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WFU Hoops: '22-'23 Roster Construction Thread: +Ituka/Carr/Appleby/Bradford

What a weirdly angry post, Pilch. My point is that we only have four commits from US HS recruits through three recruiting classes and the highest ranked recruit is leaving.

Mike Young has four US HS recruits in the 2022 class, so I don't know why you're making that comparison.
 
it is possible to believe two things:

1. Forbes is the right man for the job, long-term
2. understanding we aren't close to understanding the final roster makeup for next year, the program seems more likely to take a half-step back for the 22-23 season than to reach the NCAA tournament

(and by the way, depending on how one defines "irrelevant" wrt basketball programs, an argument can be made that WF was still irrelevant (not in the final 8 of the ACCT, not among the 5 ACC teams selected for the NCAAT) last year)
 
thatguy2016 said:
it is possible to believe two things:

1. Forbes is the right man for the job, long-term
2. understanding we aren't close to understanding the final roster makeup for next year, the program seems more likely to take a half-step back for the 22-23 season than to reach the NCAA tournament

(and by the way, depending on how one defines "irrelevant" wrt basketball programs, an argument can be made that WF was still irrelevant (not in the final 8 of the ACCT, not among the 5 ACC teams selected for the NCAAT) last year)
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I believe these two things.

I also worry that college basketball has changed such that it will become more like football, where the blue bloods are the only ones with a chance to regularly compete for a championship.
 
I wonder if this year’s Keller only class was hurt by the need to recruit the portal very hard last spring. That is, spring and summer is when relationships are forged with juniors that sign NLIs in the fall of their senior years, but we were trying to build through the portal for immediate impact. Yeah we should be able to do more than one thing at a time, but relationship building takes a lot of time.

Was there in person recruiting going on last spring and summer or was it all over zoom still?
 
247 has Carter as the 13th best recruit we have ever gotten, for whatever thats worth.
 
PhDeac said:
What a weirdly angry post, Pilch. My point is that we only have four commits from US HS recruits through three recruiting classes and the highest ranked recruit is leaving.

Mike Young has four US HS recruits in the 2022 class, so I don't know why you're making that comparison.
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The 2022 HS class is Young's 4th recruiting class at VT, he was hired a year before Forbes. Forbes' 2023 class with be his 4th recruiting class for WF. So, VT's 2022 class is not a relevant comparison to Forbes recruiting efforts to date.

The point is that, through his first 3 years at VT, Young had essentially the same recruiting profile as Forbes, if, for whatever reason, the "standard" is landing top 100 US ranked recruits (which seems pretty random given that Keller was #79 by 247, but #116 in the composite ranking, so, I guess Forbes gets zero credit for landing him or for landing recruits ranked between 100 and 200 in 2021). Young won the ACC Title in his 3rd year at VT with landing one top 100 recruit in his first 3 recruiting classes, and that recruit transferred.

You threw out a stat: Forbes has recruited one top 100 US recruit, and he transferred.

This is a passive aggressive and misleading attack on Forbes' recruiting as if every recruit rated 101 and above is the same (we all understand there is ranking degradation when a player signs with WF), as if Forbes isn't trying to overcome the stained legacy left behind by previous coaching disasters, and as if WF's recruiting wasn't hampered by the pandemic which limited Forbes ability to get recruits on campus or visit them. Interpersonal interaction is Forbes strength. If you think, Forbes' recruiting has been weak, say that. Given the circumstances, I could not disagree more. Just amazing the angst around here about a program that Forbes transformed from a talentless 6-16 (3-16) to 25-10 (13-8) in one year.

Crazy to me how so many people around here are in a funk still over the BC loss. Yes, it sucked. Even so, the larger picture is that WF basketball hasn't been in a better place in 15 years.
 
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Interesting to me how defensive many are of Forbes. Yes, we all want him to be The Man and lead us back to glory from the Dark Decade. But he's pretty unproven still, particularly when it comes to recruiting. He landed one good portal class and one four star player. It is ok IMO to be skeptical until he proves he can recruit consistently ACC talent - both from HS and the portal.
 
WF basketball hasn't been in a better place in 15 years, yet the program is far from where it needs to be with respect to winning in the ACC Tournament and making the NCAA Tournament. Last year, the transfer portal yielded the ACC POY, a 2nd team All-ACC player, a starting C, and two key rotation players and the team still fell short. It would be hard to reasonably expect Forbes to do better in the portal this year.

Last year, LaRavia committed to Wake before the NCAA Tournament even started. There was plenty of reason to be optimistic. Four weeks after that same point in the calendar and we have no portal commits this year. The basic facts of the matter lead to uncertainty. This isn't some undeserved Wake fan angst.
 
We will see. The staff pounced on LaRavia because they knew how good he was. There are others in the current portal that WF could have landed, but WF is biding its time and picking its spots. Again, WF landed 4 of his 5 transfers from the portal after today's date. WF will land a couple that will help this time as well.

Love the fact that Forbes did not reach with HS class of 2022. Unlike the previous coach, Forbes isn't going to throw out offers to fill a class.
 
birdman said:
I wonder if this year’s Keller only class was hurt by the need to recruit the portal very hard last spring. That is, spring and summer is when relationships are forged with juniors that sign NLIs in the fall of their senior years, but we were trying to build through the portal for immediate impact. Yeah we should be able to do more than one thing at a time, but relationship building takes a lot of time.

Was there in person recruiting going on last spring and summer or was it all over zoom still?
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No idea, but I do know the staff has been very busy recently looking at HS players for the Class of '23. I think we'll do just fine in HS recruiting this year.

And it is still relatively early for the portal, as well... But it'd obviously be nice to get someone on board sooner than later.
 
Pilchard said:
WF is biding its time and picking its spots.
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You really believe this bullshit? Wake is in no position to pick HS recruits or even transfers from the portal. We will need a massive hail mary from the portal to save next season. The portal alone cannot sustain a program that is attempting to rise from the ashes.
 
Stan Gable said:
You really believe this bullshit? Wake is in no position to pick HS recruits or even transfers from the portal. We will need a massive hail mary from the portal to save next season. The portal alone cannot sustain a program that is attempting to rise from the ashes.
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Yes, WF has targeted certain players from the portal, and most are still available. With 13 ships to give, smart to value each one. WF will be solid again next year, and WF will be better if LaRavia returns.

If going into full panic mode helps you cope, go for it.
 
Pilchard said:
Crazy to me how so many people around here are in a funk still over the BC loss. Yes, it sucked. Even so, the larger picture is that WF basketball hasn't been in a better place in 15 years.
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WF was #1 in the nation in January 2009. Obviously the season went downhill from there...but #1 in the nation is better than year 12 of not reaching the field of 64 or the ACC tournament quarterfinals
 
I'm guilty of getting too high or low based on recent developments, and I acknowledge that. I think the fanbase as a whole would feel a lot better if we had either (1) gotten a commit from Mintz or (2) had a transfer like Jake committed. I think it's 50/50 that we are a better team next season if Jake comes back. If he doesn't, I've basically accepted the fact that we'll be worse. And I'm really disappointed about taking a step back from being an NIT team.
 
this isn't a meaningful or useful debate, but i think you could argue that we looked like we might be in a better place under manning for about a week when jaylen hoard committed, we had just landed a strong recruiting class with chaundee and sarr and we were coming off a tourney appearance.

ironically (?), i think that was actually a horrible moment since i believe that was probably when ronald was convinced he should give manning that albatross contract extension (which was announced a couple months later).


for next year, i'm sure we could be in a better place (i don't pay much attention to the college bball landscape), but i'm sure it's tough to recruit with a bunch of guys in limbo as to whether they will be back or not.
 
It seems totally reasonable and normal to believe each of the following:

  • Forbes crushed it on the transfer trail last year.

  • It looks like we're going to lose a lot of the core of last year's solid NIT/NCAA bubble team.

  • All indications are Forbes is the man for the job and has what it takes to win in the ACC, but we haven't really seen that show up with high-profile top 75 (or better) HS commits despite being in what used to be known as a new coach's "honeymoon period." To be sure, COVID and the transfer portal have done a lot to change what fans' reasonable expectations likely should be as far as honeymoon recruiting classes, but it's not nothing.

  • It's not the end of the world if next year's team is a little worse than this year's team.

  • That said, a relative plateauing (if not slight backsliding) in next year's team's success reasonably might make many Wake fans a bit angsty/nervous precisely because we we were so bad for so long; just a few weeks ago it felt like we were "right there" on returning to relevance in the ACC and the NCAA landscape generally, and it would be a shame for our positive momentum to sputter out just as we're finally starting to (potentially) see signs of light at the end of the tunnel.

  • The completely unforeseen success of Alondes cuts both ways in some sense. While on the one hand it indicates Forbes' transfer recruiting acumen and eye for talent, but at the same time I simply don't view it as realistic to expect every high-major role player who transfers in to blow up to that level. The upshot is that Forbes could assemble what on paper looks like a superior transfer class, but which produces less (or fewer) on-court results simply because of how lucky we were with Alondes, Jake, etc.

  • I ultimately think Forbes will put together a solid transfer class, if not a class that measures up to the success of last year's. We certainly have no basis to complain about another decent/solid-ish NIT-quality team after the decade we've all suffered through, but the near-taste of the NCAA tournament last year and the (I think objectively indisputable) lack of major "waves" on the HS recruiting trail thus far can reasonably consolidate into at least some skepticism about next season and what the year after (and the year after next) might look like from a program momentum/consistent recruiting standpoint if we sort of run in place next year.
 
Well said, KidA. I'll add that it's perfectly reasonable as a fan to feel good about where Forbes will take the program 5-10 years from now and still feel uncertain about next season given how the roster stands at this moment. If we get good news about recruiting or the portal, we'll feel better. If we get bad news, we'll feel worse. Perfectly reasonable.
 
is Wake's current situation unusual in the number of guys that are on maybes to return?

I guess less so now with the Walton news, but still seems high
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
is Wake's current situation unusual in the number of guys that are on maybes to return?

I guess less so now with the Walton news, but still seems high
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I can’t imagine it’s all that unusual given the number of players that still have an extra year due to COVID. But we’re probably higher than most given all of the transfers we took last year.

Would have been less of an issue filling out a roster with more HS players coming in this year, but now we just wait and see how many schollys we have for this summer.
 
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