The Last Recruit

It’s April? Will we hear about the final roster spot being filled in the coming days?

If players win championships in preseason, coaches win it on the recruiting trail. A future huge NCAA tournament game could be decided based on whether or not MU signs a key high school player, transfer or JUCO player to fill their last roster spot for next season and additional one for the next season.

With Buzz have retooled the team from the hypothetical national 6-foot-5 and under team to a team of switchables, most agree that a key big man or point guard would be the final piece of the puzzle.

As outlined before, MU currently has 27 wins on paper for 2012 and 26 wins on 2013 based on the current roster, so could a recruit add a few more wins to get MU to the 31 wins Connecticut currently enjoys as they enter the national title game?

TRANSFERS

MU may have struck gold with Jamil Wilson for next year. Filling the last spot with a transfer obviously keeps MU at 27 wins next year since a transfer would sit out, so it would have to be a prize that could really give us a deep run in 2013 to make it worthwhile.

The top of the dream list would be Aaric Murray, who just missed 5-star status as the 10th best 4-star out of 100 when MU looked at him two years ago as a freshman. Murray is the one player that would be projected to add 5 additional wins to MU in 2013 as a junior based on his performance to date, meaning MU would project 31 wins in two years PLUS whatever their final recruit would bring. Aaric has done almost exactly what a high 4-star would be expected to do his first two years, including being worth 4.0 wins to LaSalle this year as their best player – halfway between a 4-star and 5-star sophomore averages:

LaSalle Win Credits	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	Wins
Aaric Murray	485	245	41	31	73	4
Jerrell Williams	454	243	46	37	7	3.5
Tyreek Duren	322	93	146	62	9	2.8
Earl Pettis	299	134	86	40	2	2
Ruben Guillandeaux	392	89	79	18	1	2
Bench total						0.7

As you can see, his production is about halfway between what you would expect from a sophomore 4-star and 5-star, so he looks like almost a 5-star just as originally ranked.

Stars	Freshman	Sophomore	Junior	Senior
0-2 Stars	0.1	0.7	0.9	1.1
3-star	0.3	1.2	2.1	3.2
4-star	1.7	3.1	4.3	4.4
5-star	2.4	4.7	6.3	NBA/bust

While MU is reportedly going after him, I do not know how realistic a chance we have. One report this week said he would go to Kentucky if offered, and had him list Florida and West Virginia as two other potentials, assuming he doesn’t risk it all and test the pro waters.

As for point guards, Korie Lucious volunteered his interest in transferring from Michigan State to Marquette, but MU did not have interest and he instead went to Iowa State. While it might have been nice to have a guard who had a Final Four under his belt, as a senior he would have eaten up the final scholarship for last year while not playing, and then only played in Junior Cadougan’s final year, thus taking away a spot that could have helped develop the point guard post-Junior.

There were 367 Division I transfers after last season, so we there could be others that might fill the center or point guard position.

HIGH SCHOOL RECRUITS

A late freshman signee is unlikely to add many wins for next year, but obviously builds the best for the future. Even a 4-star or 5-star typically only adds about 2 wins his freshman year, while a 5-star typically adds 4.7 his sophomore year and a junior 3.1 wins – so MU could expect 31 or 29 total wins in 2013 with one of them added. However, even 3-stars generally aren’t worth an extra win until their sophomore year, and 2 wins their junior year.

While some have questioned Buzz recruiting nationally, the fact is there just isn’t that much talent in Wisconsin (MU grabbed the only Rivals 5-star player from the state since 2005 with Vander Blue), and even the four contiguous states to Wisconsin have had only a few more five stars since then. The fact is that Big 10 country is producing very few 5-stars, so the fact that Buzz can go to Texas and the rest of the South, the Big East gives MU a shot at the East, and that grabbing the top small forward in the West (Juan Anderson) shows that Buzz really does have a national base for recruiting is key when you look at where the 5-stars have come from since MU joined the Big East.

Now, before anyone gets upset, if a state had an equal number of teams from different major conferences I just went with the team with the higher Pomeroy rating, so this year I put Wisconsin as a Big 10 state, but when MU finishes higher than them next year, I will list it as a Big East state no matter how many alums they have.

ACC (47)		BE (31)		B10 (29)		B12 (27)
FL	15	CT	2	IA	1	KS	1
MA	6	KY	2	IL	6	MO	4
MD	8	NJ	10	IN	10	OK	4
NC	9	NY	9	MI	1	TX	18
SC	1	PA	5	MN	1
VA	8	RI	1	Neb	0	SEC (33)
		WV	2	OH	9	AL	5
P10 (27)				WI	1	AR	1
AZ	1	Other (11)				GA	13
CA	18	AK	1			LA	2
CO	0	NH	3			MS	3
OR	4	NV	6			TN	9
WA	4	SD	1

Obviously signing the right freshman probably doesn’t give MU the next piece of the puzzle right away, but it starts to build for 2014 and 2015.

JUCOS

And finally, the JUCO option is typically the best for adding immediately impact. With a roster full of JUCO All-Americans including the JUCO POY Jae Crowder, Buzz knows that the right JUCO is Marquette’s best bet to have a realistic shot at the 30-win plateau and a potential deep run in 2012 and 2013. The JUCOs are hard to track until the All-American list comes out, and I can’t pretend to be an expert. I did put together a scoring system for any JUCO that was in the national Top 25 in one of the five key offensive categories (points, assists, steals, blocked shots and rebounds) and added some credit for players who made the all-tournament team.

I have no idea if any of these guys are key players, but it at least gives a list of JUCOs with the kind of huge assists numbers we’d like if Buzz wanted to add an extra point guard or the rebounds and blocked shots if Buzz believes we need another big.

Best stats	First Name	Last Name	COLLEGE	PTS	REB	BLOCKS	ASST	STEALS	All-tourney
1	Orlando	Sanchez	Monroe College		423	154			All-tourney
2	Widgett	Washington	Northeastern Junior College	825			222	94
3	Averon	Matthews	Broward College	579	328	94
4	Pierre	Jackson	College of Southern Idaho						MVP
5	Christopher	Evans	Wabash Valley College	507					All-tourney
6	PHILIP	JURICK	Chattanooga State Community College		303	229
7	Dennis	Tinnon	Kansas City Kansas Community College	672	388
8	Kenny	Buckner	College of Southern Idaho		312				All-tourney
9	Anthony	Hubbard	Frederick Community College	599	293
10	Titus	Rubles	Independence Community College	528	320
11	Rodrigo	Silva	Laramie County Community College		307	151
12	Ryan	Aaron	Gillette College	834
13	Trey	Anderson	Neosho County Community College	478			183
14	Bruce	Massey	Dodge City Community College				213	108
15	Dytrel	Bracey	Western Oklahoma State College				203	111
16	Martel	Jackson	Malcolm X College				200	111
17	Xavier	Blount/Johnson	Cochise College	675
18	Dylan	Talley	Blinn College	674
19	Tyrus	McGee	Cowley County Community College	662
20	Derrell	Armstrong	Allegany College of Maryland	641
21	Blake	Nash	Williston State College	640
22	Bojan	Mihajlovic	Central Wyoming College	640
23	Marsell	Holden	San Jacinto College-Central	639
24	Tyler	Brown	Marshalltown Community College	638
25	Terry	Taylor	Pratt Community College				192	87

Look out for the All-American list, and we will anxiously await which way Buzz goes to fill the last spot this year.