That AAU team is loaded with some really good talent from outside of the Chicago area, and this junior class might have more downstate prospects than a typical year. It wasn’t a coincidence that the 3A championship game was between two downstate schools. So it’s really good to see we’re keeping everything on the radar.

Speaking of big guards, I heard that Lucas Williamson is a finalist for the Lefty Driesell award, conferred to college basketball's best defensive guard. Lucas is deserving, but I imagine Leaky Black will be the winner. Does anybody know when it will announced?

I will stand by my comment. I see plenty of mid major schools with good height that don't have the program we have. I also think you are overstating our development of incoming freshman and the "model" . Most of our recent contributors, including 2 of our Valley POYs were transfers. Think about it, Custer, Townes, Aher, Jackson, Clemons, Hall, Norris, Sweegs, Knight were all transfers. Kennedy and Welch are nice players, but not stars. Krut and Lucas developed but we are basically a transfer school. TY, Heeb, Frank, Wojik left. Our Freshman recruiting record is not great. Our transfer recruiting, pretty good. Maybe Drew will change this. He has some slightly bigger Freshman coming in. I just think when discussing our recruiting, we as fans like the kids and we tend to drink the kool-aid and over value them.

Do you realize that this statement actually proves my point: That roster height does not necessarily equate with success?

So what you're saying is that we're a transfer school except for all the high schoolers we recruit?

Braden is 6 feet tall, on a good day with shoes on, and was our starting PG on a S16 team and a team that made the tourney...and has been one of our more productive and consistent players.

The point was made earlier, but if you are a 6'5+ player with guard skills (ballhandling, passing, shooting), you are likely going to a P6 school.

I think size is important, to an extent. But as pointed out, two of the more successful A10 teams last year had smaller guys at the guard position. Smaller guards + lengthy wings is a recipe for success. Getting a talented big man is another challenge...only so many of them exist and they are more likely than not going to be targeted by P6 schools. The ones that we can land will likely require development (e.g., Big Frank, Hutty). Krut was a unicorn.

2011 - I'm with you on this. I'm not as concerned about the height of our guards. But the top A10 teams next year like SLU and Dayton will have extremely quick and powerful bigs and wings. Feels like they are loaded with guys like Aher and Agunanne.

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If we sign D2 transfer Philip Alston that would close the arms gap in the front court. He's only 6'6" but is strongly built at at least 225 and looks like a monster in his video.

I'll take guys who are 6'6" playing like they're 6'10" over the reverse any day of the week. Loyola had quite the collection of soft big men in the pre-Krut Porter era and they collectively lost their playing time to guys like CT, Andre, and Montel James. This roster has holes to fill and they should be filled with the best players available, not the ones who just look good on paper.

My point is that we recruit too many undersized guards. I am not saying every guard we recruit has to be 6"6". I am just saying we need to focus on bigger players. If winning a conference with no good bigs in it (MVC) and just getting into the dance is your goal, then let's keep doing what we do. I am not sure the A10 will allow us to be small and win. Without a little more size, we will never be a true consistent top 25 team. The main guys from the group we had the main success with are gone. The fact that we had a special group for 4-5 years does not make us "successful". It makes us...lucky. It does not take away from the hard work and effort and great ball they played, but for a while there the stars aligned just right (think multiple buzzer beaters). We had a good group in mid-80's and we never sustained it after Hughes, Battle and that group left. We will see moving forward now if we are a legit program or a flash in the pan.