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Why can't we ever get the big recruits

Apparently, we are drifting from the OP's question....that often happens when people do not want to honestly evaluate the truth.

Yes, MP is a good coach. Yes, I am glad we have him. Yes, his recruiting has improved some. But it is not nitpicking or pointing out an irrelevant imperfection.......it is just a stark look at the hard truth of the so important subject of Painter's recruiting. Why can't people just own up to the facts (without excuses) that it comes to the OPs question.....

"Why can't we ever get the big recruits" The answer is simple.....I might not like the reality of it, but the evidence shows over and over, our current coach does not possess that ability to do so at this time.

So it's not nitpicking to start a new thread every few days about the same subject?

And also, people keep referring to Painter's recruiting as "average" or "gotten a little better". Purdue's talent level is top 5 in the Big Ten.
 
And there is some truth to what you said. What gets lost in all of this is in the reality of things, Matt is still a young coach and is still learning. Recruiting to Purdue is not easy (just look even at the GK years or football even), so while I like the no nonsense approach that CMP apparently has, he either needs to change his approach at cater more to egos, or get an assistant that can do that for him.

I still think eventually he will land one, it is just going to take some changes and I think CMP is hands down smart enough to change what he needs to in order to land a top recruit.

BBG, I hope that you turn out to be right about all of this because I don't see a new head coach in our near future.

What CMP has been doing only partially works and if he really wants to get us to the next level he must step up his overall performance.
 
BBG, I hope that you turn out to be right about all of this because I don't see a new head coach in our near future.

What CMP has been doing only partially works and if he really wants to get us to the next level he must step up his overall performance.
See when you respond like this, I can get on board with a civil discussion on this. :)

Anyway, your point is fair and I certainly hope CMP sees it and I think he does. I look at how much effort he put in to Swanigan and to me that shows he at least is starting to "get it". I'm willing to give him to the end of his contract to figure it out and keep Purdue trending up and not regress to what happened a couple years ago. Now the question is, what does that mean? For me, I honestly don't care about BT titles. Yeah they are nice, but ultimately irrelevant. I want to see consistent NCAA invites and some deep runs (sweet 16 or better) because if you do that, eventually you'll strike gold IMO with a FF.
 
Had they had ratings over the last 50 years PU would have had probably five 5 star players-Mount-Cross-Carroll-Robinson-Robinson . Thats thru King-Schaus-Rose-Keady-Painter That should tell you something
 
Who is Xavier?

dislike-1
Xavier University in Cinci. We lost a head to head on Bluett (sp?) recently and he seems to be doing well for them. As for MP's pay rate, he is in the middle of the BT pack because that is about what he has earned. Izzo has been around a long time and has accomplished a lot more and beats MP like a drum on about any recruit he (Izzo) wants. I was impressed that we seemed to beat out UM for Edwards.
 
Had they had ratings over the last 50 years PU would have had probably five 5 star players-Mount-Cross-Carroll-Robinson-Robinson . Thats thru King-Schaus-Rose-Keady-Painter That should tell you something

Not sure what your point is. I think JB Carroll and the second Robinson would have been 4 star recruits, but that is pretty subjective. Mount was a pretty one-dimentional player too. Given that, it seems like Keady got two true 5 stars in Big Dog, and Russel Cross. That's over 25 years. Rose got Carroll, and King got Mount (I think you are missing a few more potential 5 star players for King). Comparing recruiting over this a log period of history is comparing apples and oranges IMHO. Things have changed so much in the world of high school recruiting that the comparison is meaningless.

So Painter has swung and missed on a couple 5-star players. He will get one or two in time. There are a lot of subtleties to recruiting at the highest level, and I figure Painter is learning.

:cool:
 
So it's not nitpicking to start a new thread every few days about the same subject?

And also, people keep referring to Painter's recruiting as "average" or "gotten a little better". Purdue's talent level is top 5 in the Big Ten.

I did not start the thread - I was just answering the question.

As far as the Purdue talent being in the top 5....that does not answer the Op's question- that just is a general statement about Purdue recruiting....which BTW - I agree with your statement, but is not the point of the OP's enquiry.
 
And there is some truth to what you said. What gets lost in all of this is in the reality of things, Matt is still a young coach and is still learning. Recruiting to Purdue is not easy (just look even at the GK years or football even), so while I like the no nonsense approach that CMP apparently has, he either needs to change his approach at cater more to egos, or get an assistant that can do that for him.

I still think eventually he will land one, it is just going to take some changes and I think CMP is hands down smart enough to change what he needs to in order to land a top recruit.

I agree BBG
 
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Xavier University in Cinci. We lost a head to head on Bluett (sp?) recently and he seems to be doing well for them. As for MP's pay rate, he is in the middle of the BT pack because that is about what he has earned. Izzo has been around a long time and has accomplished a lot more and beats MP like a drum on about any recruit he (Izzo) wants. I was impressed that we seemed to beat out UM for Edwards.
It was TIC in my "trying to be funny" way. The mirror laughed when I said it. It was because of referencing two coaches names and a university in the same sentence. Sorry
 
Not sure what your point is. I think JB Carroll and the second Robinson would have been 4 star recruits, but that is pretty subjective. Mount was a pretty one-dimentional player too. Given that, it seems like Keady got two true 5 stars in Big Dog, and Russel Cross. That's over 25 years. Rose got Carroll, and King got Mount (I think you are missing a few more potential 5 star players for King). Comparing recruiting over this a log period of history is comparing apples and oranges IMHO. Things have changed so much in the world of high school recruiting that the comparison is meaningless.

So Painter has swung and missed on a couple 5-star players. He will get one or two in time. There are a lot of subtleties to recruiting at the highest level, and I figure Painter is learning.

:cool:

It should be very clear to everyone that landing 5 star recruits in the Big Ten is not a common occurrence. As I've mentioned, IU's landed half of them over the last several years - and has floundered with them.

And half of recruiting is right place, right time. That's exactly how Bo Ryan got Dekker. He grew up in Wisconsin, was an extremely late bloomer, was offered a scholarship by Wisconsin when he was basically a 3 star recruit and had offers from Northern Illinois and similar schools, accepted the offer in the next day and then rose to be a 5 star recruit over the next nearly 2 years. That's literally a gift landing on Bo Ryan's doorstep wrapped with a bow on top.

Everyone just needs to calm the heck down about it, you'd think it's some dire straits emergency going on here.
 
Problem is, in your scenario. if Sam dekker was from indiana, he probably would have ended up at UM or MSU.
 
Problem is, in your scenario. if Sam dekker was from indiana, he probably would have ended up at UM or MSU.

What? So Michigan and Michigan State would have been trying to snipe a kid from Indiana with offers from Northern Illinois?

If Sam Dekker was a 5 star recruit by the time anyone recruited him, I doubt he would have ended up at Wisconsin.
 
So it's not nitpicking to start a new thread every few days about the same subject?

And also, people keep referring to Painter's recruiting as "average" or "gotten a little better". Purdue's talent level is top 5 in the Big Ten.


Now you have started contradicting yourself. You state that their talent level is top 5 in the B1G, but in a previous post IN THIS THREAD, you wrote this:

"On "paper" in talent, we had no business competing with Ohio State, yet we beat them once and barely lost to them on the road."


If Purdue had no business competing with OSU talent-wise, they wouldn't be top 5 in the B1G in that regard. Did you already change your mind about Purdue's level of talent or are you just writing whatever fits your argument?
 
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What? So Michigan and Michigan State would have been trying to snipe a kid from Indiana with offers from Northern Illinois?

If Sam Dekker was a 5 star recruit by the time anyone recruited him, I doubt he would have ended up at Wisconsin.

You can't think of any recent indiana kids who MSU and UM offered before painter did, and then ended up being top 40 players? Maybe who had a parent play basketball at purdue?
 
You can't think of any recent indiana kids who MSU and UM offered before painter did, and then ended up being top 40 players? Maybe who had a parent play basketball at purdue?

My goodness, that's not remotely the same situation. Wisconsin offered Dekker when he was a no-name guy. That's the point. He then turned into a 5 star recruit a year and a half later. That's not remotely the same situation as GRIII.
 
It should be very clear to everyone that landing 5 star recruits in the Big Ten is not a common occurrence. As I've mentioned, IU's landed half of them over the last several years - and has floundered with them.

And half of recruiting is right place, right time. That's exactly how Bo Ryan got Dekker. He grew up in Wisconsin, was an extremely late bloomer, was offered a scholarship by Wisconsin when he was basically a 3 star recruit and had offers from Northern Illinois and similar schools, accepted the offer in the next day and then rose to be a 5 star recruit over the next nearly 2 years. That's literally a gift landing on Bo Ryan's doorstep wrapped with a bow on top.

Everyone just needs to calm the heck down about it, you'd think it's some dire straits emergency going on here.

Just for fun, I looked at how successful several other programs were in recruiting. I decided to use just one source, ESPN, so the comparisons were based on the same measuring stick. I don’t care so much for the differences between services. I just wanted to use a single point of view to compare schools.

I also looked only at the class of 2015, since our 2015 recruiting has given some of our fans a sore rear. Here is what I learned (Let’s hope I transcribed everything correctly):

Purdue offered 13 kids in 2015. We lost 9, including our #1 target. Two are undecided yet, and two accepted our offer (ESPN says 1x4* and 1x3* - yes, they rank Weatherford).

MSU: Offered 11, lost 8, including a top PG to Minnesota. They won 3 and got 1x5* and 2x4* players.

Wisconsin: Offered 10, lost 6, including their #1 target. They won 4 and got 2x4*, 1x3*, and 1x2*.

Indiana: Offered 19, lost 16. They won 3 getting 2x4* (they rank Bryant as a 4*) and 1x3*.

Maryland: Offered 28, lost 25. , 1 undecided. They won 2 and got 1x5* and 1x no star.

Michigan: Offered 11, lost 10, including both their #1 targets. They won 1, and got a no star player.

Illinois: Offered 16, 2 undecided, lost 12, including their #1 target. Won 4 and got 3x4* and 1 no star.

Seems like we are right in the running with most of the better BIG teams. Nationally? Well Duke’s #1 target is undecided, UNC, UConn, and Kansas all lost the battle for their highest ranked recruits. It happens. You lose many more recruiting battles than you win.

:cool:
 
Now you have started contradicting yourself. You state that their talent level is top 5 in the B1G, but in a previous post IN THIS THREAD, you wrote this:

"On "paper" in talent, we had no business competing with Ohio State, yet we beat them once and barely lost to them on the road."


If Purdue had no business competing with OSU talent-wise, they wouldn't be top 5 in the B1G in that regard. Did you already change your mind about Purdue's level of talent or are you just writing whatever fits your argument?

So now there is no difference between #1 and #5? I didn't say the top 5 teams in terms of talent were equal in talent.

I'd rank Purdue #5 in the Big Ten in talent - probably tied with Illinois - going into next season. I'd probably put Purdue at maybe 6th last season? Obviously, "on paper" doesn't account for other things like experience.

Ohio State last year had more talent, on paper, than Purdue. I'd probably rank Ohio State in the top 2 in the Big Ten in talent last year, maybe 3rd?

So yes, Ohio State was more talented than Purdue, on paper.

Is that specific enough for you?
 
Just for fun, I looked at how successful several other programs were in recruiting. I decided to use just one source, ESPN, so the comparisons were based on the same measuring stick. I don’t care so much for the differences between services. I just wanted to use a single point of view to compare schools.

I also looked only at the class of 2015, since our 2015 recruiting has given some of our fans a sore rear. Here is what I learned (Let’s hope I transcribed everything correctly):

Purdue offered 13 kids in 2015. We lost 9, including our #1 target. Two are undecided yet, and two accepted our offer (ESPN says 1x4* and 1x3* - yes, they rank Weatherford).

MSU: Offered 11, lost 8, including a top PG to Minnesota. They won 3 and got 1x5* and 2x4* players.

Wisconsin: Offered 10, lost 6, including their #1 target. They won 4 and got 2x4*, 1x3*, and 1x2*.

Indiana: Offered 19, lost 16. They won 3 getting 2x4* (they rank Bryant as a 4*) and 1x3*.

Maryland: Offered 28, lost 25. , 1 undecided. They won 2 and got 1x5* and 1x no star.

Michigan: Offered 11, lost 10, including both their #1 targets. They won 1, and got a no star player.

Illinois: Offered 16, 2 undecided, lost 12, including their #1 target. Won 4 and got 3x4* and 1 no star.

Seems like we are right in the running with most of the better BIG teams. Nationally? Well Duke’s #1 target is undecided, UNC, UConn, and Kansas all lost the battle for their highest ranked recruits. It happens. You lose many more recruiting battles than you win.

:cool:


I'm guessing that's the case with every school. Kansas, MSU, North Carolina, etc. all offer a number of players and land only a few.

Who was the PG that chose the UM Gophers over MSU? I don't recall that one... The kid's offer was probably uncommittable.
 
Just for fun, I looked at how successful several other programs were in recruiting. I decided to use just one source, ESPN, so the comparisons were based on the same measuring stick. I don’t care so much for the differences between services. I just wanted to use a single point of view to compare schools.

I also looked only at the class of 2015, since our 2015 recruiting has given some of our fans a sore rear. Here is what I learned (Let’s hope I transcribed everything correctly):

Purdue offered 13 kids in 2015. We lost 9, including our #1 target. Two are undecided yet, and two accepted our offer (ESPN says 1x4* and 1x3* - yes, they rank Weatherford).

MSU: Offered 11, lost 8, including a top PG to Minnesota. They won 3 and got 1x5* and 2x4* players.

Wisconsin: Offered 10, lost 6, including their #1 target. They won 4 and got 2x4*, 1x3*, and 1x2*.

Indiana: Offered 19, lost 16. They won 3 getting 2x4* (they rank Bryant as a 4*) and 1x3*.

Maryland: Offered 28, lost 25. , 1 undecided. They won 2 and got 1x5* and 1x no star.

Michigan: Offered 11, lost 10, including both their #1 targets. They won 1, and got a no star player.

Illinois: Offered 16, 2 undecided, lost 12, including their #1 target. Won 4 and got 3x4* and 1 no star.

Seems like we are right in the running with most of the better BIG teams. Nationally? Well Duke’s #1 target is undecided, UNC, UConn, and Kansas all lost the battle for their highest ranked recruits. It happens. You lose many more recruiting battles than you win.

:cool:
Nice work and interesting results. I notice you did not list OSU for some reason?? Also believe Minny would be of interest for comparison. I realize that one loses more than one wins but we don't seem to be winning any of the big ones. Only head to head we have won recently that I know of is Edwards to us over Michigan.
 
I'm guessing that's the case with every school. Kansas, MSU, North Carolina, etc. all offer a number of players and land only a few.

Who was the PG that chose the UM Gophers over MSU? I don't recall that one... The kid's offer was probably uncommittable.

There were actually 2 PG's offered by MSU. Brunson ranked #2, who went to Villanova, and Jarvis Johnson ranked #26, who went to Minnesota. Those were the only PG's offered.

Michigan's recruiting is a sad story this year. Michigan offered Jaylen Brown (#2 SF) who went to Cal, and Bruson (#2 PG) who went to Villanova, Thornton (#3 PG) who went to Duke, Dozier (#4 PG) who went to SOuth Carolina, Kennard (#6 PG) who went to Duke. They also offered guards who eventualy went to UI, UCLA, and Texas. They got an unranked kid from Germany.

As someone pointed out, how do I know these were high priority targets for the coaches? I don't. I made guesses based on how high the kid was ranked. It is as good as we can get without inside knowledge. I will also freely admit that doing this stuff while working means I probably misunderstood or missed typed some detail.

:cool:
 
Nice work and interesting results. I notice you did not list OSU for some reason?? Also believe Minny would be of interest for comparison. I realize that one loses more than one wins but we don't seem to be winning any of the big ones. Only head to head we have won recently that I know of is Edwards to us over Michigan.
PS I noticed you also left out Iowa in your list. They seem to be in our wheel house on a comparative basis although they also seem to be able to under achieve on a regular basis.
 
PS I noticed you also left out Iowa in your list. They seem to be in our wheel house on a comparative basis although they also seem to be able to under achieve on a regular basis.

I did a quick check on Iowa and OSU. Here is what I would add:

OSU: Excellent class of 5x4* players spred across every position (they drafted a whole team). They made 12 offers, lost 7, including their top 4 players, by rank, before they got a commitment. You can tell the class is good by all the brand new Escalades parked in front of the freshman dorm (Snide).

Iowa: 17 offers, got 5 players (1x4*, 3x3*, 1 unranked). Lost top 9 players, by rank, they offered, and lost 11 offers altogehter, with one undecided.

:cool:
 
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Question for all the whiners on here. Would you rather have a guy that can coach but struggles with recruiting or would you rather have Tom Crean for Purdue's coach. He can bring in the 5 star Burger Boys but can't finish the job.

Neither, just a winner
 
Yes, we know all programs miss on players -- no news there. That does not answer the Op's question....on why year after year Painter cannot land a bigtime recruit. It is not about the MISSES it is about the HITS....and when it comes to top 40 guys save E.Moore eons long ago, Painter has yet found a way to HIT on a top 40......(guess he isn't much of a DJ) .........hopefully someday, somehow he will get it done!!!
 
Yes, we know all programs miss on players -- no news there. That does not answer the Op's question....on why year after year Painter cannot land a bigtime recruit. It is not about the MISSES it is about the HITS....and when it comes to top 40 guys save E.Moore eons long ago, Painter has yet found a way to HIT on a top 40......(guess he isn't much of a DJ) .........hopefully someday, somehow he will get it done!!!

Whether or not it was the original question, people have continued to nitpick on him losing out too much when all coaches lose out a lot.

In the last 5 years, how many five star recruits have Big Ten programs gotten?
IU (4)
Michigan State (3) - 1 of those is incoming/hasn't played
Michigan (2)
Ohio State (2) - 1 of those is incoming/hasn't played
Wisconsin (1)
Maryland (1) - incoming recruit/hasn't played

I believe all of those coaches are paid more than Painter, FYI (since many seem to think he's paid at the top of the Big Ten).

So basically over the last 4 playing years, there's been 10 five star recruits in the conference, 4 of them at IU. And this is just straight up recruiting classes - not accounting for anything once they've signed a LOI (i.e. going pro after 1 year).

Would it be nice? Sure. Is it common? No. People are acting like we're the only Big Ten team not to get them.

And if you look at the overall talent of Purdue, I would rank Purdue 5th in terms of on-paper talent with next year's roster. And, personally, I think our players exceed other programs in terms of the output of our talent (i.e. exceed their "ranking"/develop).

I totally agree we could improve some. But I don't think we're "so far off" that it warrants panic or constant complaining. We can certainly compete with the "big boys" given our talent level and we've shown that we're able to throughout Painter's career.

There's just much more worrisome things to me that are red flags than having the 5th most talent on-paper in the Big Ten. We don't have issues winning at home, we've done a great job under Painter. Purdue has typically been a pretty solid road team under Painter (you see many teams struggle to win on the road and aren't considered tough…IU).

What Purdue needs to do is exactly what Wisconsin does, and quite frankly we have emulated each other for quite some time. It's more about the system than the individual players. You're absolutely not going to have much success having the 10th most talent in the Big Ten and having a solid system. However, you can have the 4th or 5th most talent in the Big Ten with a solid system and have very good success. When Purdue won the regular season and then the conference tournament with the "Baby Boilers", Purdue was not close to being the most talented team in the conference. As I've mentioned before, there's SO MUCH that goes into being a head coach and having a successful program. IU is a great example to the south - they've gotten four 5 star recruits in the last 5 years and what do they have to show for it? 3 trips to the NCAA Tournament, nothing further than a Sweet 16. Tom Crean can recruit with anybody, but the other aspects of running a program he's clearly lacking and it shows on the court.

I don't think anyone is going around bragging that Purdue has the best recruiting and it's just so amazing. But it's a whole other thing to make it into such a bigger deal than needed, let alone harp on it endlessly.
 
Whether or not it was the original question, people have continued to nitpick on him losing out too much when all coaches lose out a lot.

In the last 5 years, how many five star recruits have Big Ten programs gotten?
IU (4)
Michigan State (3) - 1 of those is incoming/hasn't played
Michigan (2)
Ohio State (2) - 1 of those is incoming/hasn't played
Wisconsin (1)
Maryland (1) - incoming recruit/hasn't played

I believe all of those coaches are paid more than Painter, FYI (since many seem to think he's paid at the top of the Big Ten).

So basically over the last 4 playing years, there's been 10 five star recruits in the conference, 4 of them at IU. And this is just straight up recruiting classes - not accounting for anything once they've signed a LOI (i.e. going pro after 1 year).

Would it be nice? Sure. Is it common? No. People are acting like we're the only Big Ten team not to get them.

And if you look at the overall talent of Purdue, I would rank Purdue 5th in terms of on-paper talent with next year's roster. And, personally, I think our players exceed other programs in terms of the output of our talent (i.e. exceed their "ranking"/develop).

I totally agree we could improve some. But I don't think we're "so far off" that it warrants panic or constant complaining. We can certainly compete with the "big boys" given our talent level and we've shown that we're able to throughout Painter's career.

There's just much more worrisome things to me that are red flags than having the 5th most talent on-paper in the Big Ten. We don't have issues winning at home, we've done a great job under Painter. Purdue has typically been a pretty solid road team under Painter (you see many teams struggle to win on the road and aren't considered tough…IU).

What Purdue needs to do is exactly what Wisconsin does, and quite frankly we have emulated each other for quite some time. It's more about the system than the individual players. You're absolutely not going to have much success having the 10th most talent in the Big Ten and having a solid system. However, you can have the 4th or 5th most talent in the Big Ten with a solid system and have very good success. When Purdue won the regular season and then the conference tournament with the "Baby Boilers", Purdue was not close to being the most talented team in the conference. As I've mentioned before, there's SO MUCH that goes into being a head coach and having a successful program. IU is a great example to the south - they've gotten four 5 star recruits in the last 5 years and what do they have to show for it? 3 trips to the NCAA Tournament, nothing further than a Sweet 16. Tom Crean can recruit with anybody, but the other aspects of running a program he's clearly lacking and it shows on the court.

I don't think anyone is going around bragging that Purdue has the best recruiting and it's just so amazing. But it's a whole other thing to make it into such a bigger deal than needed, let alone harp on it endlessly.

The Top 40 players usually on rivals are ~ 25 five star and 15 four star guys...your data ignores these high 4 star guys. The B1G landed 14 of these high four star guys from 2011-2016. Add that to the 13 of the 5 star guys you reported and that is 27 players. Zero of which came to Purdue, but not all, but several of which have played either deep in the tourney or placed 1-2 team in in the B1G. Coaching is so important, and Painter is a real good coach, but you just can't downplay the importance of talent.
 
The Top 40 players usually on rivals are ~ 25 five star and 15 four star guys...your data ignores these high 4 star guys. The B1G landed 14 of these high four star guys from 2011-2016. Add that to the 13 of the 5 star guys you reported and that is 27 players. Zero of which came to Purdue, but not all, but several of which have played either deep in the tourney or placed 1-2 team in in the B1G. Coaching is so important, and Painter is a real good coach, but you just can't downplay the importance of talent.

Again, everyone has different parameters. People have been constantly complaining about not getting a 5 star guy, so I looked at and presented 5 star players. Apparently your complaint is we aren't getting top 40 guys. Literally I cannot win with you people. I'm sorry I can't contrive every statistic to fulfill everyone's complaint.

And going on that, where do you put the cut-off? Is a player ranked 45th significantly worse? Is a 4 star player ranked 70th (a Robbie Hummel) really significantly worse than a player ranked 50th (top 50), or even 40th?

This is why recruiting rankings matter, but only matter so much. I just don't know how much of a consistent difference there is between 50 and 70 or 40 and 60, etc. Obviously the very top talent can be clearly top notch. You get caught up too much in that and you're just spinning around.

And like I said, IU's brought in the most talent in the Big Ten in the last 5 years. Made the tournament only 3 of the 5 with that talent. You say I downplay the importance of talent while you downplay the several other facets of coaching that Purdue excels at.
 
Ibodel...I think Painter is a very good coach and coaching is so important. No one is a perfect coach, but he has been B1G coach of the year several times and for good reason. Actually Illinois might have as many top 40 guys as iu - and look how woeful they are. So yes, coaching talent is important.

Now as to recruiting, Painter's lack of annual pursuit of top 40 guys, and thus, lack of landing them is huge and needs to be fixed. He has landed some great recruits lately. But as for top 40 guys that I see as important to help get a real good coach to a FF, like some mentioned above, hopefully someday soon he fixes it and lands these big recruits. Many believe he will just as soon as his tourney success improves.....hopefully next year, and he can capitalize on that.
 
Ibodel...I think Painter is a very good coach and coaching is so important. No one is a perfect coach, but he has been B1G coach of the year several times and for good reason. Actually Illinois might have as many top 40 guys as iu - and look how woeful they are. So yes, coaching talent is important.

Now as to recruiting, Painter's lack of annual pursuit of top 40 guys, and thus, lack of landing them is huge and needs to be fixed. He has landed some great recruits lately. But as for top 40 guys that I see as important to help get a real good coach to a FF, like some mentioned above, hopefully someday soon he fixes it and lands these big recruits. Many believe he will just as soon as his tourney success improves.....hopefully next year, and he can capitalize on that.
I think we have already seen a change in the right direction for landing a top recruit. And I base that off of the effort he put in to Swanigan. Sure that didn't pan out, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.

The problem with most of the people on here bashing Painter is they want some "quick fix" and think that by firing Painter suddenly we are challenging for a FF. That just is not realistic and chances are, we would get a coach that isn't nearly as good as a X's and O's coach that Painter is and then the "fire the coach" crowd would be at it again.

Painter is a "young" coach in the scheme of things. He still has a lot to learn, but he also has some outstanding coaching qualities. He has had success in the not too distant past and owns up to his mistakes. He will eventually land a big recruit and I still think will make a deep run in the tourney sooner rather than later. Some on here just need to relax.
 
Ibodel...I think Painter is a very good coach and coaching is so important. No one is a perfect coach, but he has been B1G coach of the year several times and for good reason. Actually Illinois might have as many top 40 guys as iu - and look how woeful they are. So yes, coaching talent is important.

Now as to recruiting, Painter's lack of annual pursuit of top 40 guys, and thus, lack of landing them is huge and needs to be fixed. He has landed some great recruits lately. But as for top 40 guys that I see as important to help get a real good coach to a FF, like some mentioned above, hopefully someday soon he fixes it and lands these big recruits. Many believe he will just as soon as his tourney success improves.....hopefully next year, and he can capitalize on that.

That's perfectly fair. I wouldn't say he never pursues them - he's been in the mix for some good players.

That being said, it just shocks me that people are incredibly fed up with our recruiting in basketball, when our football program is literally the worst in the Big Ten in talent. I'd suggest putting more energy into that sport if you want better athletics success.
 
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