is there enough bball talent in Florida?

[Guest BasketBull.]

Do you think, like football, men's bball can dig in and recruit mainly in Florida and be successful in the Big East? Or will the new coach & staff will have to go national?

I think this is the key issue for who our AD might hire. Aside from Grant, not too many of the top candidates are Florida natives.

[Cubanbull]

I think that if you look at the top players list in both sports you can see the difference between the numbers of top players in our state from both sports.

Florida is a football state and most of the better athletes grow up playing football and dreaming of the NFL not the NBA and even the better athletes in basketball are going to choose schools with big basketball traditions. Except for Florida lately our state schools have not had continuos success like they have in football.

[Cubanbull]

If you look at Rivals top 100 recruits in both sports our state has

THREE in basketball

TWELVE in football

If you look at top 50

TWO are basketball

NINE are football

[Joe]

Football  and baseball take almost all the great athletes in this state because you can play outdoors all year and there is plenty of room to have fields, etc.

You'll get good players from Florida every few years, but it is tough to build a team strictly on it. Even Florida which did tackle the state in recruiting had to rely on kids from out of state to get them to the next level (Mike Miller, Brett Nelson)

Florida State has done the same recently, mixing well.

It will be tough because the top kids in Florida usually go to one of the big 3 (mostly UF) or get picked up by another big out of state school. (Vince Carter, UNC; Darius Washington, Memphis)

[Sunil]

If you look at Rivals top 100 recruits in both sports our state has

THREE in basketball

TWELVE in football

If you look at top 50

TWO are basketball

NINE are football

I get the point and agree, but the above discrepancy isn't as bad when you figure that alot more kids are playing football than basketball in this state. I'd say that as far as recruits go, this state is so used to earning an A++ that the C (average) we get for our basketball recruits becomes that much more glaring.

Weather of course has alot to do with it, since player development increases the more a sport can be played. Outside sports in Florida can be played year round while indoor sports such as basketball and even hockey are about the only sports you can realistically play all year up north. If we're going to take the next step in Bball, we simply cannot rely on staying in-state. It'll probably take some northern/midwestern recruits with a sprinkle of more guys like Radenko Dobras   We'll have to sell kids on the beaches and girls in cowboy hats  

I think it's definitely doable...but will take time and the right leadership.

[smazza]

absolutely