Sweet 16 teams thriving without highly touted recruits

[OUHoops]

Might be a week early with this article, but interesting read nonetheless.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaab-...without-highly-touted-recruits-003147215.html

 

[campbest]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaab-...without-highly-touted-recruits-003147215.html

Don't remember seeing Forde write this last year.

 

[oSuJeff97]

I think the headline of that story is a bit misleading, and Forde's conclusions are somewhat questionable.

He seems to be making the same logical fallacy that's been repeated on message boards tons of times, where you take an exception and hold it up as "proof" that a larger trend isn't valid for some reason.

There are tons of "highly touted" recruits left in the field.

Just because there aren't any of the handful of 5-star guys who end up playing college basketball left doesn't mean that "highly touted" recruits aren't all over the place.

Louisville, Michigan State, Duke, Kansas, Arizona, Ohio State, Indiana, Syracuse and Michigan are all loaded with guys who were "highly touted." Go look at their rosters. They are all chocked full of 4-star guys.

Just because a couple of 3-star guys broke out doesn't mean that they have "taken over the field" as Forde puts it.

 

[SoonerinNC]

Appears to be some merit to both arguments.

Clearly the one and done phenomena has reduced the number of 5* sill in the college ranks. And if they were all playing until at least their junior year the landscape would be different.

However, there is no question that there are a lot of good players out there that were unknown to most of us before the tournament. That is why good coaches can compete when they are at schools below the power level such as Butler and VCU.

And no question that some of the highly rated are head cases and never approach their potential. And some were just flat overrated as many were underrated.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the pundits who rank the players are not professional basketball people. They rely on the AAU circuit and I have always believed that they rank players a lot based on who is recruiting them rather than any great talent for evaluating players. So maybe their research skills are as important if not more important than their ability to evaluate players.

 

[bocabull]

I'm a little confused. A quick check shows that most of the high major teams left have at least one 5 star recruit on their roster.

He could have devoted more words simply talking up the guys who weren't ranked in the top 100 who are playing great basketball with some quotes from their high school coaches. Would have been a better read.

 

[PeteHoops]

Might be a week early with this article, but interesting read nonetheless.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaab-...without-highly-touted-recruits-003147215.html

Lets see who is playing in the Final Four. That's the goal, right? Not the sweet sixteen. I would be willing to bet you'll find rosters loaded with 4-star guys. Of course there will be an exception every now and then, but more often than not the Final Four will be stacked with 4 and 5-star recruits.

 

[oSuJeff97]

Lets see who is playing in the Final Four. That's the goal, right? Not the sweet sixteen. I would be willing to bet you'll find rosters loaded with 4-star guys. Of course there will be an exception every now and then, but more often than not the Final Four will be stacked with 4 and 5-star recruits.

Agreed.

The silly thing is making the cutoff of "highly touted" guys at 5-star recruits.

Just looking at Kansas' major contributors.... Ben McLemore, Travis Releford, Elijah Johnson, Jeff Withey, Nadir Tharpe, and Perry Ellis are all 4-star guys, most of whom were all among the top 10 HS players in the country at their positions.

Those are all "highly touted" guys.