Mid-major recruiting and the "Tweener"

Anyone that hasn't read Drew Cannon's piece at Basketball Prospectus on how mid-major programs should recruit needs to go do it now.

I'll wait.

You done?

Good.

Let me preface this by saying that Cannon's piece was phenomenal. It was insightful analysis broken down in an academic manner that was easy to understand and clearly made his point. The best mid-major players tend to be the guys that are skilled, but don't quite have the skill set for the position that their size would slot them in at the high major level. The kids that fall into the dreaded tweener category.

As good as it was, wasn't this analysis, you know, a little bit obvious?

Major college basketball, for the most part, is a feeder program. Whether its the NBA, the NBDL, or the professional leagues overseas, the goal of just about every player that enters a high-major program is to one day get paid to play. Those. get the television exposure. They compete for national titles. Its no surprise that the best recruits in the country all want to play for these programs -- the Duke's and the Kansas's and the UNC's and the Kentucky's.

He gets kids to the NBA. Wouldn't you want to play for him?
(photo credit: NYDN)

If you're not good enough to play for those schools, wouldn't you want to play against them? Providence isn't exactly a powerhouse basketball program anymore, but if you accept a scholarship to play for the Friars, one night you'll be playing in front of a raucous Dunkin Donuts Center with Villanova coming to town. Three days later, you will be playing at the Carrier Dome in front of 20-some thousand. The next week its a road trip to Pitt and a home game against Villanova. Go to Georgia, and you'll get two shots at beating Kentucky, Florida, and Tennessee every season.

I doubt Dominique Jones would have snuck into the first round of the 2010 draft if he hadn't averaged 35, 8, and 4 while leading South Florida to a mid-season four game winning streak that included upsets of Georgetown and Pitt. And its not just the chance to prove yourself individually as a basketball player. Do you think Tyrese Rice, or Rakim Sanders, or Joe Trapani will ever forget going into the Dean Dome and knocking off eventual national champion UNC in 2009?

With the noted exception of an overwhelming minority -- Xavier, Gonzaga, Memphis, etc. -- mid-major programs simply cannot offer these same perks to recruits. This is not a knew discovery. It is the reason people are shocked when someone like Rashanti Harris picks Georgia State, or Aaric Murray decides to go to La Salle.

Simply put, if high-majors want a kid, they are generally going to get that kid. It happens the other way, but thats the exception, not the rule.

So to survive, mid-majors need to find the guys that slip through the cracks. The guys that are slotted by the high-majors as "not good enough for us."

The 5'11" shooting guards. The 6'5" power forwards with freakish athleticism. The 6'9" forwards that prefer to play on the perimeter and knock down jump shots. The seven-footers that can't yet run down the court without tripping over their own feet or jump over a phone book. The tweeners. Like Cannon said, the kids with the high-major skill set but low-major tools, or the kids with low-major skill and high-major tools.

Take Josh Young, the just-graduated, 6'1" and 170 lb scoring guard from Drake that Cannon talks about. There is no doubt that Young was an excellent player for the Bulldogs, averaging 14.1 ppg in his four seasons. But Young isn't a point guard, he's a shooting guard and the rest of his game isn't good enough to allow him to play off the ball at a high major level. I don't think its unfair to say Young's only high-major skill was is jump shot.

Josh Young had a very nice career at Drake.
(photo credit: ESPN)

Nolan Smith isn't much taller than Young. He was able to play the two-guard for Duke this past season because he could defend both back court spots and he had a much better all-around game. Next year, Duke with play plenty of minutes with Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, and Smith on the court together. None of them cracks 6'3".

Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente shared a back court for a very good Kansas State team last year, and neither have the prototypical size to be a two-guard. But, like Smith, there was much more to their game than the ability to score.

Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher started for Villanova just four years after the Wildcats used a four guard line-up to make the Elite 8.

My point is that size -- the fact that Young is a "tweener" -- isn't the only reason he didn't get a high major scholarship. "Tweeners" get high-major scholarships, and many have successful collegiate careers. They just happen to be better basketball players than Young.

Again, this isn't a startling revelation.

I'm not arguing it, either. I think Cannon absolutely hit the nail on the head. Mid-majors rely on tweeners. My point is that these tweeners -- the kids that excel at the mid-major level -- are at that level for a reason.

Simply put, they aren't quite good enough to excel in a major conference.