UConn Recruits Dominate The Last Couple Of Days

[FlyRyGuy]

UConn Huskies, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Louisville Cardinals will reload with top recruits after Final Four

 

[Kaizen]

Christyn Williams, left, was MVP of the McDonald's All American Game after future UConn teammate Olivia Nelson-Ododa stole the show at the Powerade Jam Fest.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

The legend and the leaper.

 

[trb123]

Is CW 5ft 11in?
From where to where?

 

[psconn]

Is CW 5ft 11in?
From where to where?

And so it begins....

 

[Carnac]

Is CW 5ft 11in?
From where to where?

From the bottom of her shoes to the very top of her hair!

 

[HGN]

Is CW 5ft 11in?
From where to where?

More like 5'9 I would say. But does have Big game.

 

[Orangutan]

Is CW 5ft 11in?
From where to where?

Something, something Bria Hartley.

Am I doing it right?

 

[DEpup]

If she can manage to keep doing her thing at UConn, I don't care how tall she is.

 

[DefenseBB]

If she can manage to keep doing her thing at UConn, I don't care how tall she is.

Exactly! Charles Barkley was regularly listed as 6'6", 6'8" when in reality he was like 6'4.5" and led the league in rebounds, won an MVP, woke Philly basketball from the dead and brought the Suns to the NBA championship. Only size of the heart matters...

 

[EricLA]

So not to nitpick, and I get that the article sort of needed to be about the teams in the final 4, but if you look at where the players are ranked that are coming in to the top programs:

UCONN - #1, #5
ND - 27, 59, 67, 80 (but 2 of them played on the McD AA team)
Mississippi State - 48, 49, NR, NR
L'ville - 29, 38, NR

I guess you can look at sheer volume and say that MSU and ND got good classes - HG ranks UCONN's class as #2, ND's as #7, MSU as 11 and L'ville as 14, but the reality is that none of the other programs got a single kid in the top 25. That does NOT mean that these kids AREN'T ranked incorrectly - heck, Angel McCaughtry wasn't in the top 50 anywhere and she's an Olympian.

But in general, I think the rankings have gotten better since then with many more people weighing in on who's really good, and who's got really good potential.

Look at the teams who landed at least 1 top 25 kid... UCONN, Baylor, Maryland, Texas, Florida State, Oregon State, South Carolina, Syracuse, Tennessee, Arizona, Stanford, Auburn, Iowa State, Vandy, Rutgers and Ga Tech. So 3 out of the 4 final 4 teams didn't get a single top 25 kid.

Next year ND brings back every starter at this point. They will be great. L'ville "only" loses Hines-Allen (big loss for sure, but they bring back 4 starters). They will battle ND for the top of the ACC and be a top team for sure. Mississippi State on the other hand - loses 4 starters. I don't see how they are a top 25 team next season, even with McCowan, but we will see soon enough for sure. I think teams like Baylor, Oregon, Oregon State, and maybe Texas will also be battling for the final 4 as well. I think the next tier includes teams like Mizzou, Maryland, Stanford, South Carolina, Florida State, aTm, and I'm sure there are several others who will be in the next tier. Of course much depends on how much each team lost, what they bring in, and how much the kids they already have improve over the summer.

Next year will be interesting for sure.

 

[Orangutan]

So not to nitpick, and I get that the article sort of needed to be about the teams in the final 4, but if you look at where the players are ranked that are coming in to the top programs:

UCONN - #1, #5
ND - 27, 59, 67, 80
Mississippi State - 48, 49, NR, NR
L'ville - 29, 38, NR

Hoopgurlz is also not the only ranking service.

Obviously, the McDonald's game only has 24 players, so the McDonald's selectors obviously had Gilbert and Nixon in their top 25. Gilbert also made the Jordan Brand Classic. So she's in their top 25.

All 3 of the other major services seem to have Nixon and Gilbert in their top 25s.

Nixon's ASGR rating as of her commitment was #25 on the button. I found a tweet that had Gilbert as ASGR #10 as of Nov. 2017.

Gilbert and Nixon are #15 and #16, respectively with ProspectsNation.

Blue Star is especially high on ND's class. They have Prohaska at 15 (!), Gilbert at 20, Nixon at 24, and Cosgrove at 36.

Nixon's Hoopgurlz ranking is especially tough to square with her most recent written evaluation, which describes her as "explosively athletic" and an "elite back court prospect". And then Dan Olson himself wrote she was the best passer in the McDonald's game. I'm thinking Olson's rankings may be significantly under-ranking Nixon. But hey, it will make Muffet look like a genius in the future when she has an excellent starting point guard who was ranked so low by ESPN.

 

[DefenseBB]

@Orangutan is actually pointing out a valid fact that HoopGurlz, an ESPN affiliate has less people covering the spectrum of all players while PN and BS have significantly more people watching games. I saw the interview of the McDonald's recruiter during half-time with Brooke Wesbrooke (sp?) and he said he watches these girls full time but I also remember an article that he said he relies on other colleagues to assess where to put the rankings. The PN/BS process is more vetted and subject to wild differences than HG. Due to HG being readily available to us on ESPN and free, we probably put too much stock in their rankings instead of PN/BS.

That said, ND has had some bad luck missing out on the top 5 players for the past few years even though they were finalists for them. I know they are in on the 2019 and 2020 top prospects and have a feeling they will land a couple of significant names-rightly so, in my opinion as MM will develop them better than Aston/Mulkey/Dawn ever could.

 

[UConnCat]

Nixon reputation seemed to take off at the USA trials in 2016 but sort of came back down to earth a bit since then. UConn took a look back then. Sounds like she's a very good player.

 

[Carnac]

So not to nitpick, and I get that the article sort of needed to be about the teams in the final 4, but if you look at where the players are ranked that are coming in to the top programs:

UCONN - #1, #5
ND - 27, 59, 67, 80
Mississippi State - 48, 49, NR, NR
L'ville - 29, 38, NR

I guess you can look at sheer volume and say that MSU and ND got good classes - HG ranks UCONN's class as #2, ND's as #7, MSU as 11 and L'ville as 14, but the reality is that none of the other programs got a single kid in the top 25. That does NOT mean that these kids AREN'T ranked incorrectly - heck, Angel McCaughtry wasn't in the top 50 anywhere and she's an Olympian.

But in general, I think the rankings have gotten better since then with many more people weighing in on who's really good, and who's got really good potential.

Look at the teams who landed at least 1 top 25 kid... UCONN, Baylor, Maryland, Texas, Florida State, Oregon State, South Carolina, Syracuse, Tennessee, Arizona, Stanford, Auburn, Iowa State, Vandy, Rutgers and Ga Tech. So 3 out of the 4 final 4 teams didn't get a single top 25 kid.

Next year ND brings back every starter at this point. They will be great. L'ville "only" loses Hines-Allen (big loss for sure, but they bring back 4 starters). They will battle ND for the top of the ACC and be a top team for sure. Mississippi State on the other hand - loses 4 starters. I don't see how they are a top 25 team next season, even with McCowan, but we will see soon enough for sure. I think teams like Baylor, Oregon, Oregon State, and maybe Texas will also be battling for the final 4 as well. I think the next tier includes teams like Mizzou, Maryland, Stanford, South Carolina, Florida State, aTm, and I'm sure there are several others who will be in the next tier. Of course much depends on how much each team lost, what they bring in, and how much the kids they already have improve over the summer.

Next year will be interesting for sure.

I agree with your takes. I'm cautious with respect to Miss St. Schaefer will lose 4 starters, but he has the knack of making lemonade of of lemons. Stranger things have happened. Schaefer's team has 0 top 20 recruits on the roster and they're 36-1, and dominated a good SEC conference this year. He's getting better quality recruits now because of the notoriety and national exposure they've gotten and the #2 national ranking his program achieved. It will be interesting to see where his 2018-2019 are after the first month of the season. As you said, we'll see soon enough.

 

[UConnCat]

I admit I don't pay a lot of attention to the various ranking services. When I do I'm always a bit skeptical of BS because of how they rank Belle players. Don't they currently rank Watson as #1 for 2020? Didn't they have Espinoza-Hunter as #4 or some such ridiculous number? McCormick and Olson seem pretty objective on these players.

 

[Orangutan]

I admit I don't pay a lot of attention to the various ranking services. When I do I'm always a bit skeptical of BS because of how they rank Belle players. Don't they currently rank Watson as #1 for 2020? Didn't they have Espinoza-Hunter as #4 or some such ridiculous number? McCormick and Olson seem pretty objective on these players.

Yeah, BlueStar's rankings are pretty goofy with regards to Belles. I agree that McCormick and Olson are pretty objective. I would think ProspectsNation's rankings are a little bit influenced by politics (i.e. who comes to their camps and tourneys) but are at least reasonably grounded in reality.

 

[UConnCat]

I would think ProspectsNation's rankings are a little bit influenced by politics (i.e. who comes to their camps and tourneys) but are at least reasonably grounded in reality.

What you say about PN sounds right.