Talent Identification and College Recruiting
Brian McCormick
March 9, 2009
College basketball coaches make their jobs harder than they have to be. On Friday, Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times wrote about Taft High School’s Michael Williams and Westchester High School’s Dominique O’Connor, and on Saturday, Ben Bolch profiled Riverside King’s Kawhi Leonard.
These players have a few things in common. First, they led their teams to Section Finals. Friday night, O’Connor led Westchester - the alma mater of NBA players like Trevor Ariza, Hassan Adams, Bobby Brown and others - to a Los Angeles City Section Championship over Williams and Taft High School - alma mater of the Los Angeles Lakers’ Jordan Farmar. Saturday night, Leonard led Riverside King to a Southern Section Championship over #1 ranked Mater Dei.
Second, they have been overlooked because scouts believe they are too small. Leonard signed a scholarship to San Diego State as a 6′7 forward, but bigger schools thought he was too much of a tweener:
Greg Hicks, a West Coast recruiting analyst for Scout.com, said some schools viewed Leonard as an undersized power forward and had reservations about whether a so-called ‘tweener could play the four at the college level.
“Those guys who are in between the three and four are where you see a lot of mistakes because the positions are so different,” Hicks said. “Either you can or can’t guard the four at that level.”
Leonard led King to the championship over Mater Dei who features the Wear brothers, twin 6′10 posts headed to University of North Carolina next year.
Williams is a 6′1 SG who led Taft to an upset over Fairfax High School and potential National Player of the Year Renardo Sydney.
“You’re going to regret the day you didn’t sign him,” Taft Coach Derrick Taylor told one recruiter about the 6-foot-1 Williams, who’s averaging 18.9 points and is one of the premier shooting guards in the Southland. “He just dominates every good team we play,” Taylor said.
Westchester Head Coach Ed Azzam has coached talented players, and he believes in the 5′9 O’Connor.
O’Connor has proven he can play pressure defense with the best despite his size, and can dribble through the key, draw a foul or score. He also can connect from long range. He’s averaging 19 points and six assists.
“The thing Dominique has had to convince them is he’s not a liability defensively,” Azzam said. “He’s anything but. He’s an outstanding on-ball defensive player, quick, fast, strong and a good athlete.”
“It just takes a lot of time and patience to convince them because the first thing they look at is his height and can he compete against the bigger, stronger guys,” Azzam said. “I think he’s convinced a lot of them he can play at the next level.”
The problem, of course, is that these players do not fit the profile that recruiters seek. When a Pac-10 school evaluates a player, he looks for a 6′9 PF, not a 6′7 PF as if the two inches are more important than ability, talent or work ethic. When they recruit a SG, they look for 6′4+, not 6′1.
When a recruiter from a BCS program watches a talented 6′1 player, they want to see if he is a point guard. If not, they move on. Coaches recruit based on what players cannot do, not what they can do.
Coaches concentrate more on height and length. They believe that if they recruit the right physical package, they can teach him the skills that he needs to excel. But, colleges do not have the time to invest in deliberate practice with their players. Without deliberate practice, skill development for a college player is limited at best.
Coaches also underestimate the mental, emotional and psychological skills that impact a player’s development. If a player lacks a strong work ethic, he is not going to develop his skills and it is not likely that he will develop a new work ethic in college.
Leonard, Williams and O’Connor have demonstrated the talent and the winning mentality against some of the best high school talent in the nation. Leonard will face college programs with less talent than Mater Dei, who has players headed to UNC, USC, UCLA and Stanford on its team.
Coaches just make their jobs harder than they have to be when they ignore talented, good kids because they are an inch or two too small. They focus on the wrong things rather than opening eyes to all the positive things that these players bring to a team or a program.
San Diego State got lucky with Leonard, and he should be a great player for Steve Fischer’s program. It will be interesting to see which program lucks into a great player in the late signing period and signs Williams and O’Connor.