ADVERTISEMENT

What Percentage is Recruiting ?

W

walstib816

Jan 31, 2014
72
25
18
I have this argument with my other Purdue friends and would be interested in your opinions. To be clear I fell off the Matt bandwagon with the recruiting of Gary Harris so I must be a nonredeemable deplorable by now. But I watch every football and basketball game and have since the early '80s so I have a bit of Purdue perspective. Also I attend a few of each every year.

Here is my contention; all the pro Matt folks claim he is strong with the x's and o's and let's assume that is the case for now; how many high school basketball coaches in Indiana are also really strong with x's and o's ? My guess would be well over 50.

So here is the real question: What percentage of a coaches job is/should be recruiting?
My take is at least 80% and maybe higher.

Other then Guy Lewis (if you are old enough to remember) with Houston in the finals, it seems most if not all coaches are good at their system, what ever their system may be.

If you took someone with no paid coaching experience (like me or 99% of you all) and gave them 15 of the top 50 college players how well would they do? I think really well. Conversely it is very difficult to teach people to be quick or have great timing or shooting touch. Yes all aspects of basketball can be coached up a bit but raw talent and desire to improve seems to be the keys.

Also the ability to identify talent does not seem to be a rare quality, I liken it to telling if a women is really good looking with a nice body, a lot of us can tell if that is the case but not all of us can get said women to have a strong desire to be with us.

So anyway what percentage of Matt's job is recruiting I would be interested in your takes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nagemj02
Good discussion.

First of all, I wouldn't say that he is the best x's and o's guy out there but I think he does pretty well. There are a couple of areas where we have struggled (I'm thinking inbounding the ball halfcourt and breaking a full court press) where I feel like there are coaches out there I've seen that can scheme solutions where we have not. I remember way back when Larry Brown was coaching the Pacers and I still had some interest in NBA basketball. It was uncanny how often the Pacers scored on an inbounds play. Some coaches just seem to coach that better than others and I think that's certainly an area Coach Painter could improve. With the full court press, having great guards and wings go a long way but I think there are some schematic things that some coaches do that can help when you're struggling against a press and we've been a little slow to move to those things the past couple of years. Again, another x's and o's thing I feel he could improve on. All that said, I do think he's a solid x's and o's guy. Not great but pretty good. Certainly not bad.

Regarding recruiting, I think it is a large part of any coach's job (I would probably say 60%) but I rate it differently based more on what the coach gets out of the players than going strictly based on recruiting rankings which are subjective and full of inaccuracies. I like to line up each recruiting class and give it an A-F type letter grade and then average out the classes over a certain period. I did 2012-2016 in another thread and my GPA for those classes came out to a 3.0. Not great but not bad either. I also think you have to take the job into consideration when judging recruiting. Recruiting to Purdue is not the same as recruiting to a program that has a large national following like Kentucky or Kansas and it's not the same as a program that owns the vast majority of the fans in a state like Indiana or Ohio State. I know alot of the bashers want to deny that reality and label it an "excuse" but it doesn't make it any less relevant. I'm not saying there's nobody anywhere that could legally deliver a top 10 class to Purdue every other year but I think it's much harder than the critics think it is and the likelihood of us finding and landing such a person is practically negligible.
 
Boiler Wolf said:
Can any coach "legally" deliver a top ten recruiting class. I have my doubts.
Click to expand...

That's a good question as well. I don't know that all of them are cheating but you'd be naive to think none of them are given what we've seen come out in the past few years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cjf04
Painter is an above average (B+/A-) X's and O's coach. And an average recruiter (C/C+) this has produced a B level legacy during his tenure at Purdue. Thus, I think it is a 50% 50% ratio.

I look at Thad Matta as the anti-Painter. When these coaches really have an A+ year in their areas of strength. (Matta with Oden, Conley, Cook) (Painter 09/10 coached those teams well with B+ to A- recruits) those are the years they do something special.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Inspector100
walstib816 said:
I have this argument with my other Purdue friends and would be interested in your opinions. To be clear I fell off the Matt bandwagon with the recruiting of Gary Harris so I must be a nonredeemable deplorable by now. But I watch every football and basketball game and have since the early '80s so I have a bit of Purdue perspective. Also I attend a few of each every year.

Here is my contention; all the pro Matt folks claim he is strong with the x's and o's and let's assume that is the case for now; how many high school basketball coaches in Indiana are also really strong with x's and o's ? My guess would be well over 50.

So here is the real question: What percentage of a coaches job is/should be recruiting?
My take is at least 80% and maybe higher.

Other then Guy Lewis (if you are old enough to remember) with Houston in the finals, it seems most if not all coaches are good at their system, what ever their system may be.

If you took someone with no paid coaching experience (like me or 99% of you all) and gave them 15 of the top 50 college players how well would they do? I think really well. Conversely it is very difficult to teach people to be quick or have great timing or shooting touch. Yes all aspects of basketball can be coached up a bit but raw talent and desire to improve seems to be the keys.

Also the ability to identify talent does not seem to be a rare quality, I liken it to telling if a women is really good looking with a nice body, a lot of us can tell if that is the case but not all of us can get said women to have a strong desire to be with us.

So anyway what percentage of Matt's job is recruiting I would be interested in your takes.
Click to expand...
relative to high school coaches...there are some very good ones and some that just filled a spot due to budgeting and such in a school as a result of positions. I think today there is MUCH more information available to help young coaches pick up things where before it was coaching clinics. Bottom line, there really isn't a lot new under the sun as far as X and O's. With the emphasis on freedom on the perimeter we are seeing more ball screens as opposed to off ball screens by more teams. I do not think high school kids have near the fundamentals overall than 30 years ago, nor the discipline.

The weaknesses of a zone remain the same as the do the strengths. The weaknesses of a man remain the same as do the strengths and all that can be extended into traps and presses as generic approaches.

A coach can gain some ground on a more talented team by enough video or times played against, but in the tourney when everybody is going all out and the players don't know the other player and the coaches are guessing as well...recruiting is crucial. Where I differ from some in this forum is determining an appropriate weighting of recruiting due to the coach. A coach is very important, but how much difference is there in the coaches and is that the real reason why some schools recruit well and others not so much? I'm lost for a weighting and others seem to think it is heavily tilted to only the coach or assistants.
 
TC4THREE said:
Good discussion.

First of all, I wouldn't say that he is the best x's and o's guy out there but I think he does pretty well. There are a couple of areas where we have struggled (I'm thinking inbounding the ball halfcourt and breaking a full court press) where I feel like there are coaches out there I've seen that can scheme solutions where we have not. I remember way back when Larry Brown was coaching the Pacers and I still had some interest in NBA basketball. It was uncanny how often the Pacers scored on an inbounds play. Some coaches just seem to coach that better than others and I think that's certainly an area Coach Painter could improve. With the full court press, having great guards and wings go a long way but I think there are some schematic things that some coaches do that can help when you're struggling against a press and we've been a little slow to move to those things the past couple of years. Again, another x's and o's thing I feel he could improve on. All that said, I do think he's a solid x's and o's guy. Not great but pretty good. Certainly not bad.

Regarding recruiting, I think it is a large part of any coach's job (I would probably say 60%) but I rate it differently based more on what the coach gets out of the players than going strictly based on recruiting rankings which are subjective and full of inaccuracies. I like to line up each recruiting class and give it an A-F type letter grade and then average out the classes over a certain period. I did 2012-2016 in another thread and my GPA for those classes came out to a 3.0. Not great but not bad either. I also think you have to take the job into consideration when judging recruiting. Recruiting to Purdue is not the same as recruiting to a program that has a large national following like Kentucky or Kansas and it's not the same as a program that owns the vast majority of the fans in a state like Indiana or Ohio State. I know alot of the bashers want to deny that reality and label it an "excuse" but it doesn't make it any less relevant. I'm not saying there's nobody anywhere that could legally deliver a top 10 class to Purdue every other year but I think it's much harder than the critics think it is and the likelihood of us finding and landing such a person is practically negligible.
Click to expand...
I actually don't have a problem at all with CMP's recruiting. After the Baby Boilers, I think he was pretty bad for a few years & it cost us dearly. I'll give him a pass on that because he was still learning IMO. Since, I think recruiting has been better than ever at Purdue... look at the talent we have. I was one that was actually happy he banked last years scholly's for this year's recruits. I think if you want to improve a program, you have to "not settle" & go for the 4 & 5 * recruits. Did he miss this year.... yes, but I'm happy that at least he took a chance. My main problem with CMP is that I think he's a below average X's & O's coach, which is why we haven't advanced in the tourney. Wit the talent we've had, we should have much more than a few S16's to show.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nagemj02
*4purdue* said:
I actually don't have a problem at all with CMP's recruiting. After the Baby Boilers, I think he was pretty bad for a few years & it cost us dearly. I'll give him a pass on that because he was still learning IMO. Since, I think recruiting has been better than ever at Purdue... look at the talent we have. I was one that was actually happy he banked last years scholly's for this year's recruits. I think if you want to improve a program, you have to "not settle" & go for the 4 & 5 * recruits. Did he miss this year.... yes, but I'm happy that at least he took a chance. My main problem with CMP is that I think he's a below average X's & O's coach, which is why we haven't advanced in the tourney. Wit the talent we've had, we should have much more than a few S16's to show.
Click to expand...

But, by whiffing this year, you go from a potential Top 10 class (had he landed some of the top instate guys) to a Top 50 (kind of a 'so what') class. That might translate into 20+ wins and a tourney appearance over the next 2-3 years but without that top end talent a FF or NC is unlikely.
So, do you give Painter another chance in 2 years to land a Top 10 class or do you make a change after 15 years?
 
  • Like
Reactions: nagemj02
On recruiting, I think Painter & Purdue appeal to a certain kind of player - old school, at least a touch conservative, a believer in hard work "earn it" mentality, and specifically NOT someone who will fall for a superficial pitch like I suspect recruits hear in Bloomington. Sometimes there is a great player like Biggie or Isaac or Carsen who happen to also be the type of player drawn to Purdue, and then we have a chance to get them. BUT there are other schools that convey similar values that have some advantages over Painter & Purdue - HOF coach, banners, FFs, whatever. Obviously, recruiting is very important - you need high caliber athletes to beat other teams with high caliber athletes.

On X's and O's, I think Painter's pretty good most games. In conference especially, he will come up with game plans that help our team beat arguably better teams sometimes. BUT I do think we have seen him get flustered when an opposing team gets our team off balance & then consequently get outcoached & lose. The players are responsible as well, but the buck stops with the coach. VCU, UAB, Cincinnati... I'll leave Kansas off the list, because that was a case of an athletic surge shutting our players down IMO. I have to believe Painter is working on how to avoid this kind of phenomenon. Maybe he's taken up meditation or something. BTW, I do support coach Painter - I think it would be very difficult to get a better overall coach to come to Purdue.

What's more important? I don't know. I think they're both important in an interrelated way, and it's tough to say 70-30 or 50-50... It's a complex system that can't be quantified like that IMO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GoldandBlackintheSaddleAgain and nagemj02
CRBoiler said:
VCU, UAB, Cincinnati... I'll leave Kansas off the list, because that was a case of an athletic surge shutting our players down IMO.
Click to expand...

Off those four losses, VCU is the one I lay at the feet of the coaches and not necessarily that we lost because VCU beat alot of good teams on their way to the Final Four that year but it was the way we were consistently dominated by dribble penetration and dish at the rim. Literally it felt like that was all VCU did the whole game and we never adjusted to counter it. From that aspect, I was disappointed in the coaching in that loss.

In the others, I put it on the players. IIRC correctly, we just shot horrendously from 3 the whole game vs UC and STILL should have won it if not for some missed free throws at the end of regulation. So while you can blame the coaches for not having players that knocked down the shots, be them 3's or free throws, ultimately when you're getting those shots and missing them I don't really blame the coaching.

ALR was mostly a recurrence of our press issues which I can see arguments on whether that is an x's or o's issue or a player issue and I tend to believe it is more heavily a player issue. In an end-of-game situation it's hard to scheme for a press because the opposition is mostly just trapping desperately without a set plan so you don't know where that extra defender is coming from or going to. At some point, you just need to have a player with the skills to get the ball up the court through traffic and create a numbers situation for you. We just haven't had that lately. You can pin that on the coaches for not having that player (and I am on record that our NCAA tournament exits the past two years have been guard issues) but I tend to think at that point in a game it's difficult for a coach to scheme against a desperation press against an athletic team. You just have to have the players with the skill to handle it. We didn't, they got hot, end of story.

All I remember about the end of the Kansas game was the LewJack turnover which I don't pin on Painter. He's your senior point guard with boat loads of experience who made a turnover at an inopportune time that prevented us from a big tourney upset. As a coach, what else are you going to do there? Who else do you have in?

So to summarize:

VCU - coaching
UC/ALR - not having the necessary skilled players
Kansas - players were good enough and played well enough except for one mistake.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GoldandBlackintheSaddleAgain, BoilerBulldog and tjreese
To me it's 75% recruiting, 25% traditional coaching. I would painter a solid C in recruiting and a B+ in coaching. In recruiting, the bigger issue is his consistency and current trend. He has had some excellent classes (2007, 2014) some very good classes (2012, 2013, 2015) and some very poor classes (2008,2009, 2011) We saw the effect of stacking bad classes a few years back and, unless he pulls a rabbit out of his hat for 2017, we could be looking at another slide. Purdue is a great example of direct cause/effect of good or bad recruiting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nagemj02
Tom Izzo.... delivers a ton of top 10 classes and does it clean, no matter what you butt hurt purdue fans think.
 
Meso93 said:
Tom Izzo.... delivers a ton of top 10 classes and does it clean, no matter what you butt hurt purdue fans think.
Click to expand...
This is actually an interesting discussion. Imagine for a second Izzo - and his results - were at Purdue. Would we have fans on this board complaining about Izzo? I'm not talking about the raping/shooting/beating girls up stuff. Let's assume his players conducted themselves like Purdue men. Specifically, would this board be OK with his Final Four performance? He craps the bed 90% of the time they get there. Would we be OK with just getting there? I would say this board would be on board for the first one or two times. But inevitably we would get posts after the 5th or 6th time we crap out that people would start threads saying "We won't consistently win the NC until we find a new coach." This isn't even a slam on Izzo as much as it is a philosophical question. I don't ever go to "Sparty Town" or whatever their board is but maybe they already get those posts (I bet they did last March).
 
BoilerBulldog said:
This is actually an interesting discussion. Imagine for a second Izzo - and his results - were at Purdue. Would we have fans on this board complaining about Izzo? I'm not talking about the raping/shooting/beating girls up stuff. Let's assume his players conducted themselves like Purdue men. Specifically, would this board be OK with his Final Four performance? He craps the bed 90% of the time they get there. Would we be OK with just getting there? I would say this board would be on board for the first one or two times. But inevitably we would get posts after the 5th or 6th time we crap out that people would start threads saying "We won't consistently win the NC until we find a new coach." This isn't even a slam on Izzo as much as it is a philosophical question. I don't ever go to "Sparty Town" or whatever their board is but maybe they already get those posts (I bet they did last March).
Click to expand...
I think crapping out in the 1st round was a real shot in the ass for them, but I doubt they get too upset losing in the final 4.
 
Dryfly88 said:
I think crapping out in the 1st round was a real shot in the ass for them, but I doubt they get too upset losing in the final 4.
Click to expand...
Except they've done it every time except once? I'm too lazy to look it up, but isn't he like 1 for 9? I agree we wish we could be that "bad". But listening to folks on this board, particularly with those dusty banners down south, I'm sure a few people here would be convinced we could do better.
 
After exhaustive research I determined recruiting is 16.2% of CBB success. Or was it 62.2%? Either way it is part of the equation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mathboy
walstib816 said:
I have this argument with my other Purdue friends and would be interested in your opinions. To be clear I fell off the Matt bandwagon with the recruiting of Gary Harris so I must be a nonredeemable deplorable by now. But I watch every football and basketball game and have since the early '80s so I have a bit of Purdue perspective. Also I attend a few of each every year.

Here is my contention; all the pro Matt folks claim he is strong with the x's and o's and let's assume that is the case for now; how many high school basketball coaches in Indiana are also really strong with x's and o's ? My guess would be well over 50.

So here is the real question: What percentage of a coaches job is/should be recruiting?
My take is at least 80% and maybe higher.

Other then Guy Lewis (if you are old enough to remember) with Houston in the finals, it seems most if not all coaches are good at their system, what ever their system may be.

If you took someone with no paid coaching experience (like me or 99% of you all) and gave them 15 of the top 50 college players how well would they do? I think really well. Conversely it is very difficult to teach people to be quick or have great timing or shooting touch. Yes all aspects of basketball can be coached up a bit but raw talent and desire to improve seems to be the keys.

Also the ability to identify talent does not seem to be a rare quality, I liken it to telling if a women is really good looking with a nice body, a lot of us can tell if that is the case but not all of us can get said women to have a strong desire to be with us.

So anyway what percentage of Matt's job is recruiting I would be interested in your takes.
Click to expand...

85% recruiting
 
Who was it that said something about " it's not about the X's and the O's, it's about the Jimmy's and the Joes"
 
bonefish1 said:
Who was it that said something about " it's not about the X's and the O's, it's about the Jimmy's and the Joes"
Click to expand...

Ironically, that is most attributed to football.....not enough James or Josephs in Ross-Ade recently.

2/3 recruiting, 1/3 everything else
 
In football mediocre recruiting can be greatly improved by physical development, strength training <cough> PEDs <cough>, depth that allows 2 and 3 star players to enter the mix as upperclassmen.
Basketball talent is more about pure skill. With all the hoops kids play nowdays by the time you're 18 either you have it or you don't. That's why so many freshman and sophomores are able to hang with seniors. The main exception is traditional big post players, which many programs have gone away from altogether.

Basketball: 70% recruiting, 20% coaching, 10% development
Football: 40% recruiting, 40% development, 20% coaching
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: punaj and BoilerBiker
BoilerBulldog said:
Except they've done it every time except once? I'm too lazy to look it up, but isn't he like 1 for 9? I agree we wish we could be that "bad". But listening to folks on this board, particularly with those dusty banners down south, I'm sure a few people here would be convinced we could do better.
Click to expand...
You may be right. It's hard for me to imagine, but I suppose some fans would be unhappy without a championship every year.
 
FirstDownB said:
In football mediocre recruiting can be greatly improved by physical development, strength training <cough> PEDs <cough>, depth that allows 2 and 3 star players to enter the mix as upperclassmen.
Basketball talent is more about pure skill. With all the hoops kids play nowdays by the time you're 18 either you have it or you don't. That's why so many freshman and sophomores are able to hang with seniors. The main exception is traditional big post players, which many programs have gone away from altogether.

Basketball: 70% recruiting, 20% coaching, 10% development
Football: 40% recruiting, 40% development, 20% coaching
Click to expand...

I agree. In additional you can develop schemes in football to level the playing field against a more talented team and a couple plays can decide the outcome of the game. In basketball, the talent usually wins out in the end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

boilerzz

Purdue 7th in CBS Sports ranking of 101 teams

Replies
7
Views
2K
Boilermaker Men's Basketball
POTFHBTFU
P
P

Women's BB Recruiting?

Replies
3
Views
1K
Purdue Women's Sports
MichaelRR
M
proudopete

Gicarri Harris

Replies
154
Views
13K
Boilermaker Men's Basketball
Chi-Boiler
Chi-Boiler
B

Purdue Out On Haralson, Mullins & Sisley...

Replies
31
Views
4K
Boilermaker Men's Basketball
POTFHBTFU
P
S

Mason's legacy

Replies
30
Views
2K
Boilermaker Men's Basketball
boilernuke
B
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back