Teams with Talent via HGs ranks

[DefenseBB]

While watching the UCLA-OU game last week and then watching the UCLA-UNC game this week, I got to thinking about the "talent these 3 teams possessed and then how each coach was getting the best from that. So as I am a stat junkie and data hoarder, I went into my trove of spreadsheets and did a study of 18 rosters in the top 25. I omitted Iowa State (not really sure why but I am disinterested in that team).
Anyway, I looked at all the active rosters composed of 229 players. Ironically, 9 graduated from 2020 (3 ranked) and 20 from 2021 (15 ranked) in addition to the usual 4-year composition of 2022-2025. I will offer my interpretation in separate posts so as to not distract from the data analysis each poster may want to assess. Here is the composite data:

Legend:
Roster is number of players
Int is the number of international players as they would not be ranked by HG. Canadian players are ranked by HG and are excluded from this count.
NR is Not Ranked player count
Av Rk is the average of the number of top 100 ranked players
Rk<20 is the number of Top 20 players on the team. I used this number as it usually contains 80% or more of the AA's
Tran is the number of Transfer players on the roster
#Sch is the number of schools these player have attended. For example Latisha Lattimore on Ole Miss is now at her 4th school-Texas, Miami, Virginia and now Ole Miss.
Tran% is the percentage of the roster that is transfer players.

 

[DefenseBB]

The first thing that jumped out at me was, UConn has an astounding 10 players ranked in the top 20 of their class. If Blanca was ranked, I think she would have easily been top 20 and probably top 10. Jana might have made the top 20 list in 2024 but that excluded, UConn has tons of talent. UConn has 12 players ranked in the top 100 overall with an average ranking of 14.

Second thing I noticed was the number of transfers. TCU and Ole Miss lead the pack by a lot. TCU has 10 transfers on their rosters. these 10 players have attended 25 different schools (including now at TCU). He only has 3 players that went from HS to TCU. Mind boggling. The average ranking of his 5 ranked players is 42.8 (led by Olivia Miles at #8). TCU also has 4 international players on the roster.

Ole Miss has 9 players who have attended 21 schools (including now at Ole Miss). The 6 ranked players on this team represent an average rank of 66.4. The highest ranked player is Cotie McMahon at #23.

Third thing and really the reason I did the analysis, was the current AP ranking vs. the talent. UConn has the most overall and most Top 20 and is #1, SC has the second most Top 20 and is #2. UCLA, Texas, LSU, Duke and Tenn either have 5 or 6 Top 10 players on their rosters and ranked 3rd or 5th. Larger number of Top 100 ranked players include UNC, Oklahoma and USC. This led me to question how good are the Duke, UNC and Tenn coaching staffs compared to their ranking and their peers listed. So sorry @triaddukefan, you and you cousin Carolina Blue seem to be underachieving but not by as much as Tennessee is underachieving. Small consolation.

I will probably revisit this data for other threads as the season progresses and afterward when we have a 2026 NCAA Champion but for now, I am curious on the BY opinion

 

[GamecockFam]

My first thought is that the number of years of experience will have an impact (especially in years 1 and 2) with exception to a rare few (i.e., Sarah Strong). So some of the underperforming organizations could be due to the youth on the roster. The #1 ranked recruit as a senior should have a bigger impact than the #1 recruit as a freshman. Going off of memory, I believe Tennessee and North Carolina have a majority of their highly ranked players as freshmen and sophomores.

It may be interesting to come up with a weighted metric based on years of experience. Like you could say the #1 recruit as a freshman is as good as the #5 recruit as a junior/senior (so multiply all freshman rankings by 5), and the #1 recruit as a sophomore is as good as the #3 recruit as a junior (so multiply all sophomore ranking by 3) Then by their junior year the recruits should be living up to their ranking, so there is no weighted metric. It won't be perfect but I think you'll get more realistic data that way -- and of course you can play with the multiplying factor.

 

[ucmiami2]

Interesting data collection. Later in the year it might be interesting to limit the data to the 'main rotation' for the teams as the 'average roster' of 12.05 for these 19 teams likely contains an average of 4 players at the back of the bench getting mostly mop up minutes and not having any effect on wins and losses, nor for their ranking.

Also an anomaly stands out to me: TN at 12 and Duke at 15 have 5 and 6 player ranked in the top 20 respectively matching the teams in the top 5 ranking spots and none of the rest of the list. HS rankings aren't perfect as we all know, but it does point to a level of skill coming into college for at least a starting 5.

Also, it appears to me that only Uconn and SC have zero non-international players that were unranked? And they are also the two schools with a 'full rotation' of 8+ players ranked in the top 20 (whether or not that is actual how their rotation plays out.)

Look forward to more data! And your own analysis

 

[triaddukefan]

Of Duke's top 20 rankings. Roberson and Skinner played in a Duke uniform for the first time on Wednesday. Nelson missed last year with a torn ACL, and has played 3 games for Duke. Jackson was a All-ACC player last season. Fournier was the ACC freshman of the Year. Donovan isn't much of a offensive threat, she was a member of the All ACC defense team , and there is no better all around defender in the country. So basically 3 of our top 20 players have lived up to expectations... The other 3 have played a total of 5 games for Duke. A bit too early for underacheving talk.

 

[DefenseBB]

Duly noted but come February, I have your 2nd and 3rd option excuses ready. You, Carolina blue and LV's will continue to be on the underachieving yet over hyped list....