Your inbox approves Men's coaches poll Women's coaches poll Play to win 25K!
DAN WOLKEN
March Madness

In Elite 8, Kansas State vs. Loyola-Chicago is not about five-star recruits

Dan Wolken
USA TODAY

ATLANTA — The closest thing to a five-star recruit on the Philips Arena court Saturday will be a former shaggy-haired kid from the Kansas City suburbs who averaged 1.1 points a game his freshman year at Iowa State before booking it back to the mid-major level. The only legitimate NBA prospect in the entire game didn’t even know where he was ranked in high school and took visits only to Illinois and Xavier before deciding on Kansas State. 

Kansas State Wildcats head coach Bruce Weber.

For an Elite Eight game — and yes, go ahead and wrap your mind around either Loyola-Chicago or Kansas State heading to the Final Four — there’s a pretty stunning lack of talent if you’re measuring it by the typical way we talk about these things. The McDonald’s All-American crew is gone; the future lottery picks are mostly out of the NCAA tournament and onto bigger and better. 

But in the year the curtain was lifted on what goes on behind the scenes in college basketball, could there be anything more counterculture than an Elite Eight matchup between a mid-major and a coach in Bruce Weber who was fired from his last job largely because he missed on so many top recruits?

Maybe that’s overly sappy and simplistic, but this year, the irony is hard to ignore. 

At a time when that whole FBI thing has turned college basketball upside down, cost coaches their careers and put numerous programs in limbo, the last two remaining in the South Regional seem far less likely to ever show up in indictments or wiretaps.  

FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.

MORE:Five key takeaways from Thursday's Sweet 16 games

MORE:Kentucky's Sweet 16 loss to Kansas State is a missed opportunity

MORE:Florida State shows off its length and depth on way to Elite 8

Loyola-Chicago, whose rich basketball history and connections to the recruiting scene in Chicago had all but disappeared by the time Porter Moser got there five years ago, generally operates in that space below the top-tier of in-state recruits who end up in the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. 

And at Kansas State, which briefly became a recruiting brand name when it made Michael Beasley’s AAU coach the nation’s highest-paid assistant, Weber became an attractive candidate in 2012 not only for his resumé but his straight-arrow reputation. 

That reputation, however, came at a significant professional cost.

Even after making the NCAA championship game in 2005 with an Illinois roster that was largely constructed by his predecessor, Bill Self, Weber struggled to recruit the high-level players from Chicago. There were probably a bunch of reasons for that. But the bottom line is that Sherron Collins went to Kansas, Derrick Rose went to Memphis and Anthony Davis went to Kentucky, stripping Weber of any benefit of the doubt. Even Iman Shumpert, whom Weber started recruiting early and was Illinois’ campus numerous times during his recruitment, went to Georgia Tech. 

The criticism from fans was severe, and perhaps deserved. In recruiting, you either get the big-time local player or you don’t. And the players Illinois ended up with got them one NCAA tournament victory in Weber’s last four seasons. 

“I just try to do it the right way,” he said. “At Purdue, years and years as an assistant we got a lot of kids that weren’t top-100 that ended up in the NBA. We did the same at Southern Illinois, took it to the Sweet 16 with guys that weren’t even recruited by other Division I schools. Illinois, we did some special things, had some guys play in the NBA. I just tried to do it right, the way I feel it should be done.”

Even at Kansas State, fans have been uncomfortable with Weber throughout his tenure. He wasn’t a popular hire by former athletics director John Currie. And after Frank Martin was able to attract some higher-end talent to Manhattan, Kan., Weber’s approach hasn’t exactly turned the recruiting world on its ear. 

Kansas State Wildcats forward Xavier Sneed rises to shoot against Kentucky Wildcats guard Quade Green.

Dean Wade, Kansas State’s currently injured big man, was the 106th-best player in the 2015 class, according to rivals.com. Xavier Sneed, the versatile 6-5 wing who scored 22 points against Kentucky, was ranked 93rd two years ago and is just now on the periphery of NBA talent evaluators. 

“I didn’t get big into recruiting, really, like numbers and rankings,” Sneed said. “But Kansas State was my first offer and they were on me since sophomore year of high school, and I loved the coaching staff here and what they were doing and felt like my game could fit in well here.” 

When Kansas State beat Kentucky on Thursday night, it was like two different versions of the same sport. On one hand, you had John Calipari’s collection of McDonald’s All-Americans. On the other, a group of players whose high school talent wouldn’t have even put them on Calipari’s recruiting board. And yet, when Kansas State was able to grind out a 61-58 win by playing to their strengths, it wasn’t even one of the three biggest upsets of this tournament. 

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have no four or five-stars on this team, so that already has a chip on our shoulder and we can compete with anybody out there,” guard Kamau Stokes said. “We’re real competitive and that makes up for a lot of things. I felt like we just wanted it more.”

For a team whose roster wasn’t highly regarded when Weber put it together, the most remarkable thing about this potential Final Four run is that it could include UMBC and Loyola, neither of whom out-recruit Kansas State. 

As challenging as it might be for Weber to get involved with top-50 recruits, Loyola doesn’t really try, focusing almost all its attention on players who project to play at the mid-major level. That comes with its own set of challenges, particularly when you recruit off high-powered Chicago teams like Simeon (where senior guard Donte Ingram played) and Whitney Young (freshman Lucas Williamson played there), where the player Loyola is evaluating may not get as many opportunities to show their ability.

“Those teams may have five, six, seven Division I players, so we’re not looking for someone who’s averaging 20 points a game but this kid knows what it takes to win and is part of a winning culture that’s just as important as stats,” assistant coach Bryan Mullins said. “I think our guys can play on a lot of high major teams. Our guys have proved it.”

And the best part is, there’s probably little danger of having to take down the banner.

“I’ll be honest, I want to recruit top-100 players,” Loyola coach Porter Moser said. “But I think we’re getting very good players, but we’ve never been a team of recruiting a number because it’s rated this or that for your fan base. We’ve gotten guys that fit what we do. And we’re going to continue to recruit at a high level, but we believe there’s a certain way to do it. We’re going to obviously follow the rules and do it the right way.”

This year, that might carry a little more weight than normal.

 

Featured Weekly Ad