A school should always be in recruiting battles with schools above them and schools below them. You will lose a lot more recruiting battles with schools that are performing better on the court or that have more resources than you win but you should win more against the schools that have less resources than you or that don't perform as well on the court.
It is important to realize that landing 50% of recruits is not the difference between succeeding and failing because most recruits narrow their final list of schools down to about four schools. As a result, you're looking at having a 10% success rate of recruits that put SBU on their final list.
Just because someone is offered by a top team doesn't mean they are a top recruit. Sometimes schools just have a spot to fill. This list shows how many kids end up picking the wrong school and decide to leave.
espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10702122/tracking-every-transfer-2014-offseason-college-basketballI would rather steal Bucknell's top recruit that they wanted to build their team around than to steal a guy that Texas thought could add depth.
If SBU brings in four recruits every year, it would make sense that one recruit was also courted by other A10 schools or school from major conferences while other recruits are from conferences below SBU. Recruits ability and potential, I would argue, is distributed in a bell shaped curve. Once you get out of the top guys a lot of the recruits are of similar levels. At that point, it is more about what guy fits the culture and system so that the coaches can get the most out of them. Remember, your five starters are the biggest impact on your team. So if you can compete with the ACC or Pac12 and land one of their recruits every year you will have four starters that are elite recruits. The remainder of the roster should be filled with talented guys to complement them.
With a four year recruiting cycle having a talent distribution like this, I am confident SBU would put together very strong teams.
Year 1
SBU over Marquette, Boston College, Providence
SBU over Ohio, Marshall, Purdue
SBU over Dartmouth, American, Lehigh
SBU over Siena, Maine, Towson
Year 2
SBU over Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Creighton
SBU over St Marys, Fordham, Iona
SBU over Cornell, Bucknell, Rider
SBU over Marist, Winthrop, High Point
Year 3
SBU over Iowa State, SMU, Villanova
SBU over Clemson, UNLV, Penn State
SBU over Delaware, Belmont, Akron
SBU over Fairfield, Rice, Chattanooga
Year 4
SBU over Indiana, Dayton, St Johns
SBU over Richmond, Toledo, West Virginia,
SBU over Mercer, Denver, Santa Clara
SBU over Robert Morris, Kent State, Monmouth