Don James and Texas High School Coaches

Posted on: May 24, 2018 at 17:41:07 CT

Pinkel followed the Don James recruiting model. James recruited Washington and then went to the area that (1) had the most talent and (2) where his team played frequently, namely California.

Pinkel reproduced that model at Mizzou. He tried to lock up the state and then went to (1) where the talent was and (2) his teams played often, i.e. Texas.

According to Pinkel's own words, he and Tiger coaches encountered some reluctance on the part of Texas high school coaches to let their best kids talk to Mizzou recruiters. Pinkel told stories of his staff being told you can talk to these kids, but not those over there with those over there being the coach's best kids. Pinkel has said it took four to five years to overcome that reluctance.

When Mizzou switched to the SEC, Pinkel switched his recruiting from Texas to the SEC states, again following the Don James model, i.e. go where there's talent and the Tigers play frequently.

When going to a new recruiting area it takes several years to become successful, see the story on Texas high school coaches above. The data for Pinkel is for the 2013 and 2014 classes. Those were two of his first three SEC classes. Tiger recruits weren't being offered by the better Texas schools because they weren't being recruited by those schools because they were in SEC states.

Odon switched back to Texas, but I would suggest that it will take several seasons for Odom and the staff to get back to where Mizzou was in Texas prior to the switch to the SEC.