Has Temple brought in a lot talent that a number of Big East teams say "damn, if only I coulda had him!" They and St. Josephs bring in good talent, not great and known talent, not the guys that get Scout.com and other recruiting sites writing pages of copy over.
The Temple facilities argument doesn't hold here.
Peter, I think it's a valid comparison.
It's a city school that has to compete with Nova for top local talent. Their campus isn't selling anything. It's much worse than ours. They get talented kids because Fran Dunphy has continued to build on a style that was already established.
They play the same kind of basketball now that they've played for decades.
People that call them a mid major are nuts. They play at a high major level, and they do it every year. Mid majors don't drop 40 points on a top 5 team on the road. I don't care what anyone says about their recruiting. They just gave up 41 points in one game to a bubble team.
That's ridiculous.
I see your point about Temple also being a city school, but I think they are recruiting from a different pool of athletes - one that sometimes intersects but not always. After some lean-ish years, Jay Wright recruited some top NY area players and some NJ players. I won't check up on this so tell me if I'm wrong - were any of his players in the first few years from PA? Buchanan, Sumpter, Nardi, Foye, Ray, Fraser, I'm forgetting a few...
Now he's NJ and national. That's not the pool of players Temple is drawing from.
Their campus is likely worse than St. John's. But they're competing against the non-Nova Big-5 schools, the mid-level Jersey schools and mid Atlantic schools. They're selling a strong and sustained style of gritty play, and look at their roster - guys from the Virgin Islands, Nigeria, Israel, Argentina - they're fishing everywhere for talent. It's a different recruiting game.
And they might be a major program, like a few others in the A-10, but they're not competing with the upper Big East teams for talent. If a kid they like wants to be at Louisville, and Louisville or 'Nova or U Conn wants him, that kid's off the board. I respect Temple. Just don't think they're all that similar. We can agree to disagree.