Wednesday afternoon kicked off the July live recruiting period.
For those that don't follow recruiting too closely, what that means is that, for the first time since March, college coaches will be allowed to physically watch high schoolers play at AAU tournaments and camps. For the upper-echelon programs, this live period consists of sitting in gyms and allowing the players you are recruiting to see you in the stands. For the rest of the country, its all about scouting. Finding the players that you think are going to slip through the high-major cracks but are good enough to have an impact at the mid-major level.
The start of the live recruiting period is also a perfect time for the folks that cover recruiting to update their top 100 lists based on the past three months worth of basketball. As such, it also means that we will update our consensus recruiting rankings.
First things first -- we've added two new rankings to our database. CBSSports.com is cleaning up in the world of college hoops media. For recruiting coverage, they've added Jeff Borzello, partnered with MaxPreps, and started a much-improved top 100 list. We've also added the top 100 list from 247Sports. I have no idea who puts that list together, but based on the writers I'm familiar with on the 247Sports network, I'm going to assume that its a reliable list.
Before I get into a breakdown of the rankings, some necessary linkage. You can find the top 100 lists for each site here: Rivals, Scout, ESPN, CBS, and 247. For an explanation on how we got the numbers and what, exactly, they mean, click here and scroll down below the spreadsheet.
And finally, click here to see the Consensus Class of 2012 rankings prior to being updated.
The biggest change here is the most obvious -- Shabazz Muhammad has taken over the No. 1 spot. The only publication that doesn't rank him as the top prospect is ESPN, and they haven't updated their rankings since late May, which means that the dominating performances that the 6'5" wing had in June have not been factored in. Its pretty clear that 6'10" center and Connecticut native Andre Drummond is the second best prospect in the country, while Isaiah Austin, a seven-footer from Texas, is third.
It gets fun after the top three.
Mitch McGary is fourth in our rankings, but he is only ranked higher than fifth in one of the five lists. He seems like a safe bet to be a very good player in the future, but the more interesting recruits sit behind McGary in our rankings. DaJuan Coleman is ranked fourth by both Scout and CBS, but he is outside the top ten is just as many lists. 247 has him Coleman at 12th while Rivals slots him at 18th.
Coleman is sixth in our rankings, while Kaleb Tarczewski sits right above Coleman. Coleman, Tarczewski, and McGary are all bigs, meaning that five of the six best recruits in the class of 2012 are big men. There's more -- 14 of the top 20 players in our rankings are big men, and that's not including Kyle Anderson, a 6'8" point forward. Rest assured, guards are at a premium in this class.
Breaking down rankings is fun and all, but what's more interesting is looking at how and why the rankings changed. Take, for example, Anthony Bennett. The 6'7" Canadian-native missed much of last season with a knee injury, but exploded up the rankings after dominating performances at the Pangos All-American and the NBPA top 100 camps. He went from 22nd to 7th according to Rivals, 66th to 11th according to Scout, and from 45th to 20th in our rankings. That ascent will look even more impressive when ESPN updates their rankings, where he is still sitting at 46th.
Another guy that climbed in the rankings was Adam Woodbury. After an MVP-worthy performance at the NBPA top 100 camp, Woodbury went from 74th to 39th in our consensus rankings -- including a jump from 99th to 50th according to rivals. Like Bennett, that rise will look even more impressive once ESPN updates their rankings. He's currently 57th, but Dave Telep said he probably deserves to be sitting somewhere between 25-40 right now.
I hope you enjoy poking through those numbers as much as I do. There's plenty in there is look through.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Class of 2012 Consensus Recruiting Rankings |
Posted by Rob Dauster at 10:00 AM
Labels: Consensus Recruiting Rankings, Recruiting
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