I was excited about Angel and Upshaw. But, the reality is that Angel and Upshaw were Frank Martin crown jewel recruits. Upshaw, by Frank's own admission was a huge project that would take a few years to develop. And Angel might be a 2nd or 3rd team conference PG by the time he's a senior.
I didn't see Frank's recruiting improving. Assuming one gives Frank credit for McGruder, Russell, Judge, Pullen, it's near impossible to argue that he was improving upon his early recruiting success.
The fact is that Huggins gave us 5* players. Frank and Te followed that wave with Judge and some 4* players. Te left and Frank was bringing in quality 3* players - swinging and missing on all in-state talent (perry ellis, willy cauley, semi ojeleye). I'm not gonna slam him for losing players to Duke, KU, Kentucky, etc., but it's still dissapointing when they're in-state guys.
Mo-Kan sources were reporting that Frank was a nightmare to deal with on the recruiting trail.
Maybe Frank had some Elite talent in the pipeline. I don't think so. Frank did a great job with the talent he produced. But, I think back to that Baylor game in the BigXII tournament when Baylor mopped the floor with us and I remember thinking... we just don't have the athletes.
Will Weber do a better job recruiting? I have my doubts. But I'm willing to call a spade a spade. Martin was a pretty average recruiter without Te and I didn't see it getting better by leaps and bounds.
What I give Frank credit for was realizing that he had gritty 3* guys and molding them into a JYC team of brawlers that out defended and out rebounded teams into winning conference records every year. It was ugly as crap to watch and, oftentimes, not very entertaining. But, the results were there. What scares me is that Weber won't be able to recruit the type of talent to Manhattan that will be necessary to pull off a more "pure" style of basketball, i.e. better ball handlers, shooters, passers. Who knows, maybe we'll play the same JYC style that Martin reverted to. I doubt it.
