I know this topic has been discussed till we are blue in the face, but I’m going to state it again. I’m tired of the excuse that it is almost impossible to recruit to Fayettville. Let’s see. Van Dorn can do it, Chad Morris, coming off a 2-10 season can do it. Women’s basketball, softball, soccer, both men and women’s track can do it. But men’s basketball? Not just no, but hell no. The biggest advocate for this theory just got told he was wrong by Clay Henry on Sports Talk today. Enough with the excuses.
Sorry. I meant Van Horn.
Look at the FBI case and you will find the root case for the basketball recruiting problems. And it even happened after a player signed and was expected to play this season. Look at the twitter action and pictures between the Adidas folks and Seth G. And the messages between Seth and Perry. Pretty much academic. Being able to keep players once they get on campus is just as frustrating. There’s no easy answer.
Coach Van Horn has the baseball team humming. He can get top talent from all over the country. CMA needs to get it done and make some changes.
That is the reason I never listen to the little guys show. I enjoy Clay and D D but just got tired of hearing. u can’t recruit to poor little Ark. when some of the others on the show.
You can recruit to Arkansas. What you can’t do is land the high profile players that are getting paid.
That’s it. $$$$$$
Nice facilities & student centers & all of the cosmetics are just things kids can say “I’m shocked at how nice AR is”.
Truth is, throw enough $ out there and some will play in a barn, uh I mean Starkville.
Hold two degrees from the U of A but presently living in Iowa. If they can bring in quality recruits to Iowa State and Iowa U. there is no reason they cannot do so at Arkansas.
You can… and to suggest otherwise is to have a loser’s mentality and/or be a useful dolt for lazy/incompetent coaches who eagerly put out this type of drivel to cover their backsides.
I’m tired too. I’m tired of people bashing the players we have. This class that’s mostly playing was a top 20 class. Most people were happy with this class, but since the season hasn’t gone the way we’d like, the easy reaction is to dump on the players and coach. You look at the stats of the players when they came to the university and virtually nobody would have complained. Is it youth, is it confidence, frustration, etc.? I don’t know. But lets not pretend that recruiting has been abysmal here as well.
A partial list of places it’s apparently “easier” to recruit to than Arkansas (because all their teams are much higher in RPI basketball rankings):
Spokane
East Lansing
Lubbock
Iowa
Manhattan KS
Buffalo
Starkville
Las Cruces
Toledo
Butler IN
West Lafayette IN
I reject the idea that Fayetteville, Arkansas as a location is our problem. Neither can I accept being held hostage to every “next great recruiting class” being in jeopardy if we change coaches.
Excuse my ignorance but what are you referring to here, or rather who?
He’s talking about the Adidas scandal and ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg.
Seriously, this is your conclusion looking at RPI of this year? What does your analysis show for last year’s RPI? And then for the year before that?
Agree with you on your last statement in this post.
Want to be clear about something.
I think - and have said many times - that Arkansas’ football program has some inherent disadvantages in recruiting such as lack of numbers of D-I prospects in state, not being around areas that are populated with them, lack of Saturday morning flights to get recruits in here after they play on Friday night.
But, other than being the last SEC program to get a practice facility, I have not said or thought that about basketball.
Arkansas has all it needs to recruit well in basketball.
Obviously Coach Van Horn is in position to nationally recruit with his success
You have to recruit a balanced team. We have not been balanced in years. Right now we don’t have a true back up point guard or center. For how many years have we been without a 4 that could score?
Without Daniel we don’t have much length. When he leaves are we depending on Chaney to be the center?
Lastly we have to quit trying to make 2 guards into point guards. Sills and Embry will never be points.
PJ…I’m not sure you got my point. I’m responding to people that have said we’re somehow disadvantaged recruiting to UofA in Fayetteville as if it’s “nowhere”.
The events that took place and derailed this last class happened late in the summer. Seth’s involvement with Perry and his connection with Adidas to get the kid to flip to Miss St as Adidas school.
Players transferring because of the Me syndrome. (Hall and Babb). There are others that transferred. You try to fill a spot when you loose a commitment in the summer and see what happens!
The disadvantage has nothing to do with location. It’s all about money!
Target players that will stay and compete.
Tennessee has a roster filled with 3 stars and no star players that have been stayed in the system and they took their lumps and looses the first year on campus. Look at them now.