The only reason I am curious is because of the recent wailing and gnashing of teeth, when I feel that the quality of our recruits has taken a quantum leap, one has to reflect upon where the program now stands vs Hinson's programs. If Lance Jones is not the best player that Barry ever signed, that I don't which other player(s) was/were better. Please bear in mind I sort of took a hiatus from Saluki bb for a few years at the end of Barry's tenure...just too painful.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
James Madison
The only reason I am curious is because of the recent wailing and gnashing of teeth, when I feel that the quality of our recruits has taken a quantum leap, one has to reflect upon where the program now stands vs Hinson's programs. If Lance Jones is not the best player that Barry ever signed, that I don't which other player(s) was/were better. Please bear in mind I sort of took a hiatus from Saluki bb for a few years at the end of Barry's tenure...just too painful.
Anthony Beane in my opinion
I wouldn't trade you Lance Jones for Beane, who was a good player but not nearly as explosive.
The only reason I am curious is because of the recent wailing and gnashing of teeth, when I feel that the quality of our recruits has taken a quantum leap, one has to reflect upon where the program now stands vs Hinson's programs. If Lance Jones is not the best player that Barry ever signed, that I don't which other player(s) was/were better. Please bear in mind I sort of took a hiatus from Saluki bb for a few years at the end of Barry's tenure...just too painful.
Anthony Beane in my opinion
Yeah, forget about him, of course if his dad was not hired as assistant, would he have ended up at Southern?
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
James Madison
Need to see how Jones' next 2 (or 3) years go to put him ahead of Beane and Fletcher IMO. Beane was the best player on a 22-10 team and averaged 19.3 PPG and made All-MVC first team. Fletcher's Junior season was really impressive and then had to take a bit of a backseat to Kavion Pippen in his Senior season.
Just an FYI
Lance came here because of an assistant and he may or may not have been here if Barry was not gone.
Beane was only here because of his dad. That’s it Barry gets no credit at all.
any of the Jucos were a last chance type of thing.
Aaron cook would probably be my guess of the best player Barry actually recruited. I have no idea if Barry had anything to do with getting him either
Barry signed Sean O'Brian right? His last 2 seasons were very impressive also. Loved the way he played the game!
I think I’d have to go with Aaron Cook, since Beane was a Beane Sr. recruit. I think Lance Jones will be the best by the end of his career here, but I’d like to give Bryan and his staff credit for keeping and developing him.
Hinson's top ten recruits was not much of a murderer's row. Jones will move up the line once his career comes to a close in a couple years.
Disclaimer - I struggled with the last two names and didn't know if I really wanted to include them on the list. And yes, I do think MR was more valuable then SOB and Pippen during his career given how bad the program was during his two years in Carbondale.
Cook
Beane
Fletcher
Lance Jones
Lloyd
Mike Rodriguez
Pippen
SOB
McGill
Leo Vincent
Twitter: CPTNDONUTS
Former WIDB Sports Director and Dawg Pound President. Since my freshmen year, SIU Basketball has not appeared in a NCAA or NIT postseason game.
I guess you can put Cook up there but he never made an All-MVC team, granted he also missed almost all of his senior season and was able to transfer to a big time program in Gonzaga, although as a bench player.
Sean O'Brien was second-team MVC in his Senior year so I'd put him behind Fletcher who was second-team MVC for 2 years.
I'm surprised Kavion Pippen was only third-team MVC in his Senior year. I guess if we cared more about what was going on with the program that year, we would have had more complaints here. KenPom had him as #5 in the MVC All-KenPom team in 2019. Seems like Pippen got a bit robbed here.
I think you have to count Beane and others that Hinson had assistants play a big role in because that happens with every coach. SIU doesn't get Marcus Domask or a few others without Pat Monaghan and yet we'll give the end result to Bryan.
My list would be:
1. Jordan Caroline*
-Just realized I forgot this one but I have to put it here even though I'm not sure at all he develops under Hinson. I'm giving this an asterisk.
-2 All-Mountain West 1st team
-1 All-Mountain West 2nd team
2. Anthony Beane
-1 All-MVC 1st team
-2 All-MVC 2nd team
-All MVC Freshmen team
3. Armon Fletcher
-2 All-MVC 2nd team
-MVC most-improved team
4. Sean O'Brien
-1 All-MVC 2nd team
5. Kavion Pippen
-2 All-MVC 3rd team
6. Aaron Cook
-Unfinished because he missed his Senior season but transferred to Gonzaga. Could have ended up higher here.
7. Bola Olaniyan
-MVC most-improved team
-Was 28th in the country in offensive rebounding % and 9th in the country in defensive rebounding % in his Junior season
-Transferred to Alabama
8. Sean Lloyd
-2 All-MVC defensive team
-MVC most-improved team
9. Mike Rodriguez
-All MVC newcomer team
10. Eric McGill
-Key player on last year's team
11. Tyler Smithpeters
-MVC sixth man of the year
-All MVC Bench Team captain
Might be missing some but this is what I came up with. For all intents and purposes, I'm counting Jordan Caroline here but I'm also not really counting him because I really doubt he's the same player if Hinson and his staff are developing him. And I'm not counting Lance Jones yet because I want to see how his career ultimately ends up. He'll need at least an MVC first team in my opinion to pass Beane.
Some of the names remind me of the speech I and my fellow trainees got the first day of Army boot camp, many moons ago. Our senior drill sergeant said "If at the end of this 8 weeks, if I hear your name and can picture your face, you've had a bad time here". Pretty much the opposite here!
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
James Madison
Wow I had forgotten about Jordan Caroline - he may be the best player to wear a Saluki uniform or was recited under Hinson/Hinson's staff, but beyond him I would have to go with:
Kavion Pippen
Anthony Beane
Lance Jones
You guys forgot Diamond Taylor!!!
Definitely not Jordan Caroline and not Dantiel Daniels. Good players but not that good. Caroline was very good as an undersized forward! Aaron Cook? Nope!
Desmar Jackson then Anthony Beane. Jackson was the most talented player since Brooks and Tatum IMO.
I didn't feel like he always played as hard as he could unfortunately. Barry might have had something to do with that!
Jackson should have been 1st team ALL-MVC his senior year. 2nd in the league in scoring, 1st in steals! Freshman All-American.
His sr. year, Anthony Beane had a few games where he looked like a 1st team All-American .... as did Jackson.
Then guys like Lance, Sean O'Brien, Armon Fletcher, Kavion Pippen!
You guys forgot Diamond Taylor!!!
Definitely not Jordan Caroline and not Dantiel Daniels. Good players but not that good. Caroline was very good as an undersized forward! Aaron Cook? Nope!
Desmar Jackson then Anthony Beane. Jackson was the most talented player since Brooks and Tatum IMO.
I didn't feel like he always played as hard as he could unfortunately. Barry might have had something to do with that!
Jackson should have been 1st team ALL-MVC his senior year. 2nd in the league in scoring, 1st in steals! Freshman All-American.
His sr. year, Anthony Beane had a few games where he looked like a 1st team All-American .... as did Jackson.
Then guys like Lance, Sean O'Brien, Armon Fletcher, Kavion Pippen!
Dantiel Daniels and Desmar Jackson were Lowery commits that stayed on when Hinson took over.
In terms of Jordan Caroline, he averaged 17.7 PPG and 8.6 RPG per game on a team that went to the Sweet 16. Again though, probably doesn't develop the same way under Hinson considering he was not even close to the same player in his Freshman year.
One of the more frustrating things I'd personally witnessed over a lifetime as a Saluki fan was watching Hinson roll Caroline out there exclusively as a 5. Anyone could see he was clearly nothing close to a center. He was best suited as a 3 or 4, like he was at Nevada.
Barry and his staff could recruit some talented, athletic players from time to time. Imagine how some of the kids he brought in would look on this current team; Caroline, Fletcher, Pippen, Bol(when healhy), etc. His biggest problem recruiting-wise is he couldn't piece together a truly solid class at any one point. He either swung and missed, or just set the bar way too low to begin with.
That said, his problems went well beyond recruiting. There's no logical reason for a Pippen/Fletcher senior led team to have finished with a similar W/L record to Bryan's first squad.
--Insert something witty here--
