Indiana basketball recruiting: How 'The Movement' failed and lessons learned from them

It was a mid-spring day in 2011 when the sticker arrived. It seemed like a silly purchase at the time, and it still is, but my levels of excitement led to some irrational purchases.

I ripped open the envelope and out flew a small, rectangular sticker with two words on it.

"The Movement"

Indiana's basketball recruiting classed donned the nickname, seen as the recruiting class that would put Indiana on the map. The nickname was given long before Christian Watford buried his legendary shot, before Victor Oladipo ascended to superstar status, and before Indiana was actually back.

Flash forward to present day. I recently found the sticker, unused, boxed away from multiple moves, covered in dust and forgotten along with a poster of a Lakers starting line-up composed of Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, and Metta World Peace. Sweet irony.

The 2015-16 basketball season should be the senior year for "The Movement," but the only one that's left in candy stripes is Yogi Ferrell. After promises of banners and memories, "The Movement" has only given Indiana fans misery and thoughts of "what if."

They serve as a harrowing reminder of how much pressure we put on recruiting classes filled with 17, 18, or 19 year olds. They remind us that there is still a healthy amount of projection that goes into recruiting and that potential does not always equal results.

But most importantly, they should serve as a warning for future classes at Indiana. With the possibility of a half dozen potential openings in the 2016-17 roster, the 2016 recruiting class is already being dubbed a potential superclass of their own.

But where did this class go wrong? What happened to "The Movement?" If Ferrell is all that's left, where did they end up?

Ron Patterson

If you want to figure out where it went so wrongly, you need not even look at the first season. Even during the summer preceding the 2012-13 season, Indiana fans knew that there was one too many Hoosiers on the basketball roster for scholarships available.

Fans expected Tom Crean to get creative. Maybe Jordan Hulls would give up his scholarship for his senior year. Maybe a seldom-used guard would transfer.

But none of that was needed. Despite being the second player to commit to the class and the one who promised banners, Patterson didn't qualify academically to enroll at Indiana and, in mid-August of 2012, it was revealed Patterson would not be a Hoosier.

After spending a few short months at Brewster Academy in New Jersey, Patterson accepted a scholarship offer from Syracuse for the class of 2013.

His career never got going, though, for the Orange. In just 10 games in his freshman season, he scored a total of 28 points. In his sophomore year last season, his averaged dropped from 2.8 points a game to 2.6 despite playing in 29 games.

After the season, Patterson decided to transfer, winding up at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI) where he will be immediately eligible with two seasons of eligibility remaining.

Jeremy Hollowell

After losing Patterson, the four remaining freshman transitioned into their roles at Indiana, but it wasn't always smooth. Forward Peter Jurkin and Hanner Perea each were handed multi-game suspensions and, for all intents and purposes, never made an impact in their freshman years.

With the departure of Oladipo, Hulls, and Watford on the wings following the 2012-13 season, many anticipated Jeremy Hollowell, who featured in 33 games for IU as a freshman, to step up. However, in his sophomore season, despite playing in 29 games and starting in 15 of them, only averaged 5.7 points and didn't break double digits in scoring the final three months of the season.

After the year ended, Hollowell handed in his transfer request and eventually chose Georgia State, coached by former IUPUI head man Ron Hunter. After sitting out last season per transfer rules, Hollowell will have two years of eligibility left.

Peter Jurkin

A handful of months after Hollowell departed, Peter Jurkin ended his unceremonious time at Indiana by transferring away. The big man appeared in 11 games total in two years and scored a whopping two points. Injuries hampered his time in Bloomington, but Jurkin was always seen as a project big man.

Jurkin took the farthest dive by landing at East Tennessee State University, where he sat out the 2014-15 season and will have, you guessed it, two years of eligibility left.

Hanner Mosquera-Perea

With a roster depleted of big man, the 2014-15 season was going to be a do-or-die season for Hanner Perea and, for the most part, it was the latter. While showing brief flashes of what could be, including a handful of highlight reel dunks, Perea never found consistency and averaged 6.5 points and 4.3 rebounds in 26 games, having been set back by an injured foot mid-season.

Mix a DUI arrest in 2013 and a too many "wrong place, wrong time" coincidences, the last finding Perea in the room with fellow former-Hoosier Devin Davis, who was cited for marijuana possession, and Perea was kicked off the team in late May.

Like his previous underperforming big man teammate, Perea committed to East Tennessee State where he will sit out this season before having one final year of eligibility remaining next year, officially leaving a legacy alongside Jurkin of terrible name puns and rare highlight-reel dunks.

Yogi Ferrell

Which brings us to both present day and the final, lasting member of "The Movement." Of the five, not only has Ferrell been the lone player to not underperform, but he may have succeeded expectations. Ferrell came in and started at point guard on a team with Oladipo, Watford, Hulls, Cody Zeller, and Will Sheehey.

After their departure, he led the Hoosiers to a tournament berth in 2014 and is moving up leaderboards for the Hoosiers heading into his final year.

As the last man standing, though, Ferrell is a sort of symbol for how wrongly things can go for a recruiting class. ESPN's senior recruiting analyst spoke highly of the class after Hollowell committed as the fifth and final player:

"This commitment solidifies them as a Top 5 class at worst and depending on what the others do could finish higher," Telep added. "The tough part is trying to read the country and predict when Indiana has done the most work in the junior class. Right now, they’re running their own race and collecting talent."

With 2016's recruiting class potentially shaping up to rival, or possibly even surpass, the talent of "The Movement," it's as important as ever to learn how much pressure and exceeded expectations can weigh on teenage basketball players.