re: Johnny Jones LA Recruiting Misses

Several of the players listed as gets by Johnny are not even from the the past two years. They came earlier. These are Hornsby, Patterson, Mickey, and Quarterman.

Blakeney is a good get, but would probably not have come is not for Simmons. After last year, I believe that Simmons alone was a net negative for team development and Jones career at LSU. Blakeney probably makes up for the Simmons debacle, but barely in my mind. Just go back to all the bad press that LSU and Jones got for the Simmmons handling and sometimes direct slights on Jones. That won't go away in many minds. The Showtime documentary will keep it fresh.

We also don't know yet how the careers will end for both Blakeney and the Evans kid who both started college the same years.

Sampson is a good get, and Jones is lucky that the coach (Lavin at St. John's) decided to leave.

Victor seems to be a decent player, but undersized at power forward. We needed another big man that year instead of Simmons.

The Jefferson kid at a&m probably with more upside than Reath and likely would have better numbers if starting at LSU.

The Jarreau kid seems like his start at UMass, and would add something to our team. Unfortunate that Jenkins is hurt.

I did not go into prior years. Those would show a lot of Jones recruiting misses (players we got versus those we lost).

My focus in the thread is just a small sampling of some LA talent we could've had. I understand we can't get them all, but for various reasons we miss out on a significant number of LA players.

Jones teams are not generally more talented than most of the non SEC power conference teams we play. His recruiting is better than Trent Johnson, but not up to the reputation some people have given him. We lack recruiting depth most years, and one can argue team/player development should be better. We may have the most depth of talent this year, but team is too inexperienced and young (we should have more junior and senior starters in Jones 5th year as HC). This is shown by the erratic effort, lack of rebounding at times, turnovers, variable defense, and standing around on offense. Look at the score closer than it really was blow out to WSU last week. The loss to VCU was maddening to watch.

Jones is an average recruiter in my opinion. Recruiting may be his best attribute as a coach. This doesn't bode well for us making NCAA tournaments.