Palmetto Proving Grounds

I feel like we need more schollies for the 2013 class.

Thanks Will. I would love to get Jenkins, Thornwell, and a good post player for 2013.

WG, hope you can get some information about the summer workouts to relay to us.

Are any of these recruits one and done or is Martin looking for more stability in the program before going after that type of player?

Thornwell is a must get in this class, for obvious reasons...

Behind that, out of this class I would like:
1. Jenkins
2. Williams
3. Simmons
4. Severe
5. Quarterman
6. Santil

Quarterman is one that could really shoot up the list with a big Sr season...However, like WG says, his value greatly increases with the legit ability to play the 1. As of right now he is a tweener, and I think that the other 4 are pretty far ahead of him RIGHT NOW...

Ever hear of Larry Johnson?

Harris is already 1st team Defensive All SEC. The difference in him will be that he will be senior aged playing his junior season. That extra year of physical and mental maturity will make the difference a lot more than the coaching. We all blame Horn for not being able to make raw freshmen and sophomores play like seasoned seniors. Our teams the last three seasons got progressively younger and last season the only upper class leadership came from Cooke and Jackson. I'd like to have seen how we'd have fared when the 2014 season rolled around and we had a strong senior class. I guarantee you Horn would have looked like a much different coach.

One more thing and then I'll shut up. We are in a talent league. Talent wins in the SEC, not x's and o's. If Martin can't significantly upgrade our talent, we will not make a marginal improvement in our league standing. To his credit, Martin does have us involved with some players who would definitely help close the talent gap but being involved is a far cry from having signatures on letters of intent.

As for coaching, when you lose I don't care how many drills you've done or how much film you've watched, it doesn't look impressive. It always looks like you can't coach when your team loses. And when the reason you lose is because the other team had better players and those better players outperformed your players, it looks like your team didn't know what they were doing because you didn't coach them well enough.

Twice in my time as a youth coach, I have had teams go from last to first in consecutive seasons - once in basketball and once in tennis. I didn't go from being a terrible coach to a genius in one year each time that happened. What happened is that the players grew and matured and better understood what they were supposed to be doing. The same thing happens in college, which is why it takes time to build a program unless you can recruit future NBA All Star teams every year like Calipari. It takes time to build teams tiered with experience and leadership so that enormous contributions aren't required from raw freshmen who are not usually ready to shoulder a big burden of responsibility.

Quarterman is interesting in that I gather he plays with poole who I think (perhaps incorrectly) is a volume shooter that dominates the ball.

If he is 6'6 and athletic then maybe he could be a complement on the wing who might be able to score more than he has showed, but would also distribute well?

I do not think a less than elite college team has to be 6'8 on the wing...6'6 is good size out there.

I think we need to wait and see whether Martin actually signs some of these high profile guys before we start getting excited.

The class he has put together at the last minute this year is not a particularly impressive haul and will not be rated anywhere near anyone's top 25 classes.

We seem to be involved with a lot of interesting names in the following classes but Horn recruited a lot of big names too. Doesn't really matter if you cannot sign and enroll them.

I do think Martin will probably sign a few high profile guys and the coaching will be better and we will have a tougher and more successful team. But so far, he hasn't really made a splash recruiting wise. Look forward to that first one.

Hopefully, it will be Thornwell if he doesn't earn his intended UK/UNC offer from his prep school adventure.