of course you didn't want 11! thats not the point. you ended getting up in a lot of battles in your local area - its not about how much talent there is - but how much talent there is that you can get. in lower divisions, scouting around with a big class, you can pick up some quality players almost for nothing - in your case, for 110 dollars, because starts came cheap. if you say there weren't decent guys left late in recruiting, i think you must have had too small an area, or else mistake decent guys for crap, or something, because it doesn't really add up. plenty of good players start in the d2 pool, you don't just have to look up, either. in one way or another (most likely, more than one way), you had too small a pool - either because you eliminated quality guys, or because you looked to hard to d1, or didn't scout enough, or didn't look from beginning to end. its probably most of those things (that would be typical for a new d2 coach who strikes out) but its got to be at least 1-2 of those things, to not have enough players available cheaply, who were at least acceptable to sign as a 5th man. to put it in perspective, long time coaches here could do nothing until the cycle after signings, scout some states, only recruit for 2-3 cycles, and still bring in enough talent to make a decent tournament run (when they grow up). the guys are out there, even in that very restrained viewing window. don't take that as a knock on you... no new coach should be able to walk in and do that! but its well proven the guys are out there, most people just have too narrow a view, and need to widen their scope.
4/29/2014 12:59 AM (edited)