OT: Are we reading "internet legends" in posts about. . .

[Kibitzer]

. . . recruits? I am using internet legends (made that up, all by myself!) as a description of activity on fan message boards for which the ubiquitous urban legend term doesn't quite cut it.

Basically, urban legends are phony tales that strike a responsive chord in the mind or heart of some naive soul, who then gives both plausibility and momentum to the bogus story by spamming it to an inexorably larger audience of internet users and posters. Occasionally, the original myth is debunked by Snopes, a site that thrives on, well, debunking. Or an alert reader may identify the tale as "spam" and hasten its demise on the 'net.

Got the idea? If so, permit me to suggest a couple "internet legends" that I often see and always doubt.

A current whopper (IMO) is that "the last school visited [by a recruit to one of several] is most likely to get a commitment." Really? Show me the evidence. It should be easy to dig up visit/commit records of a dozen or more blue-chippers to prove or disprove this highly speculative comment.

Yet another easy-to-spot myth is the one about which way [to which school, er, program] a recruit is purportedly "leaning." Such unsourced speculation gives rise to terms like poppycock or balderdash or just plain bull$h!t.

When it comes to recruits, I believe fervently in the rule:

"Those who know don't talk; those who don't know talk."​

(And when they do, they provide us with internet legends.)

 

[meyers7]

 

[UcMiami]

Kib - I would bet that the first is more often than not the truth - but not in the way implied. A recruit may decide to take five official visits so the 'fifth school' is what people are saying. But what does happen not infrequently is a recruit takes only 1, 2, 3, or 4 of those scheduled visits because they felt the 'last one' they visited was just perfect. So for example, I believe our three incoming freshman all committed to the 'last school' they visited, but I don't think any of them had actually set up a schedule of their total visits where Uconn was last.

 

[Rixxx]

Kibs - A B S O L U T E L Y. Saw your "whopper" on Volnation recently. Just saying.

 

[Kibitzer]

Kib - I would bet that the first is more often than not the truth - but not in the way implied. A recruit may decide to take five official visits so the 'fifth school' is what people are saying. But what does happen not infrequently is a recruit takes only 1, 2, 3, or 4 of those scheduled visits because they felt the 'last one' they visited was just perfect. So for example, I believe our three incoming freshman all committed to the 'last school' they visited, but I don't think any of them had actually set up a schedule of their total visits where Uconn was last.

Good catch. IIRC s recent UConn commit (Kia Nurse?) visited UConn, committed and simultaneously canceled a future scheduled visit to Kentucky. So yes, she committed to the last school she actually visited, but clearly the one scheduled for the last visit had no advantage.

Some seem to feel that Cox is a Baylor "lean" because that is the last scheduled visit for her. Maybe. Time will tell.

Doty, Ralph, Strother and Delle Donne all came to UConn - and each visited Tennessee, Was Storrs the last visit for each?

I honestly don't know.

 

[SoCalCanine]

Kib - I would bet that the first is more often than not the truth - but not in the way implied. A recruit may decide to take five official visits so the 'fifth school' is what people are saying. But what does happen not infrequently is a recruit takes only 1, 2, 3, or 4 of those scheduled visits because they felt the 'last one' they visited was just perfect. So for example, I believe our three incoming freshman all committed to the 'last school' they visited, but I don't think any of them had actually set up a schedule of their total visits where Uconn was last.

This is very much akin to "Your lost keys are always in the last place you look". Duh! Why would you look in more places once you found them??? What would be more interesting would be an assessment of the statistical DISADVANTAGE of being the first visit scheduled.

 

[UcMiami]

Kib - I actually think the 'Baylor lean' is because she and her family have been on campus for sporting events a number of times and not that her Baylor visit is last.

And then of course you have kids like Tiffany Hayes who total screw up the statistics - she committed before her first (which was also her last.) And hasn't Bent now followed in her footsteps?!

 

[DaddyChoc]

people don't want to reveal themselves... or their "sources"