Recruiting mistakes coming back to haunt teams during the season

The following coaches made the same mistake: Not Enough Guards!

In an era where the big men are very rare, these coaches have plenty of big men but not enough guards. Given how easy it is go sign servicable guards when you are a big time program/coach, these coaches have simply failed.

Matt Gottfried/Alabama: They have an impressive frontline of Chuck Davis, J. Davisdson and Richard Hendrix. But what happened to the guards? Two of their 0405 freshman were gone by the summer. Touted JC transfer Rayvone did not make it academically, but I believe this was not an unknown for the staff. So the season starts and they have just one (!!!!!) guard in Ron Steele and a few versatile 2/3s. This is unacceptable. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that this team should have gone out and picked up at least two guards (unsigned, JCs, prep schools, transfers, international). This mistake is probably causing Alabama the troubles they are having on the court.

Ben Braun/Cal: May be he was smoking the good stuff at Berkeley. An impressive frontline of Powe, Hardin, Benson and J. Wilkes. But look at the guards! Ubaka and Midgeley and x-walkon Martin Smith. Omar Wilkes was a spring transfer. Kately sort of left and then sort of came back. That's it. Then they scrambled to get a european guard that became eligible in the spring, in such a situation a player needs a lot of time to adjust before he can be productive. So all Ben Braun had to do is get two more guards. Serviceable guards. I'm not talking super-star guards. Serviceable guards of size. The mid-major conferences are loaded with those. They are easy to get. Why?


Tubby Smith/Kentucky: Rondo plays bigger but the rest of their guards are tiny. Crawford is a 2-3 who plays 3. Granted Azebuike left for financial reasons but had he stayed around he could have played his way into the first round since this year's draft will have very few Prep players. Not getting at least one servicable guard of size was bad. The only other guard they signed, Adam Williams, is a 5-5 guy. 5 years, 5 career points that matter. For a program like Kentucky, that is a walk-on, not a scholarship. The team is loaded with 7-footers, three of them that rarely play anymore and Randolph Morris. But Tubby Smith has been proven right in not wanting to deal with McDonalds prima-donnas. After so much pressure from the Big Blue nation he went out last year and brought in a highly touted class. What does he get in return? Randolph Morris FAXes his way to the NBA draft, totally ignoring the Kentucky program, and then causing a big hassle in trying to get re-instated. Joe Crawford bolts out during last season for lack of PT and Tubby has to play Dr Phil to get it all squared up.

Skip Prosser/Wake Forest: The mistake was made last year. Skip knew that Downey was graduating but he did not sign a replacement. This has come back to haunt WF this season as neither Gray nor the two freshmen are ready to run the point in the competitive ACC. If Skip signed a replacement for Downey last year, he would have had an experienced sophomore now, which could have solved the ballhandling/PG issues by now. Downey's contribution to WF was under-appreciated as the spotlight was shining on Paul and big Eric Williams.