Revisiting Big East Recruiting

[marquette]

I just did a quick run-down on 24/7 with their composite. The BE has 6 teams with composite top 100 kids for 2016.

ACC-10 teams
B1G-8
BE-6
SEC-6
PAC12-5
B12-3
AAC-2
A10-2
WCC-2
MWC-1

There's still plenty of recruiting to come in the class of 2016, but we are solidly holding our own in the middle of the power conference pack.

You have to take the #'s one step further.

ACC - 10 recruits for 15 schools = .67 per school
B1G - .57
BE - .60
SEC - .43
PAC - .42
B12 - .30
AAC - .18
A10 - .14

You can't expect the BE to bring in more Top 100 recruits than leagues who have 50% more teams.

The other issue that skews these #'s a bit are the one and dones. UK, KU, Duke, maybe even AZ now, seem to land most of the kids who bolt for the NBA after 1 year. So over 4 years it may look like the SEC is recruiting very well but at any given time the collective # of Top 100's still in that league will not be as high as conferences like the BE, AAC A10, etc. There are exceptions (Ellenson, Otto Porter), but we mostly are recruiting 4 year players. UK cycles in 5-6 high level recruits every year and 4 of them bolt for the NBA right away. Of course when you are a one and done you're also a stud so their ability to impact the game as a Frosh is much greater than a kid in the 80's or 90's.

I should clarify, we have 6 teams with top 100 recruits, not 6 recruits. I thought this was positive for the BE as that puts us well within the range of the other power conferences. Middle of the pack in that group is not an insult.

[stever20]

I prefer to stay focused on your main point, which is a very good one:

There was much discussion a few years back about the nBE being able to recruit effectively over the long term. I recall a lot of "we'll have to wait and see but expect a major drop off" type comments (usually from people who are not true fans of the BE).

It's kinda like what a stock analyst would do in evaluating the health of an entity isn't it: establish what you believe to be the key evaluative criteria for that entity and benchmark them against their peers and how they're otherwise trending on their own?

An athletic conference must be evaluated for its long-term prospects in part on how well it continues to bring in talent to its member teams. It's bullsh-- to argue that "some recruits don't work out, etc." That's a given. That isn't up for debate. But it also isn't the point, because, overall, the PREDICTOR is the amount of talent that is flowing into the conference.

The fact of the matter is that the Big East isn't dropping off in its ability to attract top flight talent. Reasons for that should include our basketball-centric nature, the caliber of programs that comprise the conference, the Fox media deal, and our tie-in with MSG for our conference tournament. We also have talent in the front office.

It is a key predictor, and so far, so very good. It absolutely is bad news for those who wish us ill, and for those wishing for expansion.

1st off- great post. The 13 and even 14 classes were largely done by the time the split had taken place. What matters more is how the 15 and 16 recruiting has gone. Given 15 was by and large not great, 16 very important. And '16 gotten off to a great start.

I'd say in the reasons why Big East is getting top flight talent- I really don't think the tie in with MSG for the conference tournament really matters all that much to the kids. I think I would say why we're getting so many good kids is how good the programs are, to some degree the Fox Contract, but #1 by a large margin IMO are the coaches. You look at the coaches- JT3, Mullin, Wright, Cooley, McDermott, Wojo, etc.- it's a pretty damn good group there. I mean- does any other conference have anywhere close to that group? when you list some of the best coaches, and don't list Mack- and the list still feels right- that's a pretty darn good league of coaches.

[Jet915]

Probably would be more accurate to get the number of top 100 247 recruits the Big East has received over the last few years and then divide that by the number of teams. I suspect we would be somewhere middle of the pack as well.

[ChestRockwell85]

Since I know Villanova best I will stick with Villanova, but regardless of the Top 100 kids, we are also getting kids who are not ranked Top 100 but are going to be high major contributors. Donte DiVincenzo was Mr. Basketball in Delaware and held offers from Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech. Also, Eric Paschall, granted he is a transfer, was the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year. Both these kids will be contributors.

So in other words, and again as a Villanova guy who cheered for guys like Dante Cunningham and Darrun Hilliard who were both ranked around 150 and went on to the NBA, we have some other very strong players coming into this conference regardless of ranking.

[stever20]

Since I know Villanova best I will stick with Villanova, but regardless of the Top 100 kids, we are also getting kids who are not ranked Top 100 but are going to be high major contributors. Donte DiVincenzo was Mr. Basketball in Delaware and held offers from Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech. Also, Eric Paschall, granted he is a transfer, was the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year. Both these kids will be contributors.

So in other words, and again as a Villanova guy who cheered for guys like Dante Cunningham and Darrun Hilliard who were both ranked around 150 and went on to the NBA, we have some other very strong players coming into this conference regardless of ranking.

like what was brought up- you can't really bring up transfers because we've lost nearly as many transfers as we've gotten.

like this year- list I saw had 12 guys transferring in. Not all are playing this year even(guys like Paschall or Owens).
but- had 8 guys transfer out that are going to either P5 schools or pretty solid other schools.

So it's pretty close to a wash there.

[gtmoBlue]

Creighton gained 2 top 100 guys, Ronnie Harrell in 2014, Patton in 2015.
If counting gross accessions, add Mo Watson (transfer in for 2014).

[MUBoxer]

Creighton gained 2 top 100 guys, Ronnie Harrell in 2014, Patton in 2015.
If counting gross accessions, add Mo Watson (transfer in for 2014).

Gumby clearly said ESPN recruits, Patton is not an ESPN top 100 recruit. I do agree with your gross accessions comment.

[R Jay]

Creighton gained 2 top 100 guys, Ronnie Harrell in 2014, Patton in 2015.
If counting gross accessions, add Mo Watson (transfer in for 2014).

Gumby clearly said ESPN recruits, Patton is not an ESPN top 100 recruit. I do agree with your gross accessions comment.

God, you must have a huge axe to grind, Boxer. What did Creighton do to you?
And FYI, ESPN is by far the worst recruiting site to go off of. I honestly do not believe they have evaluated Patton on their own -- just relied upon other evaluations from Rivals and Scout.

[MUBoxer]

Creighton gained 2 top 100 guys, Ronnie Harrell in 2014, Patton in 2015.
If counting gross accessions, add Mo Watson (transfer in for 2014).

Gumby clearly said ESPN recruits, Patton is not an ESPN top 100 recruit. I do agree with your gross accessions comment.

God, you must have a huge axe to grind, Boxer. What did Creighton do to you?
And FYI, ESPN is by far the worst recruiting site to go off of. I honestly do not believe they have evaluated Patton on their own -- just relied upon other evaluations from Rivals and Scout.

Haha just trying to keep it honest, it's dishonest to claim that Creighton gained 2 from ESPN rankings. You can't have your own set of rules to go off of to make you guys look better and leave everybody else to the ESPN ones, for example if we do scout or rivals MU had 3 top 100s from 2015, but we're doing ESPN so it's only 2. If Gumby had said off scout or rivals or 247 or something the numbers would be different for pretty much all of us. Regarding Patton if they had gone off scout and rivals wouldn't they have him in the top 100? Just a guess. Creighton in particular hasn't done anything to me, you'll notice I recently had an obnoxiously long pointless argument with Gumby over Nova to. Would do the same with any school that's not keeping it honest.

[Jet915]

It's not my nature to defend GTMO, but he said Top 100 recruits, not Top 100 ESPN recruits although once can easily infer that based on the original post that cited ESPN recruits. I do agree with others though, ESPN is probably the worst of the major scouting services. Going off of the 247 composite is probably the most accurate.