Highest rated incoming recruits classes

[CL82]

He did get thoroughly outcoached in 2014 by…checks notes….Kevin Ollie.

To be fair, he wasn't the only guy that Ollie embarrassed during that run.

 

[nomar]

I haven't seen this much dook discussion and referencing since 2004. Funny thing many may not have been born or old enough to 'feel' Laether's shot.

All of a sudden it's like we've attached a rearview mirror to our Board.

It's funny that you and I and many others here constitute a very small group of people on earth for whom "Laettner's shot" is not "Laettner's shot."

 

[TouchdownHusky]

He is the one guy with no worries. They have zero centers in the 23 class or 24 class. They will play Fillipowski at 5 this year, but after that it's Pat's job for at least two years. He has no competition at all. Now, wings, they have a ton of wings.

Until they bring in someone in the next claas.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

They're all going to start, all 5 of their starters this year are likely to be gone. 4 of them are projected 1st round picks and the 5th is a senior.

And stop with the name, it's Ngongba. It's insulting

Agreed, your right about the insult. My bad. However he will always carry Flagg's water. And Duke will bring in an outstanding class next year, so he may get pushed aside.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

They play. The expected starting 5 this year is a sophomore center, sophomore SG, Proctor. Senior at point guard, Roach. Sophomore at PF. Freshman McCain at wing.
They may see guys leave, who knows? But Scheyer has said he doesn’t want to play the freshman heavy lineups. Probably has to next year.

If the elite academic schools decide they really want to get behind a sports team, they are going to be good in the NIL era because their alumni are a lot richer than other schools' alumni. We are seeing that with Duke basketball, and it appears with football too.

The top athletic teams are going to change a lot in the next few years. I have posted before that the traditional powers, like SEC schools, that were players when putting $20,000 of illegal cash in a paper bag was enough to get a 4-star, are going to struggle in an era where access to urban and highly ranked academic schools have alumni resources that other schools just won't have.

With Connecticut's wealth, the fact that many of the wealthy went to small colleges or Ivies that are not major players in athletics, and the fact that Connecticut will never have a major league sports team again, there is no excuse for UConn not becoming a major power with the NIL money it should be able to harness.

 

[Hurleyman216]

There are very few coaches in my mind that have the ability to build teams that truly have great chemistry. I think Hurley is one of them and you could throw out a couple others like Kelvin Sampson and Greg McDermott. These guys consistently build TEAMS that aren't just stacked with NBA guys, they're just building solid teams on good fundamentals with guys buying into the team concept. It's the exact opposite approach of the 5 star one and done and it's been proven to be more successful come March than the one and done model. Let these guys have their 5 star crybaby headcases. We'll take the under the radar guys who eat sleep and breathe basketball. I'll take an Alex Karaban every day of the week over some 5 star hot shot who wants to come in and show why he's a top 10 NBA pick. Our staff has the formula figured out. Eventually other programs may figure it out, but it would involve not recruiting more than 1-2 5 star players in any current class and I think the egos that come with recruiting at Duke and UK are too big overcome being more strategic.

 

[Samoo]

It would be an interesting exercise to track the performance of schools with the top 25 or 50 recruiting classes each year. I'm not a statistics expert and have no idea how you might set it up or figure out a rolling class average and compare it to performance in terms of win-loss records, year-end rankings, success in conference tournaments and most importantly success in the NCAA tournament. Do you start with performance and work back to recruiting class ranking or start with the ranking and work forward to see if there was commensurate performance? Maybe average recruiting ranking over the last 10-20 years compared with a number based on a formula that includes the factors above?

Can any of you nerds figure that out? Has it already been done? I looked around and couldn't find anything.

I did however find a study that looks at the different determinants for recruiting success. It is pre-NIL so probably not entirely applicable to the present situation. Here is the abstract - nothing earth shattering:

Using recruiting rankings from Rivals.com, the authors examine the determinants of recruiting success among D1 NCAA men’s basketball programs. After controlling for a host of potentially relevant variables, the authors find that recruiting outcomes are correlated with recent on-court success, historical on-court success, stadium size and playing in a ‘power’ conference. Additionally, teams with a history of sending players to the NBA receive heightened recruiting outcomes. A team with a new coach can expect difficulties with recruiting, while head coaches with national championships receive a recruiting boost. Finally, the authors show that recruiting strategies for guards may differ from recruiting strategies for other players.