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[It's a typical Friday morning in MGoBlog slack]

Brian: Man the Michigan all time basketball croots list on 247 is a trip.

Ace: Courtney Sims!

Brian:

1. GRIII
2. Dion Harris!
3. McGary
4. Kam Chatman!
5. DeShawn Sims
6. Zak Irvin
7. Manny Harris
8. Iggy
9. Courtney Sims!

16-21 are Brundidge, Ronnie Coleman, Kendric Price, Darius Morris, Trey, Mark Donnal. That’s a rollercoaster

Ace: Gee there’s a weird thing with Amaker croots here. Where they all disappoint. Massively.

Brian: Oh my god 23 is Jevohn Shepherd.

Ace: Air Canada. Lest we forget, Ron Coleman was the entire class of 2004. A Deadspin-style “Remember These Basketball Guys” post would be a real downer.

Seth: Best lineup you can make with Top 30 recruits would be a middle of the pack Big Ten team this year. Good frontcourt, but like Zak Irvin or Dion Harris trying to play point.

Ace: Dion probably would be fine in a real system.

Seth: Dion-Irvin-GRIII-D.Sims-McGary. The all-sub-200s would be interesting but not that much better: MAAR/Levert/Novak/J-Mo/Epke Udoh. Bench: Spike, Stu, Brooks, Dawkins, Horford, Nunez, Bielfeldt. Having a hard time figuring out what that rotation would look like.

Alex: I listed to the roundtable this morning—good call on bringing up Hunter re IU. Not that he’d fix anything if players are fighting coaches but they need another dynamic offensive player so badly

Brian: The weird thing about Durham is that he looks like one for about four possessions a game and disappears for the rest of it. But also I've been thinking about Wieskamp and how he's a superior player now and will be infinitely superior going forward because he'll still be in college.

The Mathlete: It's the weird dynamic of the one and done system.

Brian: in a way Beilein's inability to lock down super duper five stars is a benefit.

The Mathlete: When you go the one and done route, some years you are 2019 Duke, some years you are 2013 Kentucky, but the teams built with players to last have a unique advantage.

Ace: Especially given the nature of his system.

Brian: As long as he's getting guys in the Bajema/Wilson range.

Alex: Not that Iowa will showcase his talents well enough for him to leave early, but with that length and offensive ability, he _could_ be a pro

Brian: i think we're doing a TWO now.

THE QUESTION:

Who's the best kind of recruit to recruit?

THE RESPONSES:

Brian: I started thinking about this because I wrote up Iowa and I'd much rather have Wieskamp (composite #60) than Romeo Langford (composite top 10). And I've been looking at this season as a lovely outlier and not the new normal. But then you look at Virginia and... well, it could happen?

The Mathlete: Four stars all the way, you want players that at least have the chance to blow up into elite, NBA-level players, but not ones with a foot out the door at the first practice It's obviously a luxury, but the Dukes and Kentuckys of the world have to completely rebuild their team and figure out what they have from scratch, each and every year

Seth: A one-and-done on a good team can get you over the hump but you've got to be far enough up the incline to see over the top first. Beilein took his shot at several of those types who ended up on bad Cal or Texas teams. Is that for the better, or would Bamba or Brown on Michigan have created a juggernaut?

Brian: God that's right Cuonzo got Jaylen Brown to go to friggin' Cal. And it did nothing for him because nothing does anything for him.

Seth: The thing about a 5-star in recruiting is there's a cost in the time and effort it takes to get that guy if you're not already a one-and-done hole. The misses leave gaps.

Brian: The Tum Tum Gap.

Ace: The Weird Guys Gap.

[After THE JUMP: The Lament of Lourawls]

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Seth: The Lament of Lourawls. But Michigan's not immune. They got Ibi Watson after striking out on Langford and Battle, and the class they were going for Brown ended up being just Mo (and Hibbitts). Not that I can name any Top 70-ish guys they could have focused on instead.

Ace: I feel inclined to mention for this that with Josh Langford out for the year, MSU essentially has three true scholarship guards. And that’s counting Matt McQuaid, who probably shouldn’t be defending PGs.

Seth: I feel a hoop lens is coming.

Ace: Not exactly shocking, but since Langford went out, they’re quite reliant on Cassius Winston. (That defensive gap is largely three-point luck.)

The Mathlete: Kansas is probably the best example of recruiting at a high level, but not so high that you have constant turnover. They've won something like 98 straight conference titles.

Alex: Four years of Wieskamp has more aggregate value than one year of Langford, but Langford leaving early opens a spot. To me, the question is, would you rather have four years of Wieskamp or four years of four different freshmen five stars?

Brian: You gotta fill that spot consistently. Duke can, Kentucky can. Indiana? Maybe.

Alex: Not that getting a one-and-done to replace a one-and-done is automatic — far from it — but. Yeah.

Ace: I think a lot of that depends on what you want to run. In Beilein’s case, with a complex offensive system and an exceptionally rigid following of recruiting rules, there’s one choice.

We’ve already seen sustained success from Beilein with this level of recruit, too. He’s been getting the high-four-star type for a while: Manny, GRIII, Walton, Irvin, Chatman (whoops) all precede Iggy.

Alex: Indiana can drop bags well enough right now with the current regime but it’s far from a certainty unlike Duke and UK. And even UK is having a hard time getting the truly elite talent lately.

Brian: I mean it's not like you're not going to recruit Langford if you're Indiana. But I'm just wondering if we're seeing an emerging model that's able to compete with one-and-dones on the regular.

Alex: Isn’t it the old model?

Brian: Well... yeah.

Ace: The other issue here is the NBA is gonna drop the one-and-done rule before long. That’s very much already in motion.

Alex: The one-and-done model is new and only a few programs can actually pull it off (as there are so few one-and-dones).

Brian: And replace it with?

Alex: Straight from high school again.

Ace: As it should be.

Brian: No restrictions?

Ace: Nope.

Alex: Emoni Bates shouldn’t have to play a year at Duke or whatever.

Brian: Obligatory plug for draft and follow.

An ideal NBA draft system is in that 2012 post. In a nutshell:

• Everyone relevant is auto-entered in the draft at 18, and 19 and 20 if they are passed over.

• The NBA team retains the drafted player's rights until one year after his college eligibility expires.

• A drafted player can be signed at any time. The contract lasts until the player is 23 and the NBA team in question commits to carrying that player on their roster for the duration of that contract. Graduated seniors are an exception to the roster rule.

• The NCAA and NBA come to some sort of agreement where the NBA team can have him in summer league and maybe sign him to some sort of pre-contract that gives the kid some spending money.

Ace: Also people should generally be able to get paid for something they’re good enough at to do professionally.

Seth: The NBA created one-and-done so they wouldn't have to pay guys.

Ace: No, they did it to save themselves from their own crappy evaluations.

Seth: Same thing?

Alex: Not really?

Seth: They were investing too much money into bad players.

Alex: They’re paying rookies regardless.

Ace: Uh, not on the rookie scale.

Alex: Nothing is stopping them from taking Anthony Bennett number one overall even with the one and done rule in place. Sometimes you get an Eddy Curry, sometimes you get a Tyson Chandler.

Ace: The rule went in after too many bad franchises drafted Kwame Browns instead of LeBrons.

Brian: And there was the outcry about the guys who didn't get drafted at all.

Ace: I believe there’s some push to let guys who go undrafted retain their college eligibility.

Brian: There were also a bunch of second-rounders who didn't stick.

Alex: Ultimately it’s not the NBA’s responsibility to preserve college eligibility for kids. That falls on the schools.

Ace: I don’t think this will be as much of a problem now that teams have analytics departments, AAU stats, more film, and all the rest. Guys were getting picked on some seriously flimsy evaluations.

Seth: Anyway, one-and-dones run counter to two of Michigan's best three offerings. We can offer the wins, but one year at Michigan doesn't get you the degree and your Beilein Leap might not happen in that span.

Brian: In any case: removing one and done is going to change the landscape of college basketball significantly.

Ace: The question is whether Kentucky/Duke/etc. start then poaching the next-tier guys Beilein has been getting or if Beilein’s track record of actually developing those guys gives him an edge in those recruitments.

Alex: Is it?

Ace: Yes.

Brian: Really top end recruiters are going to have to slide their evaluations past the Zion level and then recruit guys hoping they don't jump to the league immediately.

Alex: How many one and dones are there per year? Maybe 20 or 30? How many of those are straight from high school caliber guys?

Iggy could be a one and done and there’s no chance he would have left straight from prep school.

Ace: They’re really concentrated at a few schools, though.

Seth: Coach K will survive because he recruited the just-not-good-enough-yet types for years before one-and-done.

Ace: A few schools that win championships on the regular.

Brian: He was also ranked around 30th. It's that top 20 that now becomes a gamble. Focus your efforts on a five star. Get him. Hooray! He goes to the draft. Then you recruit Spike?

Ace: Duke can revert to what they were. I’m very curious to see how Kentucky adapts.

Brian: Yeah, Kentucky without one-and-done is File Not Found.

Seth: Calipari > Self.

Ace: Based on?

Alex: In this past class I think you have maybe 8-10 guys at the top who go straight from high school to the NBA. 3-4 Duke guys, Bol Bol, Little (lol), Romeo, Bassey probably goes, Garland, Simons actually did do it because he was old enough, then the pickings get pretty slim unless they just don’t want to go to college at all.

Seth: Mostly playing Self's Illinois teams?

The Mathlete: If you are taking the top dozen or two prospects off the board for a recruiting cycle, it will inevitably lower everyone's talent pool

Ace: Yeah, how have they done since then.

Brian: I don't think you can even evaluate Calipari as a coach.

Ace: Meanwhile, a billion straight Big 12 titles.

Alex: You won’t have two dozen off the board.

Brian: Well it's a dozen sure things and then 20 question marks. Getting burned when your highly touted guy turns out to be a little too good is going to happen several times a year.

Ace: Cal is very good at certain aspects of being a coach that are very important in the current college structure and there are major question marks about the stuff that’s more important in, say, the NBA or an NCAA without Anthony Davises.

The Mathlete: The biggest thing it changes is that the 1 and done programs will be have more experienced talent on the team on average, but less transcendent talent. Kentucky hasn't been higher than #312 in Kenpom experience in the last decade.

Brian: Kentucky's highs will be lower and their lows will be higher. Duke will go back to cloning Plumlees. Nobody else gets enough zero and dones to really have it impact them?

Seth: Right. What's changed since one-and-done began? More AAU and nationalization of high school talent, a few more programs? I think it will probably look a lot like basketball before LeBron, which was an annual national party when Duke finally lost their tournament game.

Seth's 2006 bracket doesn't look that different from a modern bracket.

Ace: To bring it back to Beilein, Michigan can probably just continue what they’re doing.

Brian: Slightly increased risk of Booker/Kennard events.

Ace: Might occasionally have a guy picked off by Duke/Kentucky but he’ll find another guy, because he’s Beilein. Yeah.

The Mathlete: And the better identification and development of talent is still a winning approach

Ace: Plus he now has a long track record to show recruits that he didn’t have early on here. That second title game appearance changed a lot, I think.

Brian: I'm still waiting for the five star who's like "Beilein development is worth more than bags."

Ace: There’s some potential guys. I believe the #1 PG in 2021 is a Michigan fan? That’s the other thing. Recruits are now young enough that all they know of Michigan basketball is this level of success.

Seth: At this point in every cycle there seems to be a 5-star who likes Michigan a lot.

Ace: There’s a difference between “likes a program” and “I grew up loving this team.”

Brian: Per Brian Snow, 2021 Kristian Lander grew up a Michigan fan, which means he liked the Trey team a lot. And then you've got #4 overall RJ Hampton in 2020, who is boys with Jalen Wilson, and Walker Kessler in the same class, etc. It would be nice if one of them finally dropped.

Ace: I don’t expect Hampton but Kessler seems like a real option.

Seth: What would a 5-star PG on a Beilein team even look like? Freshman Burke with longer arms?

Ace: And defense.

Brian: I hope Beilein pulls up tape of the "offense" Tyus Battle runs at Syracuse whenever he's trying to lock down a wing.

Ace: But that defensive system!

Brian: The existence of Syracuse basketball in 2019 is the most inexplicable thing

Seth: [Inserts feeble NCAA climate change scientist rant]

Ace: They’ve missed two of the last four tourneys and been a double-digit seed in the two they made. Boeheim-ball is going away.

The Mathlete: Hey, it can still flummox Ben Carter.

Brian: But when they get there they bomb blue-bloods out of the tournament with their weird system

Ace: Prior to that: six straight tourneys with a top-four seed.

Brian: They're a 1-3-1 era Beilein WVU now

Seth: All my memories of Syracuse in the NCAA tournament are positive ones. A++ moves, would invite to dance again.

Brian: But anyway enough of the Weird MEAC Team Of The Week.