I just finished listening to Jody Oehler on Mike Luke's show and he made a point that has been repeated often on this forum, essentially if Sean Miller was Lloyd's chief recruiter UofA basketball would be unstoppable. It's hard to argue against that point when you consider how Lloyd's recruiting has evolved since he's been here. I don't look at his international recruiting as a strength per se, mainly because I get the feeling that it's a crutch, not an asset, not to mention that Miller did a better job at it the one year he focused on overseas players. That recruiting cycle he brought in had three NBA players, including two All Americans. There was no other school in the country that could boast a class like that.Merkin wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 10:38 am Veesaar will be a stretch 4 then to replace Zu? Although Zu is not tearing it up at the combine as we expected he wouldn't.
4 7 footers without a wing scorer won't make for a deep run, but still have some time to see who else Lloyd can get.
No doubt he is a great get, and it's really hard to tell from highlight videos against poor competition in high school gyms, but doesn't seem like a rim protector just from his stats, only 1.3 BPG.
https://www.proballers.com/basketball/p ... jus-krivas
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Carter Bryant, Jamari Phillips and KJ Lewis. Those guys are all Arizona good players that most coaches would love to have on their teams. But when you consider the fact that before Lloyd we had only a few European players give us significant minutes on the floor and they all were success stories, it leaves the average fan asking the question 'where's the beef?' Lauri and Azuolas were All Americans and Dusan was a solid finesse big (ready on day one) who gave us quality minutes.
I hope that Krivas proves me wrong and he turns out to be some kind of poor man's Joker. But the results so far on his Euro guys haven't been so promising. Veesaar was rated pretty much in the same range as Lauri and he was simply not ready for the level of competition he faced. Same with Dylan Anderson, who was Arizona's Gatorade player of the year in high school. I'm simply not sold on Lloyd's evaluation skills yet, and for good reason. As of right now, I'm taking a wait and see approach.
Mike and Jody made a point I kinda disagree with. They repeated Doug Gottlieb's statement that there are no pros in the transfer portal. There are, it's just not common. For starters, we had TJ. Gonzaga had Brandon Clarke, and UNC had Cameron Johnson. Not to mention Ware from Oregon will get drafted as well. I just don't have the confidence like I would with Jedd Fisch that Lloyd would be able to close given the opportunity to recruit a pro player in the portal. When you see Fisch operate in the media and with players you can see why recruits are flocking to Tucson. He has an 'it' factor that's helping him in way that other coaches simply don't have. I'm not joking when I say this, I would feel more confident if Lloyd took Fisch along with him on his recruiting visits to see how its done. I think it's clear that Lloyd can field a decent team and coach them up, but I'm not sure if he takes recruiting seriously enough. If I'm him, I'm getting one or two staff members who will spend every waking hour promoting UofA basktball from Seattle to Tokyo. It's the only thing in my mind that will keep him relevant in the long term.
