SerArthurDayne said:
Don't really follow Basketball recruiting much, but that is great news. It would be nice to have a consistently good team again. My only fear with such highly touted prospects is that they will almost inevitably be 1-and-done, and Florida doesn't have the recruiting ability to cope with that type of turnover.
Even if Beal is 1-and-done, Billy has recruited a nice complement of players who won't be leaving early for the NBA as far as I can tell. This time I think UF can overcome things even if Beal does eventually leave early. But that's still a long way away. Florida has Beal and Pitchford for 2011. Pitchford is a PF who will be a work in progress, so he won't leave early. He is listed at 6-9, 210 and will add size to UF (and UF needs some frontcourt bodies). Beal is awesome and I can't wait to see him at UF. He should provide instant offense.
Florida currenlty has Prather, Yeguete, Wilbekin, Young, and Larson who are all freshman. I believe Larson redshirted this year but he should be a good one. Prather, Yeguette, Wilbekin and Young have played this year, some more than other (Young and Wilbekin having played the most minutes). With the transition from freshman to sophmore there's normally a signifcant improvement, and for Wilbekin and Young I'm expecting big things next year. Prather just needs some more experience but he's definitely done well defensively and with rebounding this season (similar to Young but not quite as flashy). Hopefully Yeguette will blossom over the summer.
And then there's Mike Rossario, a transfer from Rutgers who had to sit out this year. From all accounts he'll be a great guard. So with Rossario, Walker, Boyton, Wilbekin, and Beal as the backcourt we'll be stacked next year. The frontcourt will be Murphy, Young, Larson, Pitchford, Yeguete, so that'll be the question mark for next year, since there won't be a Macklin and Young combo to work off of (Macklin offers senior leaderhsip, scoring, defense while Young is defense and energy). Murphy was coming along well early this season until his injury and ever since then he hasn't been quite the same. I think he just fell behind due to the injury and will hopefully be back in fine form next year (he hasn't been bad per se this year, but he was definitely headed to be the backup to Macklin but Young has taken that role at least for now).
All that said, if for example Patric Young decides to leave early for the NBA (he's been projected as a 1st rounder by some) and/or you have transfers from players who feel they should be starting/playing more, then the entire makeup of the team could change for the worse and the team might take a big step back. Still I think things are headed in the right direction, with a mix of players who will be around 3-4 yrs with some spinkling of highly talented players who may only stay 1-2 yrs. Also it would have been nice to have gotten Austin Rivers for 2011 in addition to Beal, but UF seems to be stable and who's to say Rivers isn't also 1-and-done player which would potentially make things difficult down the road in terms of team stability for the future with 2 recruits who may only stay a year.
Edit: Oh, and for 2012, UF has a commitment from Michael Frazier a shooting guard who's ranked highly, which is the same position as Beal, thus offering some added assurance for that position should Beal leave early.