If you want an accurate answer to that question

Posted on: October 8, 2019 at 17:49:39 CT

only the recruits themselves can answer it truthfully. All anybody on this board can do is answer it from their perspective and whatever colors that perspective. I’ll just state some of my perspective to the question you asked rather than usual sharp snipe responses we can give to each other as posters.

Isolating this to CM is really ignoring the historical facts of where the basketball program itself has been when specifically discussing St. Louis, even as it relates to going as far back to when CM himself was a high school recruit. If you are truly (that’s you in the general/collective sense and not you specifically in the individual sense) a fan you have to try and engage in some self reflection regarding the program or we are missing points.

The hope by some fans when CM was hired was because he’s from the area, specifically Metro St. Louis and Black (I’m not going to attempt to put a percentage or portion to it but please don’t try and say this wasn’t a factor) he would immediately swipe up ALL the top recruit from that area. Totally unreasonable! The disappoint is fueled by the misses on Love, Fletcher, Liddell and Ramey damn good recruit we highly hoped he could get. All of them chose schools that in recent history (the last 20 years) have higher recruiting profiles, winning success and Final 4s on their resume. However people were also clamoring for others such as Tilmon, Mark Smith, Watson and McKinney he has gotten even if as you say they were “rebound recruits. I know people say coming in as runner up in recruiting doesn’t matter. Apparently in these cases it did. Each of those rebound recruits came under different circumstances but it’s not a far reach to assume a top reason is CM. Tilmon, Watson and Jackson all came before they ever attended classes at their original choice. Brown came because the coach he committed to was fired (keep this in mind for later). Mark Smith came after 1 year of at his chosen school. What I look at is CM must have made enough of an impression on them all to be their 2nd choice. If you rate the recruits by numerical ranking value, has he really done bad? This brings me back to my parenthetic reference with Brown. Despite what we want to believe if you aren’t a Blue Blood school the thing these recruits these recruits are drawn to mostly is the coach, “the man”, “the person”. Take this particular man out of it and the reality is the recruits from the St. Louis area on the team now, the high probability is they may not even be here either. No matter who else had been gotten, what would the narrative be then? My point and I’ve said it before this isn’t just a CM thing it’s historic and a KA, CFH, CMA, QS (although he did get a couple) and Norm thing i.e. a “MIzzou thing”.

It’s alright I guess to be disappointed in early October about the recruiting for the 2019-2020 class. But from my perspective it would be nice to view it with a little context. The other thing that mystifies me from some is how things have to be taken away in order to validate points. “The Porters don’t count because anybody could have gotten them”, Yeah maybe but anybody wasn’t here to get them. CM was and he did! Another is for some it’s like his 1st of his so far 2 seasons here where he won 20 games and went to the NCAA Tournament for the 1st time in 5 years doesn’t even exist in their equation. Since that last appearance in the tournament those previous 5 year the trajectory was steadily going down for this program to where it had bottomed out. At worst that momentum has at least stopped. After 2 years played they are just 15 total wins short of the previous 4 year and 2 conference wins short of that same period prior to CM. I find it intriguing to at least see how this full 3rd year on the court and with recruiting plays out.