I would disagree with this.OaktownBear said:SFCityBear said:With all due respect, Braun's 2008 team had some good talent but it was a badly flawed team. It was very strong up front with Hardin, Anderson, Boykin, Kamp, and Jordan Wilkes. But the team had only two fairly good guards in Christopher and Randle, and Randle was very mistake-prone during his first two seasons. He did not come into his own until Montgomery arrived and gave him ways to play that enabled him to become a great player for Cal. The 2008 team had no small forward, because the player who would have started at small forward, Theo Robertson, was hurt and missed the entire 2008 season. So Braun had only one option, to play Patrick Christopher at the small forward, and that forced Braun to have to start a lesser player at Christopher's guard spot. The team played 33 games, and Verneisel started 19 games, and Knesevic started 16 games. The team was thin at small forward, with only Theo, and thin at guard with only Randle and Christopher as players good enough to start. This team would have been much better if Theo had not gotten hurt, but it was not Braun's best team ever assembled, due to he had not been able to land better players to back up the small forward and both guard positions. It was a combination of Theo's injury and the lopsided recruiting leaning toward bigs and likely missing on guards and small forwards that sunk the 2008 team.calumnus said:Yogi Bear said:SFCityBear said:I meant to ask YogiBear why he felt Ben Braun was a B- recruiter, not B+SFCityBear said:Just curious: Why do you say B+ recruiter? How would you rate Cuonzo Martin's recruiting?Yogi Bear said:
BB- everything. Recruiting vastly overrated.
Not bad on TV though.
Circus King
Donte Smith (Section 7 BELIEVES in you)
Nick Vanderlaan
Gabe Hughes
Salius Kuzminskas
Erik Bond
David Paris
Jordi Geli (worst on this list - a Wyking level recruit)
Eric Vierneisel
Kevin Langford
Nikola Knezevic
Jordan Wilkes
Taylor Harrison
He had a lot of recruiting wiffs. He seemed like a good recruiter because he ALMOST landed Dirk Nowitski and LeBron James. End of the day, it is the guys you get. The guys you listed would not be so bad as bench players, but starting Vierneisal and Knezevich on a team that has Ryan Anderson, Devon Hardin, Jamal Boykin, Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle did not make sense. He was a worse coach than a recruiter, whatever grade you give him.
If you didn't like starting Verneisel or Knesevic, who would you have started at guard, Nican Robinson? David Liss? Eddie Miller? Patrick Armstrong? Those were Braun's choices when Theo got hurt. Braun's mistake was in not planning for injury to his guards and small forwards, or failing to recruit good backups at those positions.
1. Randle's issues could have been (and were the next season) fixed by a little bit of the right coaching.
2. Agree that they would have been much better with Theo, but you have to put your best 5 on the floor. Seriously, Vierniesel and Knezevic should never have taken 1 minute away from Hardin, Kamp, Boykin, Anderson. Along with Randle and Christopher, those are 6 guys that are PAC-10 quality STARTERS. Wilkes gives you a PAC-10 quality sub. Those are your 7. Knezevic plays 5 minutes to give Randle a rest. Vierniesel plays 5 minutes to give PC a rest. Anderson plays the 3 on offense. Maybe Boykin plays it on defense, but I'd keep Anderson there. You rebound like hell. You have 3 good outside shooters. You have a problem with defending quick guys at the 3, so you scheme around it as much as you can. Cuz guess what? With PC at the 3, you have a problem guarding size, and vierniesel is probably less agile than Anderson anyway. A lineup of Randle, PC, Anderson, Boykin, Hardin will beat Randle, Vierniesel, PC, Anderson, Hardin every time.
No way a team with those 6 guys should only win 6 conference games.
1. Randle's problems were not all easily fixed by Montgomery in 2009. He still made mistakes, like that play where he would try and split a double-team by tossing the ball ahead of himself, between the two defenders, and then try and use his quickness to catch up to the ball before the defenders could steal it. Did it way too many times, and lost the ball every time he tried it, and he never stopped trying it for 3 years. Drove me nuts. I've never seen another player try that, and I hope I never will. Finally, in 2010, he stopped doing it, and Cal won the conference title.
2. I think you and calumnus are remembering how good or healthy the players were at in their best years, not necessarily how they were in 2008. Mixing the years. You may be thinking of Devon Hardin as still being at his best in 2008, and he wasn't the same after his injury the season before. He could play only 24 minutes in 2008, so he and Boykin basically split the center position minutes, with Boykin getting 19 minutes. You may be thinking of Boykin the senior as well. He was not as good as that in 2008 as a sophomore playing only 19 minutes. Boykin also missed 8 games that season. If he was playing injured some of the time, that might have affected Braun's thinking about who could play as well. I also think you are mixing years thinking of Harper Kamp the junior or senior. In 2008, Harper was a freshman and not very good yet, barely PAC10 level, if that. He made mistakes, lost balls and just did not look good. I don't remember when he got injured, or whether he was already playing a little injured in 2008. And I never thought Jordan Wilkes was a PAC10 level player. He was basically 2 points, a rebound, and out of the game. When Montgomery arrived, he gave him more minutes, but Jordan's production was about the same on a per-minute basis.
I understand your argument, and it would be a good one if for example all of those bigs were at their best health and most experienced level in 2008, but they clearly were not. I think it is not a realistic theory, IMO
