In Reply to: Cronin's UCLA recruiting history posted by Dr.Bruin on April 21, 2026 at 00:25:12
disingenuous.
There may be valid reasons for it—he does seem more focused on the transfer portal—but high school recruiting hasn’t been at the same level since 2022. Last year, the argument was made that high school recruiting didn’t matter as much, with the example that Duke was one of the few teams with a 5-star recruit making a major impact. At the time, that felt like a reasonable point.
That said, this year looked a bit different. Many of the top teams had at least one freshman contributing in meaningful ways, and some had multiple. That shift makes the earlier argument a little harder to fully buy into.
I think it’s still an open question whether you can consistently succeed without high-level high school recruits. Cronin appears to be leaning more into bringing in younger players through the portal. That could be a strategic choice to find and develop talent in a different way, or it could reflect challenges in landing certain high school prospects—it’s hard to say from the outside.
Either way, it’s an approach that’s worth keeping an eye on moving forward.