BeaverPoke said:
Shyatt's recruits have been getting better and better.
As someone else noted, Joakim Noah didn't do much his freshman year, and is now obviously a premier center in the NBA.
Our players are just getting better and better.
Only Sobey and Granberry graduate this season.
The Pokes have a good chance to do some damage this season in the MWC.
Then next season, Nance, Hankerson, Cooke, and Grabau will all be seniors.
Adams, and Haldorson will be juniors.
McManamen and Washington will be sophomores.
This season the Pokes have a decent chance at a MWC title, more likely in the Tourney, but next season I would say Wyo has a real good chance at a MWC title, regular and tourney.
I feel like you are missing my point. Again, I'm in complete agreement that we've seen improvement from the majority of players since Shyatt's arrival. As I've stated several times, I believe player development is one of Shyatt's greatest strengths. I'm just not convinced that even with reaching their maximum potential that his recruits have the level of talent to actually win a MWC championship. Knocking off a couple of the big boys or "giving them a scare" every year is much different from beating them on a consistent basis, which is what it is going to take to win a MWC championship. The top end of the MWC is quite a bit better than the middle of the pack right now, and it's going to take a significant improvement for a team in the middle of the pack to make the transition to a serious conference contender.
As far as Joakim Noah is concerned, the guy was a top 100 recruit coming out of high school. There is a big difference between a player like Noah and Cooke (or even Nance). All three of those players made major improvements from year to year, but Noah's ceiling was much higher than either Cooke's or Nance's. At this same point in his basketball career, Noah had already turned down being a lottery pick in the NBA draft to return to Florida to be one of the most dominating college basketball players in the entire country. While the MWC may not have a Joakim Noah, it's top teams are filled with elite talent. We have good to fair talent. We need elite talent to make that jump to MWC contender.
Let's compare 2013 recruiting classes. Wyoming signed Trey Washington, Keonta Vernon, and Alan Herndon.
San Diego State signed Dakarai Allen who was a 4 star recruit and offered by UCLA amongst multiple other offers. As a true freshman on a very talented MWC contender, he is already averaging over 10 minutes per game.
New Mexico signed Cullen Neal, an ESPN top 100 recruit, who as a true freshman is fourth on the team in scoring despite backing up the reigning MWC player of the year.
UNLV signed Kendall Smith, a ESPN top 100 recruit with offers from many teams including UConn, who is averaging 25 minutes per game as a true freshman and shooting over 50% from the field, including 50% exactly from beyond the arc.
Now, while I think it's perfectly reasonable to believe that Washington, Vernon, and Herndon will develop into good basketball player's under Shyatt, I find it very hard to expect them to ever reach the level of the players mentioned above. That's where the problem is. While Shyatt has brought in good recruits, the top of the MWC has continualy brought in elite recruits. I think many of you underestimate how good the upper end of the MWC is and the level of players it's going to take to be a contender in this conference. Will Nance, Cooke, Grabau, Adams, etc be better next year? Yeah, probably so...but so will the returners on New Mexico, San Diego State, and UNLV.