Johnny Orr's Recruits

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Bobber

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Apr 12, 2006
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Really wonder how all of Johnny's recruits would have ranked using today's rating services? We didn't have the luxury(some would view it as a curse) back in those days.

Jeff Grayer and Fred Hoiberg were two of Johnny's biggest. Yeah Hornacek was great but a relative unknown when he came to ISU believe it or not. While he had horses, I think Johnny built a lot of his teams around what would be viewed as mediocre players in todays world.

Really wish some times we could go back to those days. Fans were easier to please and you could really savor the victory's.
 

cyclonenum1

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Nov 30, 2006
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Really wonder how all of Johnny's recruits would have ranked using today's rating services? We didn't have the luxury(some would view it as a curse) back in those days.

Jeff Grayer and Fred Hoiberg were two of Johnny's biggest. Yeah Hornacek was great but a relative unknown when he came to ISU believe it or not. While he had horses, I think Johnny built a lot of his teams around what would be viewed as mediocre players in todays world.

Really wish some times we could go back to those days. Fans were easier to please and you could really savor the victory's.

I disagree. Many of Johnny's top recruits were being recruited by other elite schools...we were competing with teams like Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Illinois, and Memphis State for recruits on a regular basis. All of these programs were very strong back in the 80s. We also got quality transfers from other elite programs like Illinois.
 

khaal53

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Really wonder how all of Johnny's recruits would have ranked using today's rating services? We didn't have the luxury(some would view it as a curse) back in those days.

Jeff Grayer and Fred Hoiberg were two of Johnny's biggest. Yeah Hornacek was great but a relative unknown when he came to ISU believe it or not. While he had horses, I think Johnny built a lot of his teams around what would be viewed as mediocre players in todays world.

Really wish some times we could go back to those days. Fans were easier to please and you could really savor the victory's.

Understatement of the century. The comparison would be if John Neal was still playing in the NBA. Hornacek was a walk-on.
 

pulse

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Mar 24, 2006
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Hey never said they werent'. I'm saying the bulk of the team was made up of more "normal" kids(kinda like our team today.)

Aren't most teams made up of "normal" kids. It only takes a couple of great recruits to make a good team, with the rest being "normal".

You only remember Grayer and Hoiberg, but those 2 aren't the only good recruits Johnny got.

Sam Mack (yes Sam Mack)
Ronnie Harris
Victor Alexander
Barry Stevens
Justice Thigpen
Loren Meyer
 

Bobber

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Aren't most teams made up of "normal" kids. It only takes a couple of great recruits to make a good team, with the rest being "normal".

You only remember Grayer and Hoiberg, but those 2 aren't the only good recruits Johnny got.

Sam Mack (yes Sam Mack)
Ronnie Harris
Victor Alexander
Barry Stevens
Justice Thigpen
Loren Meyer

Thank you for proving my point. You don't have to have 10 top 150 players on a team to do well.

Back in those days we really didn't know how the players were ranked relative to other teams across the land.
 

bobh33

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Apr 11, 2006
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I would think the Sam Mack, Norman Brown, Victor Alexander class would have ranked right up there. Have to do a little "Googling" to see if and where there are old files with recruiting class rankings from those years.
 

Knownothing

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Nov 22, 2006
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Grayer would have been a 5 star
Hoiberg a low 5 star possibly high 5 star
Hurl Beachum would have been top 150
Lafester Rhodes was actually a huge recruit. Probably 4 star
Sam Mack was a huge recruit.
Big Vic was a 4 star type player.
Hornacek was a walkon but he was known. Probably a 3 star player
Barry Stevens was probably a 3 or 4 star guy. Ended up a 5 star in my book.
Ronnie Virgil 3 star type guy.
Elmer Robinson 3 or 4 star guy
Loren Meyer was a 4 star guy
Julius was probably a 2 star guy since nobody knew who he was.
 

pulse

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Mar 24, 2006
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Thank you for proving my point. You don't have to have 10 top 150 players on a team to do well.

Back in those days we really didn't know how the players were ranked relative to other teams across the land.

That was your point? It's as clear as mud in the original post, which is why everyone is giving you examples. You need 2-3 great players and then a couple of role players if you want to be good. My point is that JO recruited players, who in today's arbitrary dumb stars world that some people love, who would have been 'noticed' by the monkey recruiting sites because other top schools were looking at them too.
 
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jay moe

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Apr 10, 2006
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I would think the Sam Mack, Norman Brown, Victor Alexander class would have ranked right up there. Have to do a little "Googling" to see if and where there are old files with recruiting class rankings from those years.

Don't forget about Mark Baugh, he would have been in that class also, ended up flunking out of school.
 

cyclonenum1

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Nov 30, 2006
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Clearly, everyone is pointing out that Johnny knew how to spot and recruit talent.

Back then, you may not have had this arbitrary star system invoked by a bunch of so-called recruiting experts but you knew who your competition was and if you were recruiting a guy that was choosing between Michigan and ISU...you had a pretty good idea that the guy was a player.

Johnny also didn't waste scholarships on guys like Eikmeier...he would have a guy like that walk-on and if he proved to be good enough later he would put him on scholarship.
 

cyclonenum1

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Nov 30, 2006
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To me, it just shows how important getting a "pipeline" is...Flint, MI was pretty good to Johnny.

I totally agree with this and have stated it in other posts previously. The building of a pipeline you can count on year in and year out is a critical thing. To me part of what has been so disturbing about McDermott's recruiting to date is the randomness of it. Maybe he can build a pipeline to this Brewster Academy.
 

khaal53

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I totally agree with this and have stated it in other posts previously. The building of a pipeline you can count on year in and year out is a critical thing. To me part of what has been so disturbing about McDermott's recruiting to date is the randomness of it. Maybe he can build a pipeline to this Brewster Academy.

What about Wisconsin...most notably the Milwaukee area?
 

cjclone

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Clearly, everyone is pointing out that Johnny knew how to spot and recruit talent.


Johnny also didn't waste scholarships on guys like Eikmeier...he would have a guy like that walk-on and if he proved to be good enough later he would put him on scholarship.

There was a lot of turnover under Johnny also with some borderline players. Go look at the roster changes year to year. It has always happened. One change is the loss of the JV team that kept borderline players around. That disappeared when Johnny came, hence the turnover.
 

CyPride

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Oct 12, 2008
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Grayer would have been a 5 star
Hoiberg a low 5 star possibly high 5 star
Hurl Beachum would have been top 150
Lafester Rhodes was actually a huge recruit. Probably 4 star
Sam Mack was a huge recruit.
Big Vic was a 4 star type player.
Hornacek was a walkon but he was known. Probably a 3 star player
Barry Stevens was probably a 3 or 4 star guy. Ended up a 5 star in my book.
Ronnie Virgil 3 star type guy.
Elmer Robinson 3 or 4 star guy
Loren Meyer was a 4 star guy
Julius was probably a 2 star guy since nobody knew who he was.

Your comments lost all credibility when you gave Hornacek 3 stars. How many walk-on recruits are given 3 stars? What is that type of player given by today's recruiting services? 1 star I'd have to believe, and then if a major offers, bump to 2 stars. I am not taking anything away from Hornacek by stating such.
 
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Bobber

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Apr 12, 2006
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Hudson, Iowa
Grayer would have been a 5 star
Hoiberg a low 5 star possibly high 5 star
Hurl Beachum would have been top 150
Lafester Rhodes was actually a huge recruit. Probably 4 star
Sam Mack was a huge recruit.
Big Vic was a 4 star type player.
Hornacek was a walkon but he was known. Probably a 3 star player
Barry Stevens was probably a 3 or 4 star guy. Ended up a 5 star in my book.
Ronnie Virgil 3 star type guy.
Elmer Robinson 3 or 4 star guy
Loren Meyer was a 4 star guy
Julius was probably a 2 star guy since nobody knew who he was.

Loren Meyer a 4 star?? Oh come on..He would have been maybe a 3 star coming out of high school. Loren was very rough around the edges until his last couple years. I think ISU homerism is inflating your numbers a bit.

Good cross section however of some of Johnny's better recruits. Now divide that over the years he coaches at ISU. Roughly one highly recruited player per class. Not too much of a different pace than where we're at now.