So many of these kids weren't priorities for Minnesota. 2017 is a great example. Gophers wanted Theo John and they missed on him and he went to Marquette, Gophers wanted Jericho Sims and they missed on him and he went to Texas. Nate Reuvers was in that class. He was 3rd on our list of bigs in state in 2017 and ended up going to Wisconsin. If they landed Theo or Jericho, nobody would have cared about Reuvers. That same class contained Brad Davision who was behind Washington and Wrirght in the Gophers pecking order at guard and probably more guys after that. I still don't blame the staff for taking Washington, but the issue is the other scholarship in that class ended up going to Jamir Harris. So we end up comparing Jamir Harris to a Nate Reuvers or a Brad Davision at Wisconsin instead of a Jericho Sims (NBA player currently) or Theo John (long time college starter). Our problems have much more often been about losing out on guys we priortized over the kids who ended up at Wisconsin and then our plan c/d types have been universally terrible. The Diedhiou' s, Gilbert's, Freeman's, Mitchell's, and Williamses in recent years and you could even go back to guys like Kerry Wooldridge or Engen Nurumbi. Pretty much every kid we've recruited with a questionable offer list and/or low ranking has not been able to play at this level.
We have an issue keeping kids at home, because staying home is all we have to sell. The pitch sucks because Johnson (and Pitino before him) have nothing to sell. They don't have their own resume, and they aren't piggybacking off a successful prior coach. We can't sell winning, we can't sell developing pros, all we can sell is stay home and play in front of your family because we need you. Tubby came in and immediately got kids because of his resume. Royce, Rodney, Colton from South Dakota, then Trevor transferred in. We're asking kids to essentially do us a favor by staying home instead of presenting this as the best place for them to further their basketball aspirations. Even in Ben Johnson's statements about Asuma a week or two ago, he talked about being "lucky" to have Asuma stay home.