If we dont know now we know…
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(rankings are dumb)
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Ja Morant was unranked.
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Hunter, Brogdon, Jerome, Guy, Diakite, Key, Huff, Hall, Gill, Hauser, Perrantes, Harris and Anderson were all top 150 prospects
Anthony, Reuter, Stattman, Thompson, and Johnson were not.
We have had success outside the top 150 but it is rare (Mitchell, Atkins, and Clark) and when you venture outside of it the results aren’t great. Rankings don’t matter in the sense that the 48th ranked player is going to be more successful than the 67th ranked player. But the top-150 matters. It usually implies a level of skill and athleticism necessary to succeed in ACC ball
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It mostly implies they were established as solid high major recruits by at least July before their senior year. About all it means. Reuter certainly was, and a quick google shows him in the Rivals150.
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I mean if you look at all the top players under Bennett they come from that top-150 outside of the three I pointed out. If all it means is that they’re high major recruits before senior year then that is really important.
Just replace 150 with players offered August senior year or prior, right after the last chance to evaluate.. We’re saying the same thing. You’re just basing it on rankings, while I won’t give them that credibility haha It’s not hard to identify players after coaches have already done it.
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There is good correlation between the top 150 rated high school players and success in college, but there are also a lot of high school players outside the top 150 who end up having great college careers and some even get drafted. On our own team, there is Trey Murphy, who was unranked in high school. Other recent examples are Obi Toppin, Desmond Bane and Cameron Johnson.
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It’s a lot easier for fans to track rankings than who everyone is offering. So from my perspective it’s a useful indicator even though I don’t think it needs much skill on their (the ratings services) end. They are more like aggregators than talent scouts
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Looking over the Rivals rankings I actually appreciate that they did it honestly. They only adjusted players they have seen. There are obvious players that should have been moved up or included that they didn’t. It makes them look bad. They’ll get bashed for it. But I kinda respect it.
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Thanks biggy:)
Poor Reuter ended up not being as blessed with height as the rest of his family. He was really highly ranked as a freshman. Whether he stopped growing because he broke his leg I don’t know. He ended up being one of the shorter men in his family. Everybody thought he would be 6’10 but he came up short.
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I didn’t realize that about his family. Its too bad, really. If Reuter had been 6’10" his game would have worked in a way that it really didn’t at 6’6" or however tall he really was.
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I have maintained for years that none of the services have the skill, time, or resources to accurately evaluate all the high school talent each year. They get the elite players right, but after #20 or #30, depending on the year, it’s all a crap shoot. Usually, when I see a poor ranking next to a prospect’s name, I wonder if that is his true skill level or if anyone has actually seen him play for more than five minutes. It could be either case. Then, there is the summer of 2020. If I think rankings are generally suspect, then you can only imagine what I think of the quality of rankings for the class of 2021. How many of them played AAU ball last summer? Who actually was there to evaluate those games? How much of the process was reduced to watching videos? Even laughing derisively at this year’s rankings gives them more credit than they are due. Neither Rivals, 24/7, nor ESPN are the equal of Tom Konchalski, and he didn’t attempt to evaluate everyone.
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I have had coaches who arent at the elite schools have said as much. In lot of instances they arent entirely sure what kind of player they are getting.
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That’s why everyone thinks next off season’s transfer market is going to be wild. There’s going to be so many misevaluations high and low by coaches and players. Gonna have a lot of up and down transfers.
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247 ranking at the time each received a UVA offer vs final ranking:
Ty Jerome 152, 31
Kyle Guy 101, 43
DeAndre Hunter 162, 116
Early coaching evaluation is important and certainly influences subsequent rankings as profile rises with offers received. Traudt and McKneeley were Top 60 before they got their UVa offers, probably due to the pandemic-suppressed evaluations and increased respect for Bennett among higher ranked recruits.
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Not fair to lump them all in as being the same. Eric Bossi knows what he is doing. That being said I agree with your skepticism of the 2021 and 2022 rankings.
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I believe the exception, in this case, proves the rule. Eric Bossi is one man. He cannot possibly evaluate all the talent out there. None of the services have enough personnel to do it, hence my remark about their lacking resources. They presume to know who the elite players are, and we are constantly bombareded with reports of their inane musings. You also have to wonder if they would get any more “clicks” if they were competent at this. Meanwhile, there are probably just as many unheralded prospects with just as much ability or potential. Obi Toppin? Moses Wright? Devin Vassell? And, those are just off the top of my head.
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Not many clips on Robert Jennings that do his athleticism service but this one maybe comes close. However not only is he a physical dunker but he can get head almost to rim as well and get up quickly (and yes if you were wondering he also somehow has a Virginia Tech offer)
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