Looking over 2017's "top watch list"

[EricLA]

From ESPN's list... I know these kids are only freshmen in high school so an awful lot can change over the next 3 years, but several things stood out to me from the list...

Almost NO kids from the north east. Only 1 from NY (Danielle Patterson) and 3 from Maryland. Not much in the mid west either but Indiana has 3, and Wisconson, Ohio Missouri and Minnesota have 1 each.

An overwhelming majority of the kids are from...

Texas (7)
California (6)
Georgia (5)
Florida (4)

Only 1 kid has verbaled so far - Ohio guard Breylyn Bey to Michigan.

Geno has gotten a pretty good pipeline going from all across the nation. Dee and KML from California, Mo from Texas, Maya from Georgia, Tiff from Florida. I'm sure there are others (KLS is from California as well) but those are the ones I can recall immediately off the top of my head. Of course, Kelly Faris was from Indiana and Kaili McLaren from Maryland. So he's had success in every state where a majority of the recruits are from at this point...

 

[UConnChapette]

Say what you will about UConn being in the AAC, but playing SMU and Houston might further open up the Texas territory and get more recruits to show interest in UConn. We have missed out on a lot of great recruits from Texas in the past. That might be changing.

 

[UcMiami]

It is very, very early and for some reason a lot of the watch lists that far out focus on Cal, TX and the south - not sure if it has to do with the number of high quality JV/HS teams, number of lower age AAU teams, or even the locations of the primary evaluators. At 14 kids and their parents and their teams are less likely to travel nationally for basketball. There was a list a few years back of that age group that had 50% from Texas and maybe 25% from southern Cal and the rest split between FL and Georgia as I recall.

 

[EricLA]

It is very, very early and for some reason a lot of the watch lists that far out focus on Cal, TX and the south - not sure if it has to do with the number of high quality JV/HS teams, number of lower age AAU teams, or even the locations of the primary evaluators. At 14 kids and their parents and their teams are less likely to travel nationally for basketball. There was a list a few years back of that age group that had 50% from Texas and maybe 25% from southern Cal and the rest split between FL and Georgia as I recall.

That makes sense. I know there are some other really talented kids from the NY area in addition to Patterson. And of course, this is a very early list. But I have not followed the "early" lists often enough to know if kids are just more visible from the 4 regions currently dominating the 2017 list...

 

[meyers7]

Looking over 2017's "top watch list".

Who's "top watch list" is this??

 

[EricLA]

Who's "top watch list" is this??

ESPN...

 

[meyers7]

ESPN...

Oh ok thanks.

For those interested.

http://espn.go.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/rankings/_/class/2017

 

[Dickers]

It would not surprise me if the Kia Nurse signing opens up the door to more international players coming to Uconn. World economy=world basketball=more Uconn NC's.

 

[UcMiami]

It would not surprise me if the Kia Nurse signing opens up the door to more international players coming to Uconn. World economy=world basketball=more Uconn NC's.

There was an article a while back discussing some financial problems with European leagues and the possibility that a few more college age kids might head to the states instead of going pro/semi-pro - the leagues have typically sponsored cadet teams or paid internship programs for 16 and up kids (like the soccer leagues.) I don't think we have seen any of that yet.