Wojo Recruiting

[panda]

One problem I see with Wojo is that he doesn’t “de-recruit” players. We saw it early on in his tenure with Burton, Duane Wilson and Jajuan. When those guys missed an assignment or didn’t play to the teams game, they immediately saw the hook.

Moving forward, once Wojo has brought in his own guys and sold out recruiting them, we’ve seen that less and less. Really the only guy I can think of receiving that treatment is Cain his sophomore season.

I believe part of the reason for the constant mental mistakes, team scheme failing consistently and yearly slides/team regressing is that Wojo over promises during the recruiting period. In doing this, he loses leverage when certain players aren’t playing within his expected team concept.

Another reason we don’t see hooks much could be because we don’t have anyone remotely capable of stepping in for underperforming starters, but that’s a problem for another discussion.

[Warrior of Law]

The loss of the Hausers cannot be underestimated.  Losing those guys was the beginning of the end for the Wojo tour.

[Silent Verbal]

I don't think Symir got back in the game yesterday after bricking an ill-advised three in the first half, and there have been games where Carton has sat for long stretches after playing out of control.

The only player who had no leash is Markus.  Generally, if a guy makes some boneheaded plays, Wojo will yank him.

[muwarrior69]

I don't think Symir got back in the game yesterday after bricking an ill-advised three in the first half, and there have been games where Carton has sat for long stretches after playing out of control.

The only player who had no leash is Markus.  Generally, if a guy makes some boneheaded plays, Wojo will yank him.

Maybe that is how Wojo runs his practices. If they make a boneheaded pass or shot he yanks them. By the middle of practice their all sitting on the bench. So by game time they are well prepared to sit on the bench.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

I personally don't see this with Wojo. I think everyone agrees that Carton, Garcia, and Lewis are our most talented players and we have seen them get sat for long stretches in various games after making poor plays.

[panda]

I personally don't see this with Wojo. I think everyone agrees that Carton, Garcia, and Lewis are our most talented players and we have seen them get sat for long stretches in various games after making poor plays.

This is mostly speculative which admittedly lessens the my argument, but when Wojo sells big time recruits on the keys to the castle, it appears it makes it more difficult to get them to buy into his program expectations.

When I see interviews of prospective recruits saying things like, “I can come in and be just like Markus” or “The coaching staff sees me as the best PG they’ve ever had”, makes it hard for them to hear harsh criticism once they enter the program.

[muwarrior69]

I personally don't see this with Wojo. I think everyone agrees that Carton, Garcia, and Lewis are our most talented players and we have seen them get sat for long stretches in various games after making poor plays.

Wojo is not doing something right. You should be able to teach these guys to at least hold on to the ball and pass. If they can't execute drill it into them until they can. Our turnovers have cost this team quite a few wins.

[wadesworld]

I haven't once thought that one of our problems this year is Dawson hasn't bought into the team concept or is allowed to take whatever shot he wants, whenever he wants, or do whatever he wants with the basketball.

[Silent Verbal]

I haven't once thought that one of our problems this year is Dawson hasn't bought into the team concept or is allowed to take whatever shot he wants, whenever he wants, or do whatever he wants with the basketball.

Only Markus was given that treatment.

[muwarrior97]

I haven't once thought that one of our problems this year is Dawson hasn't bought into the team concept or is allowed to take whatever shot he wants, whenever he wants, or do whatever he wants with the basketball.

Great point! - I've thought many times he should shoot or hunt his shot more often, if he was a little more like Koby I think he would score a lot more (and maybe Koby should be a little more like him and not force himself so much)

[MU82]

I personally don't see this with Wojo. I think everyone agrees that Carton, Garcia, and Lewis are our most talented players and we have seen them get sat for long stretches in various games after making poor plays.

This.

Wojo has many faults, but he has shown willingness to sit even his best players (and/or some of his personal favorites) over long stretches if he feels it is best for his team in a given game.

He demoted Luke and regularly benched JJJ. He all but forgot about Heldt. He pretty quickly realized that Froling couldn't play even though he had been hyped. Same with Chartouney. Cohen and Carter saw so much less PT that they left. He consistently went with the hot hand with Cain and Bailey, playing one and benching the other. This season, he has sat DJ, Dawson, Justin, Theo, Elliott, everybody really, when they haven't done their jobs.

IIRC, in the comeback win against Georgetown, Wojo kept Theo, McEwen and DJ on the bench for most of the rally.

Again, lots to hit Wojo for. I think panda is mostly missing the mark with this complaint.

[withoutbias]

Great point! - I've thought many times he should shoot or hunt his shot more often, if he was a little more like Koby I think he would score a lot more (and maybe Koby should be a little more like him and not force himself so much)

I agree with this and would say the same about DJ.  If there are two players that I would guess Wojo promised "the keys" to while recruiting them, it would be DJ and Dawson.  And if there are two players that I wish would be more assertive in looking for their own shot on this team, it would be DJ and Dawson.

The bigger problem is there isn't enough talent on this team.  I think people vastly overrate this talent on here.  Dawson is very good, but he's also a freshman.  He's a solid high major starter currently, and could get to a star in a year or two.  DJ basically the same, but his problem is more inconsistency than figuring out the physicality and speed of the game.  So to me, you have two solid high major starting caliber players, both of who could turn into BEPOY type of players if they're around for at least another year.

Beyond that?  Theo, fine if he's your fifth best player and would learn how to do something other than go all out block defensively.  But he provides some good things defensively.  Cain?  Good spot up shooter and rebounder, nothing else.  Greg?  Same story as Cain, minus the rebounding.  Good enough ball handler, I guess.  Koby?  Fairly similar to Theo, could be a nice fifth starter, maybe fourth.  Solid defender, but just not efficient enough consistently on the offensive end.  Justin?  Huge ceiling, but currently not consistent.  Absolutely nothing beyond those players.

So you have two guys who currently are solid starters, 4 or 5 guys who can play a role on a good team but shouldn't be featured players, and nothing else.  You have three guys who have huge ceilings and not enough beyond that.

Moral of the story, the talent needs to be better.  Especially if your coach can't coach a team up.  Which Wojo hasn't been able to.

[Galway Eagle]

I agree with this and would say the same about DJ.  If there are two players that I would guess Wojo promised "the keys" to while recruiting them, it would be DJ and Dawson.  And if there are two players that I wish would be more assertive in looking for their own shot on this team, it would be DJ and Dawson.

The bigger problem is there isn't enough talent on this team.  I think people vastly overrate this talent on here.  Dawson is very good, but he's also a freshman.  He's a solid high major starter currently, and could get to a star in a year or two.  DJ basically the same, but his problem is more inconsistency than figuring out the physicality and speed of the game.  So to me, you have two solid high major starting caliber players, both of who could turn into BEPOY type of players if they're around for at least another year.

Beyond that?  Theo, fine if he's your fifth best player and would learn how to do something other than go all out block defensively.  But he provides some good things defensively.  Cain?  Good spot up shooter and rebounder, nothing else.  Greg?  Same story as Cain, minus the rebounding.  Good enough ball handler, I guess.  Koby?  Fairly similar to Theo, could be a nice fifth starter, maybe fourth.  Solid defender, but just not efficient enough consistently on the offensive end.  Justin?  Huge ceiling, but currently not consistent.  Absolutely nothing beyond those players.

So you have two guys who currently are solid starters, 4 or 5 guys who can play a role on a good team but shouldn't be featured players, and nothing else.  You have three guys who have huge ceilings and not enough beyond that.

Moral of the story, the talent needs to be better.  Especially if your coach can't coach a team up.  Which Wojo hasn't been able to.

I certainly agree with all of this but it's worth mentioning these guys were recruited to be playing next to Bailey and Joey as juniors being the focal points. And that's the major issue is Wojo gets caught with his pants down with transfers or going pro early and then we look bad

[MU82]

I agree with this and would say the same about DJ.  If there are two players that I would guess Wojo promised "the keys" to while recruiting them, it would be DJ and Dawson.  And if there are two players that I wish would be more assertive in looking for their own shot on this team, it would be DJ and Dawson.

The bigger problem is there isn't enough talent on this team.  I think people vastly overrate this talent on here.  Dawson is very good, but he's also a freshman.  He's a solid high major starter currently, and could get to a star in a year or two.  DJ basically the same, but his problem is more inconsistency than figuring out the physicality and speed of the game.  So to me, you have two solid high major starting caliber players, both of who could turn into BEPOY type of players if they're around for at least another year.

Beyond that?  Theo, fine if he's your fifth best player and would learn how to do something other than go all out block defensively.  But he provides some good things defensively.  Cain?  Good spot up shooter and rebounder, nothing else.  Greg?  Same story as Cain, minus the rebounding.  Good enough ball handler, I guess.  Koby?  Fairly similar to Theo, could be a nice fifth starter, maybe fourth.  Solid defender, but just not efficient enough consistently on the offensive end.  Justin?  Huge ceiling, but currently not consistent.  Absolutely nothing beyond those players.

So you have two guys who currently are solid starters, 4 or 5 guys who can play a role on a good team but shouldn't be featured players, and nothing else.  You have three guys who have huge ceilings and not enough beyond that.

Moral of the story, the talent needs to be better.  Especially if your coach can't coach a team up.  Which Wojo hasn't been able to.

While I believe there is enough talent here to be better than 8-9, I agree that this team does not have enough "mature talent" to be a big winner. By "mature talent," I mean that our two best players are a freshman and a soph (who is basically a freshman), neither of whom is ready to consistently lead a good team. Otherwise, lots of No. 5 starters and/or bench players.

If Dawson, DJ and Justin already were as good as their potential suggests they will become, you can get by with Theo/McEwen/Cain level cohorts. But they aren't there yet, so we simply don't have enough.

And that's on Wojo, too.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

I think people overrate the talent of the ancillary players on this roster. I think people underestimate the impact that youth/lack of practice due to COVID has on the main players on this roster.  I also don't believe Wojo has gotten everything out of this roster that another coach might have been able to.

[SaveOD238]

I think people overrate the talent of the ancillary players on this roster. I think people underestimate the impact that youth/lack of practice due to COVID has on the main players on this roster.  I also don't believe Wojo has gotten everything out of this roster that another coach might have been able to.

This from the guy who kept trying to tell me that we have good 3-point shooters on this team.

We don't.  The talent on this team is not up to snuff in the Big East.  We have promising young players, but when your senior class is a guy who was good at a mid-major, a four year role player, and a big with two moves, you're not going to do very well.  The junior class is even worse (an oft-injured role player, a "redshirting" transfer, a walk on, and a "retired" player).

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

This from the guy who kept trying to tell me that we have good 3-point shooters on this team.

We don't.

Dude, what I said was you can't call Sacar Anim (39.2%) and Brendan Bailey (38.3%) good three point shooters and also call Jamal Cain (40.7%), Dawson Garcia (39.1%), and Koby McEwen (37.7%) bad three point shooters.

We went 3/6 yesterday on unguarded 3Ps per synergy. Problem is we went 2 for all on guarded 3Ps. The guys I mentioned, plus Greg are good three point shooters, but yesterday we couldn't get them open looks. Carton, Sy, and Justin are not good three point shooters.

[Herman Cain]

One problem I see with Wojo is that he doesn’t “de-recruit” players. We saw it early on in his tenure with Burton, Duane Wilson and Jajuan. When those guys missed an assignment or didn’t play to the teams game, they immediately saw the hook.

Moving forward, once Wojo has brought in his own guys and sold out recruiting them, we’ve seen that less and less. Really the only guy I can think of receiving that treatment is Cain his sophomore season.

I believe part of the reason for the constant mental mistakes, team scheme failing consistently and yearly slides/team regressing is that Wojo over promises during the recruiting period. In doing this, he loses leverage when certain players aren’t playing within his expected team concept.

Another reason we don’t see hooks much could be because we don’t have anyone remotely capable of stepping in for underperforming starters, but that’s a problem for another discussion.

This is an excellent observation. Our Coach has fallen into the recruiting trap of guaranteeing top level talent the ability to showcase while they are at MU.

There are enough kids who will buy into that recruiting theory that Wojo can have some limited success utilizing this technique . The problem with this recruiting strategy is it becomes an addiction . The only way to break the cycle is by winning at a prolific rate which makes the program the attraction rather than the playing time .

[79Warrior]

The loss of the Hausers cannot be underestimated.  Losing those guys was the beginning of the end for the Wojo tour.

This. You just cannot lose two starters  of that caliber at the same time. MU does not have the ability to reload that quickly. That was devastating.

[MUfan12]

This. You just cannot lose two starters  of that caliber at the same time. MU does nor have the ability to reload that quickly. That was devastating.

Bailey being as inconsistent as he was really made it tough as well.

[willie warrior]

This. You just cannot lose two starters  of that caliber at the same time. MU does nor have the ability to reload that quickly. That was devastating.

Another one of Wojo-Dukiets poorest hours.

[cheese ball chaser]

I think people overrate the talent of the ancillary players on this roster. I think people underestimate the impact that youth/lack of practice due to COVID has on the main players on this roster.  I also don't believe Wojo has gotten everything out of this roster that another coach might have been able to.

Lack of practice? They've had plenty of time to practice due to games being canceled/pushed back.

[panda]

Lack of practice? They've had plenty of time to practice due to games being canceled/pushed back.

I think he meant lack of practice pre season due to MU’s covid pause. I buy that.

At this point MU has had plenty of practice reps with a favorable schedule and has regressed. Maybe too much practice is the problem?