16 the year before and 17 the year before that, and think they may raise even higher this year; Princeton already won at Rutgers; even though Princeton lost players, including a key player to the portal (went to NW). Ivy League teams only have HS recruits on their roster.

Really think that smart programs can crush it right now recruiting HS kids. FWIW, Parker F is going to be a stud; I am as excited about him as anyone on the WF roster.
 
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buckets said:
it's all relative; i think it's reasonable that wake recruits at least in the middle of the ACC

we've had a lot of long recruiting processes and whiffs the last few year
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I get the frustration and there have been a few offers/pursuits that I think they're spinning their wheels ... but I often think of Forbes' quote; "you can recruit your ass right out of a job."

Just my two cents, especially with how well this staff does in the portal: I'd rather have a coach who reaches up for 4-year recruits than down.
 
TheIshThatSaved WakeForest said:
Depending on HS freshmen is way, way more risky than depending on the portal.
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yes, especially now that players transfer so often. There’s no real opportunity to build and develop a team anymore, it’s 1 and done every season, and you hope some guys stick around.
 
It's just another step in the NBAization of college basketball. Again, I don't blame anyone for wanting $. I just don't have any interest in spending my limited leisure time watching yet another thing that will soon be driven almost entirely by money. It makes sports just one more thing that unduly favors the wealthy. Want a litmus test? Watch SMU. My guess is they get very good very fast.

I also think Wake needs to be much better at traditional recruiting. Anyone who thinks WFU can win enough auctions to assemble a really good team via the eBay portal doesn't understand math and fundraising. We simply do not have the numbers to win that way. It's not a great scenario, but it's the one we have.
 
Kent said:
It's just another step in the NBAization of college basketball. Again, I don't blame anyone for wanting $. I just don't have any interest in spending my limited leisure time watching yet another thing that will soon be driven almost entirely by money. It makes sports just one more thing that unduly favors the wealthy. Want a litmus test? Watch SMU. My guess is they get very good very fast.

I also think Wake needs to be much better at traditional recruiting. Anyone who thinks WFU can win enough auctions to assemble a really good team via the eBay portal doesn't understand math and fundraising. We simply do not have the numbers to win that way. It's not a great scenario, but it's the one we have.
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I am fearful your not-great scenario is unduly optimistic. The more likely question is whether Wake can win the auctions for it’s recruits‘ sophomore years, if not their freshmen years.
 
I think it's a combination of "winning auctions" and leveraging older recruiting ties, fwiw.
 
CONeill said:
I get the frustration and there have been a few offers/pursuits that I think they're spinning their wheels ... but I often think of Forbes' quote; "you can recruit your ass right out of a job."

Just my two cents, especially with how well this staff does in the portal: I'd rather have a coach who reaches up for 4-year recruits than down.
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This is the crux of what’s changed for the better. Manning and Bz would shoot for top players too but when they missed, they’d settle and fill their rosters with guys outside the top 200. Then we lost to teams with better talent.

Forbes has seemed very intentional in everything he’s done: try for the top 150 guys, but to the extent we struggle to land them, move on to other sources (International, transfers) rather than tying up the roster with guys who aren’t good enough to succeed in the ACC. Even then, some hit, some miss - and encourage those that miss to move on to where they can play.

His success in the transfer market has kept us afloat while the volume/quality of high school prospects hasn’t yet rebounded from prior coaches (reputation, view of playing in the tournament, tv exposure and NIL all factors). I think getting back in the tournament should help with the first three of those if not the last (though our piggy bank may be helped by that too).

Also for what it’s worth, he’s very slowly been bringing back more minutes/scoring/continuity each year, as the quality of players with remaining eligibility increases. The multi year transfers have been big here. Hopefully this slow trend continues upwards and we get to a program stasis in 2-3 years.
 
I would prefer to sign more good HS recruits who develop over years intermingled with transfers for positional need. Recruiting almost new team each year from portal isn't a good strategy IMO. Much easier to teach defensive schemes with a consistent team over time.
 
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