Musketeer Madness

Without getting into all the details: Last year Louisville and Kentucky (although big name teams) Had to rebuild from zero players and a new coach and both succeeded very well. POPE at Kentucky: all the players left Kentucky and Pope had to recruit in all new players. The same goes for Pat Kelsey at Louisville...all the players left, and Kelsey had to recruit in all new players. Each school brought in about 12 new main players. Pat Kelsey was even in the top ten named to be Coach of the Year. Also Xavier was not in a Top Conference , did not have name coaches, but in the old days at the beginning, they recruited names like Tyrone Hill, Derek Strong, Aaron Williams, Brian Grant, David West, Posey and many more and not only did these unknown players at the time carry X to the Elite 8 and many Sweet 16s but over a dozen made it into the NBA. The key is fining gems and creating team chemistry and having a good to great coach. Xavier made a name for itself from many players who were never recruited by the big name schools. It can be done again. There are great players out there not being recruited for various reasons but would take little NIL monies to play at Xavier because no one else recognizes their true abilities.

It was all different in those days. Would David West have stayed at X in today's environment? Doubtful. It's all about the money now and the big money is in the big schools, not a little Catholic college like X. Teams take most of the year getting players to gel and the next year it's all new players. Not to say they can't find that diamond in the rough, but if he's any good he'll look to go elsewhere because bigger schools with more money will court him just like OSU did Dailyn. The coaches have done this for years and now it's the players' turns. Sad, but IMO, I don't see X or any other smaller colleges making a run in the NCAA anymore. An occasional sweet sixteen but no further. I hope I'm wrong, but that's the state of college sports today. You can buy your winning team if you have enough money. (see OSU football)

Here here Oldhoopster. It is a lot harder to recruit and keep good players. Until the N.I.L. thing is fixed it will be very difficult for most teams outside the top 30 to make any noise in the tournament. That's why Miller left