Imgur Album -
http://imgur.com/a/7X5uI
UNI Team Profile -
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=11985
Recruiting started normally, world rolled and I got to work. Normally, my routine consists of scouting a large area with FSS and then digging into recruits by position and then by distance and finally, sorted by preference until I have a list of targets for 50% of my scholarships, 4 guys I’d be willing to take ‘cheap’ per scholarship I decide I need to fill and a handful of guys I want to watch how things go with them, usually these tend to be late signees, but not always (you’ll see this play out in the future). Typically, this takes me around 40 minutes to accomplish.
So I am scouting guys by position, where I really don’t pay attention to state much since I know they were in my FSS’d states. But I keep seeming to feel like I’ve seen MN, IA, NE, IL show up quite frequently. So once I am at this point I start going state by state, starting with Iowa and rotating outwards. This was the point I noticed how rich the area was and I made a comment to a friend, wow I have a legit shot at landing one of these 5 stars, there are just so many around.
So after I have built my initial list (which is usually about 20-30 blue highs). I go to lower priority based on preferences, which is when I started to
realize that nearly every one of these 5* I had Good or better rating at. So I basically get nowhere at that point so I moved on to my final piece, where I inventory scholarships available by conference, school, prestige, etc. This would be when I realized that, while Illinois and Iowa had a lot of openings, they were recently vacated and have simmy coaches currently. I recognized Michigan and Michigan State both had a large number of openings. This lead me to scout PA/NY/MI in more detail to determine what the odds were that they would travel to Iowa, or further yet Nebraska (Hint: they should have). At this point I had numerous recruits tagged as likely MSU/UM targets on my board to watch to make sure they went for who I expected them too.
After finishing the rest of my analysis I had concluded that Iowa State, Saint Louis and Kansas were my likely battles. But I really felt there were enough good recruits that with playing it wrong you’d end up with a decent class. A class like Iowa States is what I really expected to see happen. Get myself one 5 star, find a cheaper 3-4 star and just push hard for the one guy I wanted.
I started off having Shelton listed as my 1a target. I just have a feeling with him being ineligible and slightly slower that he was likely to be over looked early and if I could get on him early (I believe I dumped max AP cycle 1 & 2) I figured I could sit on him and just protect him. He’d be my 5 star! He’s ineligible too, so I can offer Start plus 20 and if he does become eligible… He’d start anyway so no big deal.
I also pinpointed Hendrickson has my “cheap” target, surprisingly he was the one that was all key to this as I really needed a bridge guard between this year and next.
After that I had Thomas listed as my 1b target.
I had a very large list of recruits because, I didn’t know what was going to happen…
So Sheldon goes exactly to plan, locked up after cycle 2. Hendrickson, from MN, is me and Cincy early. But really, why would you want to play at Cincy over UNI? Exactly…
So I end up putting more money into him then I want to over cycles 2 or 3, and knock Cincy to Low, they never move.
Thomas may have been 1b, but I didn’t go after him early, I threw some AP around on the higher guys, Edwin Hall, but after cycle 1 Denver had shown up around the area, apparently I’d missed someone in my analysis. So I had to go back to the drawing board and while I had started battling for a guy with Denver, I noticed that both he and Iowa State were fighting for similar guys. Great, my thought was token effort and leave… he’ll prioritize fighting Iowa State seeing no resistance.
So I get up on Thomas, he’s late though but nobody is really pressuring me. I believe Oklahoma and Saint Louis were both on him for a quick minute. At this point I start recruiting both a HIlle and Holle (Denver Signee I believe), Saint Louis is high, maybe very high on Hille, but with a quick cycle of 60 AP and a ‘ship, I’ve flipped Hille, I throw on some extra visits to be safe, never hear from Saint Louis again (big mistake should have pushed back). Denver and I are on Holle, so I offer start plus 25. I have a VERY strong feeling Denver will push back the next cycle and crush me and I'll have limited exposure. They do. At this point I've watched enough of recruiting to know that Iowa State and Denver aren't of concern to me. Frenso keeps popping up, but I'm confused why they think they can poke through on anyone. I'm still worried about Kansas and possibly Texas, Texas was well involved with other guys however though, but did have me with the conference strength. I also hadn't seen Wisconsin, but figured that they would likely not try to fight me with a higher prestige.
So then, I have two Kansas guys on my board, one a solid PG that I wanted cheap but saw quick was going to be an expensive 2* (I believe Arkansas got his services) and Bearden, the #4 recruit. And I’d been kicking around in my head for a solid 48 hours, do I try this. Because I knew if I wanted to do this, I needed to move prior to signings, but that could leave me vulnerable to anyone paying attention to recruiting.
So after a few drinks one night I say **** it. I drop max AP overnight, wake up the next morning and drop everything, 20 hv, start, minutes. Figure, he’s not coming. Fresno is Very High when I move, but this pushes them to Low or Very Low, can’t remember. The next cycle I am watching, Fresno is High now, but not Very High, I’m worried, Bearden wants to go Far from home and strong conference, both things I lose to Fresno…
So I am waking up checking every cycle… Thinking I just need people to sign. I’m thinking If Cincy is watching, this is a great time to strike on Hendrickson, I’d have a tough choice to make. I believe it’s the second signing cycle I wake up to see that Shelton and Hendrickson have signed… I’m so thrilled that Hendrickson is going to be a Panther!
Later that day Hille signs.
I have Thomas and Bearden both left as Lates. I adjust AP.
And Wait.
We get pummeled by ‘Cuse.
Fresno’s prestige is bumped up.
We’re done.
But hey, I am thinking two 5 stars is great, even when they both go to JuCo you can say it can be done.
(But really at this point, I was just expecting to see Kansas come in and steal everything left on the board).
So Thomas signs first chance in Period 2. Cool. #3.
Then Bearden signs, still curious why Fresno couldn’t get back to Very High, assume lack of resources based on the number of recruits I saw him poking around at in the Midwest. He saw the riches but his plan wasn’t refined enough based on what I saw.
So we’ve got Bearden, 4
th 5* to a top 5 class.
Then Sheldon passes his SAT (plausible deniability) and I’m left having promised 4 starts and 20 minutes to 4 big men.
Oh dear lord don’t Derrick Rose your SAT too Hille…
Thankfully he doesn’t and does show up to campus.
Really there were a ton of failures across the board for this to even be possible though. Yes, I likely spend more time than anyone analyzing and understanding what moves others will make while I make mine, but this could have been a much worse class in a second.
I was very well protected, I made sure I had enough in reserves to max out either Shelton or Thomas before I dumped on Bearden. At that point I was down to 1 guy to max. But that’s the thing, by pressuring anyone of my guys it makes my others more appealing which means I am going to get into more fights, which means more coin flips.
Saint Louis even slightly pushing back on Hille means I have to make a decision. That decision I never had to make. I likely make the decision to crush SLU into oblivion, but it means I never go after Bearden then too. But maybe I look at Hille and think, I can stay competitive and go for Bearden, maybe I end up with neither because I spread myself too thin.
Maybe Cincy sees me in two battles now instead of none, if they even have done that much research, and really if you don’t know what’s going on around you in D1, that’s probably why you’re not successful, but also I am a ways from Cincy and so was this recruit. I could understand the decision if Cincy didn’t want to scout all of Iowa and west to look through my recruiting and see how strong I am. But what if he does see that and pushes back on Hendrickson, now maybe I’m looking at Shelton and Thomas and that’s it.
Still would have been a decent class, actually probably still fairly remarkable at UNI, but not game changing. Not a class that I basically am stuck here until they leave (wait after next year? EE, crap…). We had the conference freshmen of the year. A 4 star center from Oregon, Wisconsin who averaged 11.7 ppg and 6.4 rpg. Sorry kid, not a 1 and done? **** you’re on the pine… we’ll nickname you Poythress and you can call me Coach Cal
??.
Anyway, learn what you can from my mind dump of a recruiting period. I don’t expect I’ll ever enjoy one quite like this again.