There really is nothing specifically wrong with this frosh class, unless you are asking them to compete with the upperclassmen and more experienced teams that are ranked.
I think what the fans are going to see is a dropff on the B1G being the best conference 3 straight years because it's been an upgrade on talent and coaching and recruiting.....and most of the NCAA teams are stacked with impact upperclassmen.
Iowa has Garza and Bohannon as seniors or 5th year kids....Weiskamp is a top 60 kid and a junior.
Illinois has a Top 50 duo as a junior and sophomore, mixed with a couple of senior starters. Highly coveted Coleman Hawkins at Illinois, a player RU wanted, barely cracks the lineup there.
Michigan, Ohio State are the programs that have more overall talent in football and also in hoops, where the classes have more front-line talent each class that takes less time to develop but also avoided falling back in the standings by landing 2 grad transfers in Smith and Brown, who are 2 kids in their Top 7 or 8 player rotation. Michigan had a Top 60 kid that would have started at center, Colin Castleton, transfer to Florida and he's now part of their rotation.....Michigan replaced 1 top 60 kid with a 20 year old frosh, Hunter Dickinson, who was a Top 50 kid.
As far as the RU frosh or any program is how do you allow the frosh to play, make mistakes, get experience without those players winding up costing you games that would push you from a NCAA team to a NIT team??
As much as people have been critical or maybe expecting more from a Top 50-60 kid like Cliff, he's now playing on a Top 25-30 team, where every play is magnified....when Myles Johnson played his 1st 2 seasons, every mistake wasn't important because there wasn't a NCAA bid at stake. We allowed Caleb, Mathis, Myles, Baker and Harper to all grow up without any fear of it costing anything when they went 7-13 in the B1G 2 years ago....if RU went 7-13 in conference, some fans would be calling for Pikes head....
No one is saying this 2020 class is the talent level of 2018s, but there's nothing replacing game experience, even if the player is a transfer in coming from a smaller league.
I don't know what the answers will be for the Mag, Palmquist, Reiber, Cliff and Jaden Jones class that is are all technically 2020 recruits, but most teams probably play their top 8 or maybe 9 players. I think it's safe to assume Cliff and Jones are 2 of those 8 players that will play.
If you land 2 recruits in each class that make up the top 8 or 9, consider it a win.....if you don't, then you hit the transfer portal and fill in the gaps.
Keep in mind, in 1 entire class, RU landed Mathis, Harper, Caleb and Jacob Young as a transfer from Texas and the prior class was Myles Johnson (redshirt), Doucoure and Geo Baker. 2 classes (plus one of Mulcahy and now 1 piece in Cliff) make up the 8 players we play.
