Eye for talent

I’ve read ACC pundits criticizing Skinner’s recruiting. They argue that BC will need to “step up” their recruiting to compete in our new conference. I never really bought into that as Al’s style has worked in an equally competitive conference for nearly a decade. He has a great eye for talent and then implementing that talent into his system. For evidence you just need to look at his players that have made all freshmen teams.

2000 -- Troy Bell
2001 -- Ryan Sidney
2003 -- Craig Smith
2004 -- Jared Dudley
2005 -- Sean Williams
2006 -- Tyrese Rice
*Credit to Eagle Action poster Glass Slapper for compiling the list.

This run has been great and I trust Al’s eye more than most recruiting experts. There is an unknown on the horizon -- the NBA’s new age rule. This change will force the best young players back into college. Al’s been finding diamonds in the rough and inserting them during a time when the top 10 high school players are going to the NBA. Now that those same type of players will go to school (and many presumably will play in the ACC) it will be a little bit tougher to land on the All-Freshman teams. With the over all talent level improving Skinner will need to keep finding these overlooked superstars. He’ll also need to have fewer misses as competition in all of college basketball should improve.