Who are the 10 highest-rated recruits in UConn history?

[Matrim55]

Mind you, I'm not asking who the 10 best recruits turned out to be - that could be another fun thread - merely who the recruiting services felt were the best players to sign with UConn.

Off the top of my head, I think it's this:

1 - Drummond
2 - Corny
3 - Charlie V
4 - Donyell
5 - Rudy
6 - Rip
7 - Caron
8 - Kemba
9 - D Ham?
10 - Stanley

Who am I forgetting? I know Majuk was highly rated, as was Deandre. And do we count Bynum? Not really sure.

 

[3uconn]

DeAndre was a top 10 recruits so he has to be in there somewhere.

 

[aceboon]

DeAndre was a top 10 recruits so he has to be in there somewhere.

#32 in the '11 RSCI, Rivals had him 10 but that was at his highest. his ranking was a bit all over the place since he was at IMG his SR year.

 

[3uconn]

#32 in the '11 RSCI, Rivals had him 10 but that was at his highest. his ranking was a bit all over the place since he was at IMG his SR year.

Yea but if he was ranked in all of the class of 2011 rankings he would have been top 10 or very close to it in all of them. Regardless I believe he should be on the list.

 

[aceboon]

Taliek had an RSCI ranking of #10 in the 2000 class, Khalid had to be somewhere in the top 20 but can't find anything at the moment.

 

[CTBasketball]

Oriakhi was 20th I believe. Some had him in the top 20.

 

[huskiesnyc]

Rodney Purvis was 20 on ESPN and 12 on Rivals

 

[Matrim55]

Taliek had an RSCI ranking of #10 in the 2000 class, Khalid had to be somewhere in the top 20 but can't find anything at the moment.

Please post a link if you do. I'm pretty curious about this. Here's what I've dug up so far:

• Gibbons had Donyell at #8 in 1991
• Rivals had Charlie V at #5 in 2003
• Rivals had Rudy at #5 in 2004
• Drummond was #2 according to ESPN
• Gibbons said Rip was #17 (lower than I remembered)
• Corny was #2 behind Aguirre IIRC, though I can't find any links to confirm this
• Rivals had Majok at #13 and Kemba at #14, while ESPN had Kemba #14 and Majok not rated
• Incredibly, this had Caron #60 in his class. I recall him being a much bigger get than that
• RSCI composite had Taliek #10 in 2000
• As pointed out earlier, DeAndre was #10 in 2011 by Rivals
• Here's Stanley at #18 in his class
• RSCI has Bynum #12 (and Adrien #53!)

 

[3uconn]

Just checked out where ESPN had our recruits. Saw they had Boatright at #74. But I laughed when I saw something on his profile. You will get a laugh as well if you find it:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/53939/ryan-boatright

 

[UConNick]

Just checked out where ESPN had our recruits. Saw they had Boatright at #74. But I laughed when I saw something on his profile. You will get a laugh as well if you find it:

Is it that they had him
Listed at 6' 2"? I laughed a little at that.

 

[Gurleyman]

One interesting thing from looking at Rudy's year:

Corey Brewer - 31
Al Horford - 36
Joakim Noah - 75
Taurean Green - 105

That class is probably the best recruiting class in my lifetime, in terms of college accomplishments. The Fab Five lived up to the hype, but didn't even win one title. Those guys won two.

 

[aceboon]

One interesting thing from looking at Rudy's year:

Corey Brewer - 31
Al Horford - 36
Joakim Noah - 75
Taurean Green - 105

That class is probably the best recruiting class in my lifetime, in terms of college accomplishments. The Fab Five lived up to the hype, but didn't even win one title. Those guys won two.

a certain poster on here would say Green could never be a starter on a championship contending squad since he was ranked in the 100s.

 

[jslack03]

Just checked out where ESPN had our recruits. Saw they had Boatright at #74. But I laughed when I saw something on his profile. You will get a laugh as well if you find it:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/53939/ryan-boatright

6'2 haha

 

[3uconn]

Is it that they had him
Listed at 6' 2"? I laughed a little at that.

Yes. I was like 6'2" no chance. He's 5'10" on a good day.

 

[Gurleyman]

I always liked using the composite, but then it got skewed when some people wouldn't rank fifth-year guys and it counted as a zero against them. If I went totally off memory of the composites and where people were legitimately ranked, I would have said this:

Drummond - 2
CV - 4
Rudy - 5 (but #1 for players who went to college)
Caron - 7
Donyell - 8
DeAndre - 10
Khalid - 12
Kemba - 14
Taliek - 15
Rip - 18

Corny was before my time, but would be up near the top and bump Rip out of the top 10.

Some of the criminally low were Ray (32), Ben (36), Lamb (70), Thabeet (75), Donny (80), Emeka (99), and Jake (off charts).

Some guys who were higher than you might think include Rudy Johnson, Tony, Curtis Kelly, Rashad, Ricky and Roscoe, who were all around 25.

 

[UConn Dan]

Just checked out where ESPN had our recruits. Saw they had Boatright at #74. But I laughed when I saw something on his profile. You will get a laugh as well if you find it:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/53939/ryan-boatright

This too... not true. Love the guy, but... (especially when we are home, I feel like the students with their shot clock countdown starting at 10 puts too much pressure on him to do something).

Boatright is terrific at making plays at end of clock situations for himself or teammates.

 

[Gurleyman]

This too... not true. Love the guy, but... (especially when we are home, I feel like the students with their shot clock countdown starting at 10 puts too much pressure on him to do something).

Boatright is terrific at making plays at end of clock situations for himself or teammates.

He's capable. I think he had a year like Ben did as a sophomore where he would do a lot of the hard part, but wouldn't finish it. In other words, he'd blow by his man or create his own space, but then either miss the shot or throw the ball away in traffic. Seemed like he was pressing and going too fast, instead of making the instinctive plays.

He was also hurt by the fact that the other team's center never had to guard anyone. There was always a tree in the way. And the pass to the open big wasn't always a good option either.

But, yeah, he has room for improvement in this regard. Would be nice if he turns the corner and we could led Bazz/Boat pick out the best matchup on those 1-4 sets late in shot clocks or late in games.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

He's capable. I think he had a year like Ben did as a sophomore where he would do a lot of the hard part, but wouldn't finish it. In other words, he'd blow by his man or create his own space, but then either miss the shot or throw the ball away in traffic. Seemed like he was pressing and going too fast, instead of making the instinctive plays.

He was also hurt by the fact that the other team's center never had to guard anyone. There was always a tree in the way. And the pass to the open big wasn't always a good option either.

But, yeah, he has room for improvement in this regard. Would be nice if he turns the corner and we could led Bazz/Boat pick out the best matchup on those 1-4 sets late in shot clocks or late in games.

He does need to slow down and keep his head up. There were time when he had created enough space to get a shot off, but didn't recognize it and overpenetrated and got into trouble inside. I think it would help his game if he started the year looking to create assists first and score second. Maybe that would help him to become less predictable and more likely to get good shots as opposed to forced ones. Kemba showed huge progress going into his junior year playing a little bit slower and more under control, as well as getting better at creating space to get off uncontested shots. It would be huge if Boat could do something similar.

 

[Waquoit]

I thought KEA was in the Top 10.

 

[huskiesnyc]

This too... not true. Love the guy, but... (especially when we are home, I feel like the students with their shot clock countdown starting at 10 puts too much pressure on him to do something).

Boatright is terrific at making plays at end of clock situations for himself or teammates.

He hit a pretty nice one in 0ur last game of the year against PC.

 

[UConn Dan]

He hit a pretty nice one in 0ur last game of the year against PC.

True but that georgetown game lingers

 

[selles]

He does need to slow down and keep his head up. There were time when he had created enough space to get a shot off, but didn't recognize it and overpenetrated and got into trouble inside. I think it would help his game if he started the year looking to create assists first and score second. Maybe that would help him to become less predictable and more likely to get good shots as opposed to forced ones. Kemba showed huge progress going into his junior year playing a little bit slower and more under control, as well as getting better at creating space to get off uncontested shots. It would be huge if Boat could do something similar.

Yup, good post. Kemba missed a ton of money shots in 2010. Then he made almost all of them in 2011. Kids actually do develop from year to year.

 

[ZenConn]

Wonder what Chris Smith as ranked at ....

 

[Gurleyman]

Wonder what Chris Smith as ranked at ....

I feel like he was in the 30's, but could be wrong. I was in HS then and aware of him as an important recruit, but hadn't discovered recruiting rankings yet. Not til the Marshall-Marshall-Ollie class.