Chris just be glad we didn’t play them this year. How many points did Abmas get against big time OSU? To say ORU has inferior talent is far from the truth. We are more athletic, tougher with man defense, but we can’t put the ball in the hole nearly as good as ORU. The free throw line which equalizes the teams is no contest in favor of ORU. Neither the Summit or the AAC allows guarding a free throw shooter. And many games are won or lost there.
Congratulations to ORU
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That was almost a monumental choke. If not for that block with less than 5 seconds left it could very well have been game over for ORU.
Aside from the fact that we've definitely signed players the last few years whose next best offer was in the Summit League, I really hope the new coach doesn't share this philosophy. To succeed at this level, we need to be scouring every player pool in the country. The best coaches can see those guys and say "I don't care who else has offered, that kid could be a star". Credit to Mills, he found a couple of them.
Almost looked like Bill Self against College of Charleston.
I didn't comment on the talent level of either team. Just pointing out the reality of differences in recruiting at each school.
You clearly missed the point I made. Recruiting at the highest level possible is not a recruiting philosophy. Obviously, coaches scour all player pools, but as I made clear, TU can recruit all the players that would be happy playing at ORU's level, but they also can and do recruit many players in the Top 150 -- many of which would not give ORU the time of day. A good example of this -- and this is before there was as wide of a disparity -- Bill Self was capable of finding a gem like Dante Swanson, but also sign a Top 25 overall prospect in DeAngelo McDaniel. It's also an example of how some players work out and some don't.
It's pretty simple. TU has a larger player pool available to recruit, but that doesn't mean it's a given that they will always sign better players.
Abmas and Obanor would be really good with a coach like Drake’s DaVries. So Frank thought this would be one of his better teams even though we had no shooters (or at best 1-2). We all know now that we are the only D1 team in Oklahoma not dancing. I am giving us very little chance of winning in Ft. Worth. Would love to be wrong!
It looked like ORU spent halftime planning for the engraving on their trophy and came out with the foot off the gas. It almost cost them.
As I said previously, it supports the point that ORU did a better job recruiting due to the fact the players are working out for them, at their level, in their league -- for this season specifically. ORU finished 4th in the Summit and won their league tourney. TU finished 7th in the AAC.
Obviously, last season would have been a different story, with TU winning a share of the AAC title, and ORU finishing 5th in the Summit.
We get about $7 million per year in conference TV money, the majority of which is for football broadcasts.
That would be a lot of dough to turn down for an easier basketball path, and would probably cause irreparable harm to not only basketball but the other Olympic sports as well.
Love the "last season" argument. Who cares! This is a new year and we are not very good. Recruiting has been terrible and we rely on the transfer. The staff is just not very active and it shows with our player attitude and recruiting. I guess we need to say that Haith was good at Missouri for a year and that makes it ok.
Perhaps the best example I can think of is KES. He was arguably one of the best HS players in OK in the past decade. Hasn't worked out in college, but if we would have landed him just out of HS we would thought we won the lottery. He wouldn't have given ORU the time of day at that time.
Chris is right. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. But TU recruits in a different strata than ORU.
Now how we develop them is a different story.....
Chris is right. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. But TU recruits in a different strata than ORU.
Now how we develop them is a different story.....
It's not an argument, it's just a fact. I could've said the past five seasons, and it still would have been factual. I agree with everyone that ORU has had a better season this year based on the fact that they've won their conference tournament and picked up the auto bid to the NCAA tournament...so nothing to argue about there.
It it just me or are the kids that leave high school to go to academies more risky in recruiting than kids in high school? It seems the lack of basketball discipline in some of these cause chemistry problems when they arrive on campus?
I believe “out recruited” by ORU is a bit of a misnomer. We don’t recruit from the same pool of players in general. Now if we want to argue that ORU did a better job of identifying and developing certain players then I would definitely agree.
You do have to remember Dante Swanson's only offer was to ORU before Billy Gillispie got Self to offer.
22 years ago. 😊 TU and ORU have occasionally recruited the same players, but much less so in the past 5 to 10 years as Tulsa has recruited higher-level players much of the time.
If we had an all-time All City team, ORU would have 2 of the starting 5 but both of those guys played over 45 years ago.
There's really no reason for Tulsa and ORU not to offer the most talented in-state players.
Now we’re just arguing semantics. Recruiting encompasses all those things. I would argue that identifying and developing talent is more important at both TU and ORU because neither school is getting the elite recruits.
"Out-recruited by" infers an apples-to-apples comparison, which it isn't. TU is often recruiting higher-level talent to play in a higher-level league. Just because ORU has a better season than Tulsa for the first time in many years doesn't mean ORU brought in higher-rated recruits than Tulsa ... because they didn't.
In 2000, Tulsa ended with a better record than Duke, Kentucky and Kansas...and also went further in the NCAA tournament than those three. But Tulsa didn't out-recruit Duke, Kentucky and Kansas.
Developing talent is a different conversation than recruiting. Recruiting is identifying talent and getting that talent to your school. Development is what you do with those players after the recruiting is done. Elite coaches often excel at both.
I would just like to point out that the first time they actually landed a top 150 kid was this season lol. Anybody can say they’re recruiting at that level, but when you whiff year after year it’s not like you’re really recruiting on par with schools that are actually getting the commits. Yes, we’ve had some players transfer in who were former 150 players, but that’s always a craps shoot that you’re not getting a guy who was a bust at their last school.
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Parse it however you like. The conclusion remains the same. Frank Haith hasn't achieved program expectations and it's time to move on.
I'm personally not debating that point or defending Haith, who I haven't mentioned at all in this thread. I was just trying to point out the general differences between recruiting at TU vs. recruiting at ORU. And it's not to knock ORU's recruiting...they've obviously got a couple gems that have helped them tremendously the past couple seasons.
That's incorrect. Tulsa has signed several kids that were in the top 150 during their recruitment. TU signed the No. 21 player in the nation in the 1998 class, DeAngelo McDaniel.
Also in the 1998 class was Marqus Ledoux, who had an interesting story. Self recruited him pretty heavily, as Ledoux was in the top 100 nationally. By the time Ledoux decided he wanted to commit to Tulsa, TU was full. So he went to LSU. After playing sparingly as a freshman, he transferred to Tulsa.
Jason Parker, who signed in the 2000 class, was a top 150 prospect by several publications.
In the class of 2014, Keondre Dew was a late signee. He spent several months in the top 150, getting as high as No. 124 as a 4-star prospect.
In the class of 2017, Darien Jackson spent several months in the top 150, getting as high as No. 134.
And in the current class, TU commit Teafale Lenard is currently No. 111.
Those are the ones I can remember.
Since it was mentioned in this thread, it’s amazing to me that KES didn’t flourish with the Pigs or TU.
He was beyond great in High School. I thought he was way better than Bryce, Jolly, etc.
Some of its development, but some of it is people just hit a ceiling.
He was beyond great in High School. I thought he was way better than Bryce, Jolly, etc.
Some of its development, but some of it is people just hit a ceiling.
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I was speaking of Haith’s team’s recruiting after we moved to the AAC. I wasn’t speaking about every recruit ever. I’m aware Jackson was top 150 ish, but he didn’t finish there. Dew didn’t finish in it either and by the time we recruited him, he was well outside of it.
Again, the first top 150 kid we’ve actually signed while they were still 150... is Leonard this season. I was not incorrect.
^This. Simple. Concise. Accurate.
Less Concise: Haith's model of building teams does not lead to roster stability or continued growth and success. It's been 7 years and it seems like every year we talk about not having a consistent roster or having so many new guys it's gonna take some time for them to mesh. It's not a winning model for this level.
Harmon, I recognize you need to remain somewhat objective but damn I like it when you mix it up with the rest of us.
Now if we only could get Sodapop involved....🤔
Now if we only could get Sodapop involved....🤔
As you know, I keep most of my stuff over in Hurricane Alley, but I felt like I could add some context here in relation to recruiting at Tulsa vs. ORU.
Sorry...you responded to my comment about TU recruiting top 150 players over the years, where I specifically mentioned a 1998 signee. It's hard for me to tell that you were speaking only of Haith's recruiting after moving to the AAC, since you didn't state that as a caveat. It was just a blanket statement that Tulsa got it's first Top 150 prospect this season, which is incorrect.
Now that you've stated you were talking only about Haith recruiting in the AAC, I'll agree that Lenard could be the only one to finish in the top 150...but the Rivals150 will get another shuffle or two before a final list at the end of the recruiting cycle. So that could change. And Lenard hasn't signed yet.
Seeing as how you want to get particular with the facts and insist on proving yourself right...
We haven't signed Lenard yet, he's still a verbal commit.
I find it unlikely that he will fall 40 spots. Dew did, but he was also lightly recruited as the process wore on and as most schools had filled their rosters by the time we signed him in the late summer. I suppose Leonard could fall 40 spots but that is infrequent. You’re right that we haven’t signed him yet. My bad. If he does fall out or we don’t sign him, it just points to more recruiting failures in that echelon which is pretty much my point.
As to the delineation between Haith and the rest of the TU’s coaches... we were talking about ORU recruiting at the moment and who we have been recruiting since the AAC (which is something you talked about in previous posts) Obviously you had already pointed out McDaniel in the post I quoted being top 25. Of course the “they” I was referring to in my post was Haith’s staff and not every single TU coach ever and also not referring kids who we recruited 20 years ago and 5 head coaching changes previous when we had our best stretch in program history. I’m sure ORU recruited a better caliber of player when they had much success back in the 70’s? 80’s?
Bottom line, Haith hasn’t yet had success top 150 outside of transfers. So while we might say that we’re offering higher caliber players than ORU and getting some interest from them, we’re not having a ton of success getting commitments and signing those players.
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This team cannot magically turn their obvious deficiencies into a winnable outcome.
Minimal talent and confidence in the post position and no outside gunner on the team
with the ability to hit 45% of his three point attempts . Those players are out there but
TU doesn’t have any on their roster .
Other than the Wichita State player, I have not been impressed with our recruiting this year. I have watched a couple of Link Year games and have not been impressed with their structure of play. Hope I am wrong.
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