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Message: [QUOTE="UcMiami, post: 2130396, member: 199"] 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! [/QUOTE]

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