How would you grade Pitino's first full recruiting class? Mason, Morris, Martin, etc.

How would you grade Pitino's first full recruiting class? Mason, Morris, Martin, etc.

  • A

    Votes: 3 4.2%
  • B

    Votes: 8 11.3%
  • C

    Votes: 24 33.8%
  • D

    Votes: 31 43.7%
  • F

    Votes: 5 7.0%

  • Total voters
    71

BleedGopher

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
60,588
Reaction score
15,671
Points
113
We often grade recruiting classes at time of signing, and a few people will say "I'll let you know when their careers are over." Well, we are essentially at that point. Pitino's first full recruiting class was Nate Mason, Bakary Konate, Josh Martin, Carlos Morris and Gaston Diedhiou. What grade would you give this class?
 

Mason - A
Konate - C
Gaston - D
Martin - F
Morris - D

Average - C-


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Grades

Mason-A
Konate-C
Martin-D
Morris-D
Diedhiou-D

C-/D+



We often grade recruiting classes at time of signing, and a few people will say "I'll let you know when their careers are over." Well, we are essentially at that point. Pitino's first full recruiting class was Nate Mason, Bakary Konate, Josh Martin, Carlos Morris and Gaston Diedhiou. What grade would you give this class?
 

I would say a C because Nate Mason was special. The rest of the class was meh
 

Mason-A
Konate-C
Martin-D
Morris-D
Diedhiou-D

C-/D+

Agreed. Two guys he barely knew. One who turned out to be a great player. One who never fit in and pouted (Morris) and one who didn't have the talent or fortitude to play high major basketball (Martin). In my opinion, this was basically a disaster. He shot for the moon and landed in the Indian Ocean. He should have id'd solid guys and citizens who would form a base for future more talented classes (like Belein did). One solid four year player out of four is not good. Thankfully the recruiting is getting much better. Mason and Murphy came in as top 150 and really over performed their ratings. I think that's something they can sell.
 


Agreed. Two guys he barely knew. One who turned out to be a great player. One who never fit in and pouted (Morris) and one who didn't have the talent or fortitude to play high major basketball (Martin). In my opinion, this was basically a disaster. He shot for the moon and landed in the Indian Ocean. He should have id'd solid guys and citizens who would form a base for future more talented classes (like Belein did). One solid four year player out of four is not good. Thankfully the recruiting is getting much better. Mason and Murphy came in as top 150 and really over performed their ratings. I think that's something they can sell.
The Indian Ocean is a highly underrated body of water. [emoji56] [emoji305] [emoji290]
 

Mason A+
Konate C
Gaston F
Martin F
Morris C

Overall C-

By far his worst class, but that’s to be expected.
 

Any class that produces a player that becomes one of the school's all time leaders in both scoring and assists deserves a bare minimum of a C.
 

As usual GopherHole consensus grading seems way too lenient. This is either a D or an F class depending on how highly you regarding landing one good player in Nate Mason. The class had 5 commitments and only 1 was capable of starting on an average B1G team. I am baffled by those who chose to grade the individual recruits and came up with a "D" for Gaston Diedhiou. Gaston is the worst player to retain a scholarship for four years in my more than 20 years of following the program closely. He might be a great person, but he had no business being on a B1G roster and Pitino would regularly put in walk-ons before Gaston in garbage time. Bakary Konate vacillated between being unusable and a serviceable 10 minute a game type backup type. A disappointment for a scholarship, but not a Gaston or Josh Martin type disaster In a hypothetical world where the Gophers brought in this type of class repeatedly, they would have nice comfortable spot playing in the opening round of the B1G tournament on a yearly basis. To be fair to Pitino, this class didn't look terrible when he recruited it. A lot of schools missed on Josh Martin who ended up transferring way down to Cal Poly and not really being a stand out there. If Martin lived up to his recruiting profile and was a starting caliber PF, this class would have been in the C+ -B range.

I think the true answer is this class is probably a D-, but I've got to pull this GopherHole average down so I'll go with an F.
 



As usual GopherHole consensus grading seems way too lenient. This is either a D or an F class depending on how highly you regarding landing one good player in Nate Mason. The class had 5 commitments and only 1 was capable of starting on an average B1G team. I am baffled by those who chose to grade the individual recruits and came up with a "D" for Gaston Diedhiou. Gaston is the worst player to retain a scholarship for four years in my more than 20 years of following the program closely. He might be a great person, but he had no business being on a B1G roster and Pitino would regularly put in walk-ons before Gaston in garbage time. Bakary Konate vacillated between being unusable and a serviceable 10 minute a game type backup type. A disappointment for a scholarship, but not a Gaston or Josh Martin type disaster In a hypothetical world where the Gophers brought in this type of class repeatedly, they would have nice comfortable spot playing in the opening round of the B1G tournament on a yearly basis. To be fair to Pitino, this class didn't look terrible when he recruited it. A lot of schools missed on Josh Martin who ended up transferring way down to Cal Poly and not really being a stand out there. If Martin lived up to his recruiting profile and was a starting caliber PF, this class would have been in the C+ -B range.

I think the true answer is this class is probably a D-, but I've got to pull this GopherHole average down so I'll go with an F.

I agree with most of this. Mason is an A. Everyone else is a D or F. Overall it's a D.
 

Any class that produces a player that becomes one of the school's all time leaders in both scoring and assists deserves a bare minimum of a C.

Except that the other 4 are heaping piles of manure as basketball players. Although I'm sure they are all great young men...:rolleyes:

Martin was here for 2 weeks. Morris was kicked off. Diedhiou couldn't get off the bench. And Konate was unwatchable and largely unproductive.

D. Maybe D-
 

Mason - A - 4
Konate - D - 1
Morris - D - 1
Diedhiou - F - 0
Martin - F - 0

Avg = 1.2 - D
 

Mason - A
Konate - D
Morris - C, he was an average contributor during his time. Above average in shots jacked up.
Diedhoiu - F
Martin - W, since he left prior to contributing he doesn’t count in the calculation [emoji848]

Gives an overall grade of 1.75, still a D unless you round, then it’s a C.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



Mason - A+
Konate - D+
Morris - B-/C+
Diedhoiu - F (A for attitude)
Martin - W
 

Mason - A-
Konate - D+
Morris - D
Martin - F
Diedhoiu - F

Overall - D.

A very bad class.
 


Give a strong b+ on Mason alone as that first class is the toughest.
 


Martin cost us one year. Morris cost us a couple (and was a contributor for most of that time). Konate was below average for 4 years, and Diedhouy was bad for 4 years. That those two didn’t reach their potential hurt the most. Can’t undervalue the level of Mason’s play, though. I give the class a C+.
 

Hmmm...three busts, one near bust and one stellar player. Put that together and you can't give the recruiting class anything higher than a "D."
 

I give them a "D".

Mason is a B+ because of his streaky shooting and too much hero ball.

The rest are D level despite their attitudes and personalities.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

I gave them a B solely because of Mason.

Basketball is a sport won by star players and this class produced our first All Big Ten performer since 2005. I don't care how horrible the other 4 guys turned out, this was not a bad first class for Pitino. And even though Morris did get himself kicked off, he did average virtually double digit scoring figures (9.8, and 11.1) in both years.
 

Hmmm...three busts, one near bust and one stellar player. Put that together and you can't give the recruiting class anything higher than a "D."

In the first class you can. Pretty hard to find one really good player in your first class. Recruiting has not been my concern except for character. I think you have to go character first no matter what.
 

I gave them a B solely because of Mason.

Basketball is a sport won by star players and this class produced our first All Big Ten performer since 2005. I don't care how horrible the other 4 guys turned out, this was not a bad first class for Pitino. And even though Morris did get himself kicked off, he did average virtually double digit scoring figures (9.8, and 11.1) in both years.

And how much winning happened in the last 4 years?
 

If you had a class like that every year...you would be last place in the Big Ten after 4 years...because you would have 4 good players and your 5th best player would be Bakary Konate.

So that is an F to me.
 

I'd also give a D for the class. Mason has been good. He's great offensively. Defensively though, he is borderline terrible.

The rest of that class was roughly D2 players or fringe D1 guys. Bad class. Also, add in the fact that year you had Jones, Macura and Travis in-state and you didn't sniff one of them. Sign one of those 3 and that class could have been darn good. Instead you brought in guys that don't belong in the Big Ten.
 

This is right on. Its sad for Nate that we didn't recruit another big ten caliber player to go along with him and his great career.
 

I'd also give a D for the class. Mason has been good. He's great offensively. Defensively though, he is borderline terrible.

The rest of that class was roughly D2 players or fringe D1 players

Hahah. Good one. Morris wasn't a fan favorite, but no doubt a D1 player.

Martin is doing fine... Just not the stud some assumed from highlight videos.
 

Hahah. Good one. Morris wasn't a fan favorite, but no dought a D1 player.

Martin is doing fine... Just not the stud some assumed from highlight videos.

No, no, someone who averages 10-11 points in the Big Ten should definitely be playing D2 ball. :rolleyes:
 

No, no, someone who averages 10-11 points in the Big Ten should definitely be playing D2 ball. :rolleyes:

Morris was terrible. Just a ball hog that took terrible shots. I guess he was a D1 player, but he hurt the team more than helped it most the time. Either way,
fringe D1 is what they turned out to be. Remember, he was dismissed from the team also...
 




Top Bottom