2012-13 Preseason Top 20

[Vowelguy]

1. Baylor
2. UConn
3. Duke
4. Kentucky - Mathies/Goss/Walker + transfer Stallworth
5. Maryland - return 4/5 starters + Malina Howard
6. Stanford - Nneka loss is huge, but return the rest
7. Notre Dame - Diggins/McBride/Achonwa + Loyd
8. Louisville - return 4/5 + 2 injured stars
9. Penn St - return 4/5
10. Vanderbilt - everyone back
11. Cal - everyone back
12. Kansas - all key players from S16 run back + injured Davis
13. Georgia - return 4/5; finally live up to expectations?
14. Nebraska - return 4/5
15. Oklahoma - all starters back
16. Delaware
17. West Virginia - all starters back
18. Tennessee
19. St Johns - Lose Stevens, but rest are back
20. Rutgers - Lose 3, but some good frosh coming

Also: LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma St, Ohio St

 

[MilfordHusky]

Thanks for the info on the returning starters.

Prince should help Baylor.

Our kids will be contributors.

Duke gets Alexis Jones plus Wells and Henson back.

Delaware has all starters back.

Is Southern Cal ready to break out?

Does TAMU add a class of 6?

 

[uconnbaseball]

I feel Oklahoma will be better than Kansas. I can also see Marist making a run at the top 20...they return everyone.

 

[easttexastrash]

Thanks for the info on the returning starters.

Prince should help Baylor.

Our kids will be contributors.

Duke gets Alexis Jones plus Wells and Henson back.

Delaware has all starters back.

Is Southern Cal ready to break out?

Does TAMU add a class of 6?

Baylor will be adding a second strong contributor. Mariah Chandler is going to be excellent. I watched her a lot in drills at the Final Four and she looks very fast and strong. Pope may have trouble getting minutes next year.

 

[easttexastrash]

Thanks for the info on the returning starters.

Prince should help Baylor.

Our kids will be contributors.

Duke gets Alexis Jones plus Wells and Henson back.

Delaware has all starters back.

Is Southern Cal ready to break out?

Does TAMU add a class of 6?

TAMWHO?

 

[Coler]

Tennessee will be very thin inside.

 

[Vowelguy]

Does TAMU add a class of 6?

Yup. The #9, #14, #29, #31 + 2 other top 75 recruits. A dynamite class, but tough to integrate all those frosh at once.

 

[meyers7]

Yup. The #9, #14, #29, #31 + 2 other top 75 recruits. A dynamite class, but tough to integrate all those frosh at once.

#9 Courtney Williams (McDs AA) 6-1
#14 Jordan Jones (McDs AA) 5-6
#29 Peyton Little 5-10
#31 Courtney Walker 5-8
#45 Chelsea Jennings 5-9
#72 Curtyce Knox 5-6

Lot's of guards, but they will have Bone (6-5), Karla Gilbert (6-5) and Rachel Mitchell (6-7) for size. Bone and Gilbert were also McDs AA.

 

[sarals24]

I think TAMU will be better next year. They couldn't handle having a target on their back, I don't think. That's gotta be tough. Those six players will be very good, and Gary Blair is a graet coach.

It will be interesting to see how their defense changes or suffers without Vic. And playing in the SEC could be challenging, especially against teams like UK who play tough perimeter D.

 

[Vowelguy]

By conference:

ACC: Duke (3), Maryland (5)
BE: UConn (2), Notre Dame (7), Louisville (8), St Johns (19), Rutgers (20)
BXII: Baylor (1), Kansas (12), Oklahoma (15), W Va (17), Okla St
B10: Penn St (9), Nebraska (14), Ohio St
PAC: Stanford (6), Cal (11)
SEC: Kentucky (4), Vandy (10), Georgia (13), Tenn (18), TAMU, LSU
Oth: Delaware (16)

 

[UConnCat]

I think TAMU will be better next year. They couldn't handle having a target on their back, I don't think. That's gotta be tough. Those six players will be very good, and Gary Blair is a graet coach.

It will be interesting to see how their defense changes or suffers without Vic. And playing in the SEC could be challenging, especially against teams like UK who play tough perimeter D.

I'm not sure TAMU will be better next year. It was a team that sometimes struggled to score and loses its #1 and #4 scorers in White and Carter; I don't think you can count on freshman to replace those points. Its defense was good but not great last season and losing Schaefer will no doubt hurt.

 

[asuwish]

1. Baylor
2. UConn
3. Duke
4. Kentucky - Mathies/Goss/Walker + transfer Stallworth
5. Maryland - return 4/5 starters + Malina Howard
6. Stanford - Nneka loss is huge, but return the rest
7. Notre Dame - Diggins/McBride/Achonwa + Loyd
8. Louisville - return 4/5 + 2 injured stars
9. Penn St - return 4/5
10. Vanderbilt - everyone back
11. Cal - everyone back
12. Kansas - all key players from S16 run back + injured Davis
13. Georgia - return 4/5; finally live up to expectations?
14. Nebraska - return 4/5
15. Oklahoma - all starters back
16. Delaware
17. West Virginia - all starters back
18. Tennessee
19. St Johns - Lose Stevens, but rest are back
20. Rutgers - Lose 3, but some good frosh coming

Also: LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma St, Ohio St

Baylor has 5 recruits and only 3 seniors? are Pope and Williams coming back? Does Baylor go 80-0? The only teams I see in the country with enough size and skill on paper to play Griner are Uconn, Stanford and Duke.
Baylor has 5 recruits, but only 1 ranked above #43. They will need to cash in on their championship the same way A&M did with a great class to replace Griner & co.
Does Uconn full court press they whole game like in 2000? like back then their second 5 would be a top 20 team. If KLM replaces Hayes as a starter, you could have the 3 freshman, Stokes, and Banks as a second unit, and I believe Buck and Johnson could start at some Div 1 schools. Press, press press!
Notre Dame has 3, 5'9" guards coming in and only have 2 players over 6'1". They will be very small with no post depth next year.
Stanford has the opposite problem. They get 6'3" and 6'5" recruits but no guards. They will have 8 players 6'3" or taller. Whatever happened to balanced recruiting. I forget which team I saw has 5 recruits that cover all positions 1-5. You need depth everywhere to win.

 

[Vowelguy]

Baylor has 5 recruits and only 3 seniors? are Pope and Williams coming back? Does Baylor go 80-0? The only teams I see in the country with enough size and skill on paper to play Griner are Uconn, Stanford and Duke.
Baylor has 5 recruits, but only 1 ranked above #43. They will need to cash in on their championship the same way A&M did with a great class to replace Griner & co.
Does Uconn full court press they whole game like in 2000? like back then their second 5 would be a top 20 team. If KLM replaces Hayes as a starter, you could have the 3 freshman, Stokes, and Banks as a second unit, and I believe Buck and Johnson could start at some Div 1 schools. Press, press press!
Notre Dame has 3, 5'9" guards coming in and only have 2 players over 6'1". They will be very small with no post depth next year.
Stanford has the opposite problem. They get 6'3" and 6'5" recruits but no guards. They will have 8 players 6'3" or taller. Whatever happened to balanced recruiting. I forget which team I saw has 5 recruits that cover all positions 1-5. You need depth everywhere to win.

Among Baylor's top 7, just 1 is graduating. Their frosh will have able time to develop. I don't think anyone has the talent to challenge them, except UConn.

Geno doesn't play 10. Though certainly we'll have more bodies and will be able to press more.

Stanford has no guards? Kokenis (So), Orrange (Fr), Camp (Fr) are all pretty good & gaining experience -- the latter started before she was injured.

 

[bertieboy]

Looking at where Uconn recruits have been ranked it seems to me that a WCBB team will not win a championship unless they recruit players 1-4. They need at least 2 or three of them. This doesn't always hold true but consider Tina Charles/Maya Moore. Now project where we would be if EDD, rated #1 out of high school, had actually stayed with us.

This is just a long winded way of saying that I don't see TAM's 6 recruits numbered 9-72 making that team really good.

 

[Vowelguy]

Looking at where Uconn recruits have been ranked it seems to me that a WCBB team will not win a championship unless they recruit players 1-4. They need at least 2 or three of them. This doesn't always hold true but consider Tina Charles/Maya Moore. Now project where we would be if EDD, rated #1 out of high school, had actually stayed with us.

This is just a long winded way of saying that I don't see TAM's 6 recruits numbered 9-72 making that team really good.

What were the HS rankings of the players that won the title last year for TAMU?

 

[TrumbullHusky]

I feel Oklahoma will be better than Kansas. I can also see Marist making a run at the top 20...they return everyone.

Marist graduates their best player and the MAAC player of the year, Corielle Yarde.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Baylor has 5 recruits and only 3 seniors? are Pope and Williams coming back? Does Baylor go 80-0? The only teams I see in the country with enough size and skill on paper to play Griner are Uconn, Stanford and Duke.
Baylor has 5 recruits, but only 1 ranked above #43.

That recruit just did really well in the high school All-American games.
And Alexis Prince is ranked 10th by Blue Star, 16th by ESPN Hoopgurlz, and 9th by ASGR. She will be an impact player. As for the others, Fuqua is ranked 35th by ASGR, while Brown is ranked 34th by Blue Star.

As long as Mulkey gets a top post in the 2013 class (or an impact transfer), Baylor will continue to roll.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Also, I expect Notre Dame to drop out of the top ten. Peters, Mallory, and Novosel are huge losses, especially since Peters played much bigger than her 6-2 height. Notre Dame did not add any post players in the recruiting class. As I said earlier, the biggest loss for the Irish was losing Malina Howard to Maryland, as she would have shored up the frontcourt. The Irish will be a good team, but a Sweet 16 team, not a Final Four contender.

 

[doggydaddy]

That recruit just did really well in the high school All-American games.
And Alexis Prince is ranked 10th by Blue Star, 16th by ESPN Hoopgurlz, and 9th by ASGR. She will be an impact player. As for the others, Fuqua is ranked 35th by ASGR, while Brown is ranked 34th by Blue Star.

As long as Mulkey gets a top post in the 2013 class (or an impact transfer), Baylor will continue to roll.

i prefer to go with ASGR. They have Stewart, Jefferson, and Tuck 1, 2 and 4...lol.

 

[Nomar3311]

Marist graduates their best player and the MAAC player of the year, Corielle Yarde.

Yeah but they do that every year and still dominate the MAAC - also probably have their best recruiting class ever

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

i prefer to go with ASGR. They have Stewart, Jefferson, and Tuck 1, 2 and 4...lol.

ASGR also had Heather Buck ranked 11th in her class and ranked a few spots ahead of Tiffany Hayes.

ESPN had Dolson in the high 30s.

Blue Star had Alana Beard ranked in the 30s.

Not every ranking is going to be perfect. But there seems to be bigger discrepancies on the women's rankings outside of the top 25 or so as compared to the men's recruiting services.

 

[doggydaddy]

ASGR also had Heather Buck ranked 11th in her class and ranked a few spots ahead of Tiffany Hayes.

ESPN had Dolson in the high 30s.

Blue Star had Alana Beard ranked in the 30s.

Not every ranking is going to be perfect. But there seems to be bigger discrepancies on the women's rankings outside of the top 25 or so as compared to the men's recruiting services.

I agree, Cam. I wonder why that is? Now enough staff to fully analyize the players?

Everyone missed on Beard. Do you know if the story out of Knuttsville is true that they lost a tape that Beard sent them and didn't recruit her?

ESPN also had Stokes at 41. Missed on that one too.

 

[EricLA]

I love your list by the way vowel. thanks for putting in what each team is losing. the thing i love about it is Tennessee at 18. unless a lot of other "prognosticators" start talking about Tenn in the 15-20 range, i think they will start the year about 10 or so. they do lose a ton. and just because they still have 4 kids on the team ranked in the top 10 in HS doesn't mean they will perform well. after all, their senior class had 3 kids ranked in the top 10 (Baugh, Stricklen and Johnson) and one in the top 15 (Manning). if the preseason rankings are close to what you predicted, you will see some heads explode in Knoxville.

it's probably nit picking but i'd put ND about 10. And Tenn about 14. but it's all just guesswork.

 

[doggydaddy]

I love your list by the way vowel. thanks for putting in what each team is losing. the thing i love about it is Tennessee at 18. unless a lot of other "prognosticators" start talking about Tenn in the 15-20 range, i think they will start the year about 10 or so. they do lose a ton. and just because they still have 4 kids on the team ranked in the top 10 in HS doesn't mean they will perform well. after all, their senior class had 3 kids ranked in the top 10 (Baugh, Stricklen and Johnson) and one in the top 15 (Manning). if the preseason rankings are close to what you predicted, you will see some heads explode in Knoxville.

it's probably nit picking but i'd put ND about 10. And Tenn about 14. but it's all just guesswork.

Which kids were ranked in the top 10 in HS? I know Massingagle and Burdick were 3 and 4 in 2011.

Spani was 13. Simmons was 24.

I'd love to talk about the optomism on The Summitt, but I don't want to get Nan upset. I'll just say they are just a little bit delusional.

 

[UConnCat]

That recruit just did really well in the high school All-American games.
And Alexis Prince is ranked 10th by Blue Star, 16th by ESPN Hoopgurlz, and 9th by ASGR. She will be an impact player. As for the others, Fuqua is ranked 35th by ASGR, while Brown is ranked 34th by Blue Star.

As long as Mulkey gets a top post in the 2013 class (or an impact transfer), Baylor will continue to roll.

Prince is very talented. The only question I've heard from those who've watched her play is inconsistent effort which Mulkey will address.