He is the one to talk.
Players transferring is an epidemic. Third parties run college basketball. Everyone thinks the grass is greener. Problems travel with you.— Seth Greenberg (@SethOnHoops) April 22, 2013
Offering players after their sophomore year is like playing the futures market. Prospect collect scholarships but it means little.— Seth Greenberg (@SethOnHoops) April 22, 2013
There is a reason there are a record number of transfers. Poor evaluations and impatient players, advisors and parents.— Seth Greenberg (@SethOnHoops) April 22, 2013
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LOL! The NBA playoffs are going on right now, you think Seth regrets not recruiting Steph Curry yet?
How come Rivals says we offered him? I don't really keep up w basketball, but I checked his Rivals page.
We offered him a spot as a walk-on if I remember correctly. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.
No Seth, you're right. It's never the coaches!
It's not like he is the only one saying this stuff though. Players don't want to put the work into making a four year career. They want to come in as freshmen, look good for scouts, not get injured and leave for the NBA, although most end up in Europe. And the ones that don't catch on with a team end up not playing basketball and not have a degree.
Parents are probably the worst cause of this and yet it gets blamed on coaches, administration and other factors. We didn't get Seth because his mom said screw you Greenberg after Steph only got the walk on offer.
It takes sheer determination for a kid to go from unknown to All-American (a la Erick Green), which is part effort, part coaching, and a little bit of luck and being in the right place at the right time.
I posted this in another thread regarding Nnadi's recruitment, where people brought up the Curry brothers... figured I'd leave it here and expand on some of Greenberg's comments too:
Here's the thing on both the Curry brothers - while they were both very good high school players, there was a reason that both of them had very few offers coming out of high school. Both were small, thin guys who weren't overly athletic... that doesn't usually bode well on the college level for players becoming high-level performers. There's so many unknowns when it comes to scouting high school basketball talent, it's unfair to make the past seem like huge errors in judgment. While both the Curry brothers were great shooters in high school, does that always translate to the college game where the athletes are better (especially in the ACC conference)? Not necessarily... for all we know, getting passed over by major college programs turned Stephen & Seth players they have become.
Here's my take on the whole situation: I don't fault Greenberg for only offering Stephen a walk-on spot. People are also forgetting Munson's pedigree at the time... he was PG on one of the best teams in the nation (DeMatha) and he actually played pretty well in his one season at VT. Unfortunately, homesickness & April 16th were both factors in his decision to transfer, so there's a million 'what-if' scenarios to go through.
With all that said, there's no reason Greenberg shouldn't have offered a scholarship to Seth. After seeing the player that Stephen became at Davidson (and how he grew 2 inches in college), that should have been an indicator that Seth could have a similar career arc. Of course, we didn't offer him anything other than a walk-on spot either, so he ended up tearing it up at Liberty before transferring to Duke.
I know Greenberg has a poor reputation in the eyes of many VT fans, but he has legitimate points in his tweets. While some people are pinning his statements to his time at Tech, I think he's speaking in a much broader sense. The recruiting process IS extremely flawed and it's been compounded by the way AAU runs the high school basketball world. Sure, it's true that you get better by playing against the best players (and that's the entire principle AAU basketball is built upon), but the problems we've seen spouted on the site regarding the Thoroughbreds 7-on-7 squad are rampant in the AAU basketball sphere.
That's one of the things Greenberg means when he references "third parties" - not just that, but boosters, agents, sponsors, etc. From the time a lot of these kids start high school, there's already vultures circling around them. Elite high school school talents also have zero incentive to care about college, since there's a good chance they'll be gone after one year (maybe two if you're lucky). IMO, the college game has seriously suffered since the NBA instituted the rule that draft prospects must be one year removed from their high school graduation... I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's made a complete mockery of (and severely undermined) the NCAA's idea of the student athlete.
I could rant for ages about the problems with basketball at the high school and college level, but I'm pretty sure no one would care too much for it lol.
Sounds like he is continuing to use isolated instances at other universities to absolve him of his past mismanagement at Tech.
Lets revisit Greenberg's Resume while at Tech, courtesy of Gobbler Country:
The biggest point of contention as Weaver mentioned was attrition, both by players and coaches. During Greenberg's tenure, approximately 12 out of 34 players (figure includes all current players) transferred, were kicked off the team, or never enrolled after signing their National Letter of Intent (not including Augustus Gilchrist who wiggled his way our of his commitment by announcing the tragic events of 4/16/07 changed his mind about Tech). That is an exceedingly high number that equates to 35%. Players will transfer in basketball. Their egos will be hurt. Family illnesses or issues will pop up. Spats with coaching staffs will and do occur. Bigger programs come courting. Sometimes players just want a change of scenery. But players transferring out or not finishing at a school at that high of a rate should be considered a mass exodus and uncommon.
yeah seth is right to a point for the overall picture of college basketball, but his transfer rate while at tech and the year after was among the highest of any school. that was the reason i found it funny for him to be the one to bring it up.
He's right, impatience is a huge part of the problem. I would say the biggest part of the problem is that it is too easy to transfer. With the redshirt year never being used, a kid doesn't lose eligibility in transferring. I don't know how to fix that.
Secondly, with only 13 spots, coaches can't wait for a player to buy in to his system. If the kid doesn't commit, acts surly, starts thinking about transferring, you gotta clear the spot and try to find someone who wants to be there.
This doesn't happen in football because 85% of kids redshirt. If you want to transfer, you lose 25% or more of your remaining eligibility. The result in hoops is living with your girlfriend, she can leave much more easily than if you were married, shared a bank account, both names on the mortgage. There isn't sufficient commitment on both ends for the two parties to make it work.