If he turns into Thabeet (With an actual basketball background), he could be nasty.

I've had this discussion many times on ITH, but I would like to see this program in the UNC, Duke, Kansas etc. discussion, so basically competing for Final Fours every year. Doesn't mean you're in it every year, but you're in the discussion. The schools you listed in your point B are not consistent year-in and year-out Final Four contenders, and I think that's difference in recruiting the 5-star guys.

IMO, the key is to recruit and select the “right” stud players. They're out there, as we've seen with Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Ben Gordon and Okafor. Crean's job now is to try and get those guys to IU. I think he can do it.

I am not arguing against 5 star players however or that you cannot tell the difference as a senior in HS between a top 25 kid and a 100 to 200 kid or that NCAA champs have not had such players. I urge readers to consider however :

A) that alot of teams with 5 star HS players donot win the championship ( ie Duke, UL, UCONN, Arizona, UNC, UCLA, Texas ….) no player comes with a guarantee and

B) that alot of teams w/o 5 star players often succeed ( ie Fla, West Va, Xavier , MSU, Wisc, ILL, Pitt,BC,Villanova in the past ) into the final 4 and

C) That it is too early to evaluate TC 's career in general let alone his success at IU on recruiting, W's, X's, graduation rates

For skeptics that want to wait and see……….I am fine w that

We are building evidence however that he is succeeding in:

1) fan rapport
2) recruiting in Indiana ( gosh we even have HS kids from other states trying to go to HS in Btwn )
3) recruiting in NYC, BALT and in general we are competitive
4) bringing in kids that donot embarass us as fans ( like Jim Calhoun, Sampson )

I for one would rather lose a competitive Championship than be chronically embarrassed by our players like the direction we seemed to be headed with the previous regime

Agree with you on Crean. He is providing content to us that we can't get anywhere else. The video last week was awesome, I hope he keeps that up. As you said, he really gets it.

Also, I'm really looking forward to seeing how Bawa develops. To me, he's the guy that can take this class, and really the program right now, to a different level.

while it is true that you can win by developing players that weren't highly recruited (Florida '06 & '07), it is undeniable that highly ranked players are going to add to a school's chances to win or get to a title game, ohio state oden and conley, memphis rose, north carolina lawson and hansborough, kansas chalmers rush collins, syracuse carmelo

talent matters in college sports

UNC '09 – 4 5-star players and 6 4-star guys
Kansas '08 – 6 5-star players and 3 4-stars guys
Florida '06-'07 – This seems to be the anomaly; no 5-star guys 5 4-star guys
UNC '05 – 3 5-stars and 3 4-stars
UConn '04 – Can't find their HS ratings, but Okafor, Gordon, Villanueva, Anderson, Boone and were all highly rated. So was Marcus Williams but I can't remember if he was on that team.

Again, my point isn't that we should blindly recruit based on # of stars, but if we want to find a model, Roy Williams, Bill Self and Jim Calhoun (aside from the recent scandal) have seemed to find the “right” highly recruited guys. What all those teams have in common is high rated/talented players, that could have gone pro early, but for whatever reason stayed 3-4 years.

As opposed to guys like Cal, Boeheim and Howland, who seem to get the 1 and done. We can get studs while for the most part avoiding the one and done. That seems to be the formula to win NCAA titles in the current basketball climate, and I think this seems to be the type of player Crean is going after.

Stars mean very little…..