This Thursday brings a mail call along with it, as national analyst Rob Cassidy turns to Twitter (aka X) to field questions from around the recruiting world. This week, he explores Kansas State’s recruiting strategy, Indiana’s wait for good news and how worried Rutgers should be about losing out on Dylan Harper.
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More: High-profile programs that are still looking for their first 2024 commit
2024 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position
2025 Rankings: Top 130
2026 Rankings: Top 65
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As you well know, there’s some serious smoke between Kansas State and Patrick Ngongba. He’s the program’s priority target, and I think the staff rightfully believes they have a good chance at actually landing him.
I understand how it looks. Standing toe-to-toe with Duke, UConn and Kentucky is imposing, but the fact that the Wildcats are slated to get his final visit on Oct. 27 is cause for optimism. Should that visit actually take place and not get canceled at the 11th hour, as some final visits tend to do, I think Jerome Tang and company have a much greater than 50 percent chance to come out on top. I don't know how to do this kind of research, but I suspect that programs getting the final official visit from a prospect that has already been on campus in the past have a sky-high win rate.
Anyway, Duke has publicly committed to taking fewer high schoolers and already has a pair of freshmen in the fold for 2024, not to mention its pursuit of No. 1 overall prospect Cooper Flagg. I see Kentucky and UConn as the bigger threats, and there’s no telling what happens in Lexington this season. Groans about John Calipari will definitely grow louder if the Wildcats and their No. 1 recruiting class get off to another clunky start. Ngongba is not a lock to Kansas State, Nobody is saying that, but I think the Wildcats have a much better chance than some assume.
As for limiting class size, I’m of the opinion that any hard rule is probably a bad rule.
Every cycle is its own unique beast, and the class of 2024 is almost universally believed to be a bad class when it comes to overall depth. Contrast that with the classes of 2025 and 2026, and it’s night and day. I think it’s wise to go small this year if you fail to land impact guys, as the next two crops of high school talent are much stronger, leaving more game-changing talent to go around. It makes no sense to take a player for the sake of taking a high schooler in the transfer portal era, especially when you know there are talent-rich classes coming down the pipe. The class of 2025 is solid, but 2026 seems loaded.
That’s all to say recruiting in the NIL/transfer portal era is about staying flexible from both a scholarship and approach standpoint. Tang has shown that he is willing to try to strike the right balance and not lock into a specific approach.
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I’ll pass along the words of somebody in the know.
“It’s probably still going to be Rutgers, but Bill Self is a gangster. If he gets on (Kansas’) campus, It might be bad news (for Rutgers).”
The quote isn’t mine. It was said to me by somebody close to the situation, and it’s hard to argue with the sentiment.
Dylan Harper visiting other schools is certainly less than ideal for head coach Steve Pikiell and company, but based on what I’ve heard I wouldn’t sweat Auburn or Duke nearly as much as I would Kansas for the time being. If you’re Rutgers, you can live with him visiting the first two. If he gets on campus in Lawrence for KU’s Late Night in the Phog event as has been rumored, things could get sticky.
In the end, I think Harper still lands at Rutgers. Bill Self shouldn’t be taken lightly, however, and that’s an evergreen statement.
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Indiana fans are already on Liam McNeeley watch, and for good reason. That’s where my focus would be in the wake of his second official visit. He’s the top target and also the most likely of Mike Woodson’s priority recruits to land in Bloomington. That all goes without saying.
Outside of that, it probably qualifies as good news that I keep hearing about the Hoosiers “making a charge” with Boogie Fland. Fland’s recruitment is not anywhere near its conclusion, but somebody close to the five-star guard recently told me that they see Kentucky, Indiana and Alabama as the teams to watch closely as things stand right now.
I’m completely enthralled by the Hoosiers this cycle because of the sheer number of elite prospects for which they have become serious players. That also makes watching how this all shakes out down the stretch a bit dramatic. I’m a sucker for late-cycle drama … always have been.
I ultimately think good news will come. Logically, the Hoosiers will land at least one of McNeeley, Fland or Derik Queen. If they fail to, it’s probably best for you to never again think about the resources the program dumped into chasing them only to come up empty.
