It’s true that Hatten had some highly ranked players, but this should serve as proof that sometimes the rankings are wrong.
Ingram is one of the worst starters we’ve ever had. Right up there with Heron and Bangura. Hatten was better off with Stanley starting. At least he knew he couldn’t shoot.
Willie Shaw was lazy and highly overrated. He didn’t hold a candle to Ben Gordon. Some guys are good to get high and play. He wasn’t.
Glover was a top 50 recruit. Ok.
But Ponds has Clark, Simon and Keita who were all top 100. I don’t think there was such a difference talent wise. It’s not like we had NBA players surrounding Hatten. He was only player any opposing team ever had to worry about. No one said, we gotta stop Elijah Ingram. Thankfully, his cell phone provider came through when he needed it to.
Rankings aren’t always right, but you can’t call all those players misses. Glover was a manchild. Ingram has a solid career and was ranked higher because he was just so ready. Cuffe averaged 8.1 pts 5.0 boards, screened his ass off, defended, shot 47% from the field at a listed 6’9 243 over four years. How much do people expect at #63?
Even beyond those highly ranked guys, Hatten’s teams had huge bodies all over. Mo Diakate, Abe the rat Keita, Curtis Johnson, Grady Reynolds, Anthony Glover, Donald Emanuel, Kyle Cuffe, and Eric King. And those guys actually took care of their screening and rebounding duties. We took that for granted back then before the Sampsons and Clarkes. Marvin was not a too 100 recruit fwiw.
There is something to be said of full rosters too. Imagine a 10-14 on the roster (in a 13 scholarship league) of Tim Doyle, Tristan Smith, Curtis Johnson, and Andre Stanley with Ponds or Harrison? You could argue that 3/4 of of those guys were better ball-handlers and passers than anyone Ponds had. Justin Simon was awful as the second ball-handler. Perhaps the worse in the history of the Big East conference.
And Sharif Fordham was a beast who wasn’t ranked at all. It goes both ways.
We took a lot of stuff for granted 2001-2003. We just won the Big East and were pulling out huge recruiting classes left and right. Defense, screening, physicality...it was all expected then.