Long Beach State Athletics!: Re: Player Turnover

if CDM is an excellent recruiter, i.e. an A Recruiter,

then he is a D coach

if you recruit players you can't coach or can be hit an miss in coaching up, then that's poor recruiting or poor self awareness. recruiting shouldn't be an 'experiment' every year

we won this last year, finally, because yeah, we got 3 special players the last 2 years combined with Cobb & Slater that stuck around and were mature (to begin with) in part actually because Covid helped in that regard.

if CDM is NOW, versus the last 8 or so years, an excelletn recruiter, then we'll see based on who comes in this year and next

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"excellent" recruiter?? seriously?

I don't care what happened 10+ years ago. If we're celebrating the past then we'd see a crap ton more Army CFB games because they were great in the 1940's... sooo..

If we're focusing on recruiting the past 5 years.. then you're looking at teams like Duke, Villanova, Texas/Texas Tech, USC (ikr), UCAL, etc. Those teams understand "how" to play the portal and to recruit and play the new game. These teams... get "A's". Yes I know the have more resources, BUT it's a fact.

CDM? This past season I'd give him a solid B grade. The past 4? A C at best.

IF Im running the ship... i'd become a portal maniac. Decades ago, it was called being a JUCO feeder program and New Mexico St didn't do too bad with that philosophy. The HC's job is to win.. period. At a school Duke they can talk about building "men of character", and all that jazz, but at The Beach these kids just want to win and win now.

We shall see what happens with CDM next season.. and the season after that, and so on because he's never leaving...

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In my view, Monson has been an excellent recruiter. But, he has struggled to hold onto talent. He has often had culture issues in the program. So often, Monson brings good guys in and struggles to keep them happy here.

Of course the Fab 4, followed by Ennis and Caffey were fantastic. He made a huge error bringing in too many talented guys with issues and me first attitudes (guys like Tyler Lamb and Travis Hammonds). I thought the class of Bibbins, Jack Williams, Deonte North and Temi was really good recruiting. But, you have to keep them happy.

I thought Blackwell was another excellent recruit the next year. Gabe Levin was outstanding too. But, then Monson recruited Loren Jackson, another talented PG the next year. Then lost Bibbins, Blackwell and Jackson all at once.

Personally, I think Monson has generally been able to recruit top of the BW talent. I think he has often been too willing to ignore attitude issues and has therefore struggled to get guys to buy in. Talented guys who are playing for themselves create dysfunctional culture. This often has led to teams quitting on Monson.

I am hopeful Monson will find guys that fit, have talent are are high character. Jones, Slater, Murray, Traore seem to be this type of player. We need a few more and can hope to repeat.

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I would not consider us 'cleaned out of bigs" by any stretch of the imagination

Hampton: was going t graduate
Irish: frankly, was always a project, even if healthy would have never been more than a 10 min a game plug in if we were to amount to anything
Mansel: a loss, was finally progressing, even then had not exhibited good hands

bottom line, if our incoming recruits each year are the likes of Jones/Murray/Traore then woo-hoo

I have no idea if this recruiting 'Nuggets" this last year is a combo of Carey/Caveness coming of age, we'll see if we can finally get a back-to-back high level recruiting years which has been maybe the #1 thing keeping the program from building into a prerenial contendor

the Murray-Traore-Rotegard class from last year has a chance to be a top 3 class in the CDM era, with still potential 1st teamers, POY, DPOY candidates for the next year and beyond (they already had 2 awards)

#1: Fab Four - 2 championships
#2: Ennis-Caffey-Papageorge-Jennings - 2 championships

#3:
other: Bibbs-Temi (fizzled)

but I wouldn't consider Monson to have been a solid recruiter, he's nabbed some really good talent, especially point guards, but he's had so many duds, so little continuity in building one good class on top of another. he really didn't build well on teh fab four, it took 3 years to supplement those guys with the Ennis class, that was a 2 year gap

now, getting Jones (impact guy), then getting the aforementioned 3 this last year, now can he 'score' 3 years in a row? that's something he's not been good with - and if he can get an impact xfer each year now with the new MO of college basketball, we'll see

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The transfer portal and the rule changes have made player turnover accelerate. Last year, we thought we had some pretty good guards coming back. Chance Hunter then decided to transfer and Jelly Roll Washington decided to go pro. Carter was of course shown the door at the end of the season and our guard corp that had been among the best in the league, was all of the sudden gone. But, all was not lost, Jones looked very promising and in July we announced Murray signing, and in September we had late adds Rotegaard and Traore. At least one of those rides was avaialable because Ramon Watkins did not qualify. Not to mention, Slater went from a role player to BW POY. This year, the losses to transfers are not as dramatic, but, we do look cleaned out of bigs aside from Traore, and lord know we will miss Slater.

It will be interesting to see who Monson finds. He has been a solid recruiter in his time here. We have a real nice corp to build around, especially Jones, Murray and Traore.