The House of Blue

I understand completely the value of upper-classmen with experience ... but I don't believe that you recruit with that goal in mind. You don't start out with your philosophy as 'Okay ... we're going to recruit 2 players who are true impact players that can help us win now and 4 guys who are so-so and will be role players three years from now.' If it happens in the normal course of things over the years, that's great, and can be a positive when it does, but you don't start out with that as your recruiting strategy.

Show me any successful coach in any sport at any level who doesn't want the best available players every time. Cal himself (who I think has been fairly successful) says 'Give me the best players out there and I'll figure out what to do with them when I get them.' (I'm paraphrasing here.) What's the old saying? "Jimmys and Joes beat X's and O's."

On top of that, every top-level recruit that doesn't come here because we have a roster full of 4-year mediocre talent ... will go to our competition. And, in basketball in particular, it only takes a couple of those somewhere else to give your competition an edge you can't overcome. If you pass up 2-4 one-and-dones a year to hang on to a part-time role player for 4 years ... that's 8-16 5-star players that end up at Carolina, Duke, Louisville, Kansas, Indiana, etc. that would have been on your roster.

I just don't agree at all with your strategy as an overall recruiting philosophy. If it happens on its own ... that's fine ... but you don't intentionally change your recruiting to fit that model.