All the best players

[Baroloboy]

With our record setting 10th straight final four you can surely expect to once again hear that oft repeated canard: "no big deal because Uconn gets all the best players coming out of high school"
Here are the facts: 0ur current roster consists of players from last 4 recruiting classes. Those classes combined yielded us one starter on this years team that was a HoopGurlz top 5 (Lou) and one bench player (Crystal). It yeilded no other HoopGurlz top 25 player except Phessa. That leaves the feild 18 other top 5 players and 79 other top 25 players---hardley a monopoly. So something else is at work at Uconn that accounts for its consistent level of excellence and we boneyarders are well aware of what many of those other attributes are so I shall not opine further on that subject which could fill a book

 

[blaqtech]

Amen.......

Should I pass the collection plate now

 

[rvwsleep]

Amen..

Should I pass the collection plate now

Why ? Did Rick come up short on payments for his extracurricular activities again ?

 

[UcMiami]

With our record setting 10th straight final four you can surely expect to once again hear that oft repeated canard: "no big deal because Uconn gets all the best players coming out of high school"
Here are the facts: 0ur current roster consists of players from last 4 recruiting classes. Those classes combined yielded us one starter on this years team that was a HoopGurlz top 5 (Lou) and one bench player (Crystal). It yeilded no other HoopGurlz top 25 player except Phessa. That leaves the feild 18 other top 5 players and 79 other top 25 players---hardley a monopoly. So something else is at work at Uconn that accounts for its consistent level of excellence and we boneyarders are well aware of what many of those other attributes are so I shall not opine further on that subject which could fill a book

Are you forgetting Gabby Williams - she was ranked #14 in her class? And I do think Kia Nurse could be considered 'out of category' as a foreign player. but ignoring Kia that still doesn't change your numbers that much Uconn with 2 top 5 and 2 6-2o and the recruits and the field getting 18 and 78.

Where I have more issue is with the term 'the field' because in a broad sense the field is 348 other D1 schools and in that context Uconn certainly gets more of the top talent than 'the field'. If you limit TF (the field) to the 64 tournament teams obviously Uconn still gets a higher percentage as it does if you limit to P5 and BE/AAC/A10. If you limit to 'good programs' say those same conferences in the tournament you begin to get to a more level field - 38 teams (31 at large bids plus 7 autobids) - at that point Uconn gets 2 top 5 vs. an average of 0.5 top 5 and 2 vs 2 for 6-20 ranked players.
On just top 20 talent you have to limit TF to 20 teams, and on top five talent alone you have to limit TF to only 9 teams, and this year we have an unusually short roster, if you did this calculation last year, or do it for next years team the numbers would have been 3 top 5 and 3 6-20 for last year and next year and at those numbers you have to limit the field to 15 and 5 to get equal distribution.

The reality is we do get a lot of talent and the other reality is we are not alone - HG highly ranked talent is not evenly distributed and their are other top programs that get disproportional talent as well. We have had threads about McD AA talent on school rosters which is the same kind of analysis and their are 7 schools with more McD AAs than Uconn this year, and another 4 with the same number (4), next year the numbers will be 4 with more and 4 with equal number (6).

But talent alone doesn't dictate success - all three other FF teams had fewer AAs than the teams they beat along the way and none of the teams with more AAs than Uconn or equal numbers made the FF (three of those teams were in Uconn's bracket MD (6) Duke (5) and UCLA (4) and UCLA was the only one that made it to a Uconn game. And Mississippi I think has only one McD AA and is playing in the FF.

Conclusion, talent sure helps but coaching really really matters, and maybe coaching evaluation of HS talent is better than HG evaluation of that talent in some instances!

 

[HoopsFan21]

It helps when you regularly get those #1 players that are far and above everyone else. In the last ten years there have been only a handful of those players: Maya, Griner, Parker, Delle Donne, and Stewie.

 

[Orangutan]

You're right, it's unfair that UConn's success is attributed solely to recruiting.

I mean, who did those AP bozos choose as Coach of the Year, anyway?

Geno Auriemma wins AP Coach of the Year for the ninth time

 

[JLH123]

I hear this comment mostly from my friends who don't follow WCBB and wouldn't regardless of who is winning the games. A few months back I did a little back-of-the-envelope number crunching to compare UConn's current roster to those of top-10 mainstays of the last 5ish years (ND, SC, Baylor, Texas, Stanford, Duke, TN, Maryland). It's just a totaling of the number of Top 10, Top 20, and Top 100 recruits out of high school on each roster. I didn't triple-check my work, but the numbers should be accurate.

A couple thoughts:
1. The individual athlete's rankings are based solely on ESPNW's Hoopgurlz rankings from each class.
2. In the case of transfers, I listed that player under their 2nd school - not the school where they originally signed. I also included 5th-year seniors, so the HS classes go from 2012 to 2016.
3. I included Batouly and Azura in UConn's current numbers. They may not be playing this year, but they will be soon enough, and you can be assured that if Z is as good as she's being hyped, next year the cries of "the rich getting richer" will be loud and clear.
3a. Because of Batouly (53) and Azura's (23) moderate high school rankings, they only affect UConn's "Top 100" count, which is tied for lowest (8 athletes) of all schools listed. Without them, UConn would be dead last with 6 "Top 100" recruits (woe are us).
4. You could make some preliminary inferences based on these numbers:
4a. Tara V really is an outstanding coach - leveraging the lowest ranked roster at all levels to achieve great results in the Pac-12 and find recurring success in the NCAA Tournament.
4b. Karen Aston has landed 5 Top-5s in the last 3 years, making Austin a new home for top recruits. It will be interesting to see if that translates into more post-season success as those classes advance.
4c. JPM at Duke and Holly seem to be underperforming relative to their talent, though Duke did have a much better regular season this year than last.

Overall, you can see that based on rankings alone UConn does not, in fact, get "all of the best players." If one were to tweak that comment and say "UConn gets all the best players that Geno and CD think are the best fit for the program" that would be a different story.

 

[Sonny44]

If we got 0ne top 5 and one other top 15 every single year our coaching staff would do just as well because of our coaches developmental skills.
We would have to avoid any 2013's though.

 

[rvwsleep]

Wr

If we got 0ne top 5 and one other top 15 every single year our coaching staff would do just as well because of our coaches developmental skills.
We would have to avoid any 2013's though.

We wouldn't have to avoid 2013's if we could get 2012's just as often.

 

[meyers7]

We wouldn't have to avoid 2013's if we could get 2012's just as often.

But that has happened probably more often than not. As been mentioned/discussed before on here.
After the TASSK class we had a 1 person class, KJ (who transferred after 2 years).
After DT's class we had a 1 person class, Ashley Valley.
After EDD's class, we had a 1 person class, Faris.

 

[CONNMAN98]

UConn now gets virtually all the VERY BEST players they want, but that comes with having the best coach with the best program. There are so many ways we can analyze numbers to fit our point of view.

I feel that having that one transcendent player is most important for success. I would probably take a team with the players ranked #1, 20, 80, 90 and 100 over a team with players ranked # 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30, as long as that #1 is a Maya or Breanna type!

Using HoopGurlz as a previous poster did, let's look at the very top recruits. From 2007-2017 (Maya to Megan) UConn has had 5 of the 11 #1's play for them. Baylor with 2 is the only other school with more than one. If you take the top 2 from each year (22 in total) UConn has had 6 and Tenn had 3. Top 3's is Conn-7 and Tenn-6. Tenn overtakes UConn with having more top 5's by a 10 to 7 margin.

So in getting the very very top player, Conn are definitely getting those players now more than anyone. But mainly due to Geno's great success in the first place!