Did you happen to notice the recruiting class that just signed? The on that was Top 25 in the nation out of 300+ DI basketball schools? The five stud players that will be here next season?
Don't fall in love with the recruiting rankings. Let's see if the hype translates into results.
Here or there?
Heath's conf records:
Arkansas
4-12
4-12
6-10
10-6
7-9
USF
3-15
4-14
9-9
3-15
12-6
1-9
Only 2 winning conf seasons out of 11.
Bad season here and there?
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Stan Heath and his staff signed a National Top 10 recruiting class for the 2003-2004 season at Arkansas. Super talented 6-7 G/F Ronnie Brewer and 6-5 G/F Olu Famutimi highlighted that class. The team went 12-16(4-12 SEC). Besides the incoming talent some of the returning guys from the previous year's team(9-19, 4-12 SEC) wasn't bad. One that comes to mind was explosive scorer 6-5 SG Jonathon Modica(wish this USF team had him).
Stan Heath and his staff signed a National Top 3 class for the 2004-2005 season. 7ft 260+ lbs 5* Center Steven Hill( Best defensive center in college I ever seen with my own eyes) Heath got Hill to commit over Kansas. I remember hearing a story over the radio where Hill's entire bedroom was filled with Kansas Jayhawks stuff including the covers on his bed. Also 4* 6-10 Darian Townes(A+ offensive skills) and 4* 6-8 Charles "The Manimal" Thomas(A better Gus Glichrist). He also signed JC All American 3* 6-5 PG Dontell Jefferson.
Stan Heath and his staff signed a National top 15 class highlighted by 3 top 100 players in 4* 6-2 combo guard Patrick Beverley(remember he attempted twice to transfer to USF), #1 JC player 4* 6-5 G/F Sonny Weems, and 5* 6-10 PF Michael Washington. Stan and his staff were able to get and keep those guys from going to Tenn and Memphis where Bruce Pearl and John Calipari were really applying the pressure. So basically Stan is the basketball version of Ron Zook??
Actually, Ron Zook had a winning conf record at UF (16-8 over 3 years) which lead to his firing at UF.
However, Zook's tenure at Illinois (only 1 winning conf season, which was a trip to the Rose Bowl out of 7, only a 32.1% conf winning percentage) does somewhat resemble Heath's tenure at USF (1 conf winning season, trip to the NCAA, 34.8% conf winning percentage).
so you're agreeing with me. Gotcha