BEAST currently has 5 of the top 25 2014 recruiting classes

[TheHall]

I'd hardly call Big East recruiting "phenomenal" when they havent't come close to the ACC or the Big Ten in recruiting the players at the top of these lists. And they aren't involved with enough players at this level to catch either of these 2 leagues, whose recruiting actually could be called phenomenal with legitimacy.

Btw, Last week I asked Adam Finkelstein about this exact topic in an online chat. He couldn't deny it & said "The BE has recruited as well as any conference in the country..." His only caveat was whether the league could maintain this success against the fb conferences over time. Check it out for yourself around 28m:30s mark...I (Jay) asked this question after prov got a verbal from Bentil.

http://www.spreecast.com/events/adam-finkelstein-oct-1

You have an opinion and are cherry picking data only to prove that a few teams in these other conferences skew the numbers (Kent, Louisville, Mich, Duke, UNC, etc) for the entire conference (top 35-50, how about top 100 or 150 like everyone else). Right now 80% of the BE schools have a top 100 player and that'swith noe from SJU, one of the better recruiting schools nationally. No one without a negative bias is saying the BE is losing to any conference on a whole on the recruiting trail this summer, no one.

[Noonzy]

The new Big East is doing a fantastic job on the recruiting front. How can anyone not agree with that? We have lost some of the top teams, yet continue to recruit at a very high level. Don't forget, many, if not most of those top kids will only make a pit stop at the school of their choice and on to the NBA. So every year UK, Kansas NC and the other few will rack up the very top kids, lose them and start again every year. I very much like where this conference is headed in it's first year.

[GumbyDamnit!]

I don't think anyone is saying that, TO DATE, the BE has not done a great job on the recruiting trail. The fact that every team is getting a couple good recruits here and there is very encouraging. For a 10 team league, which is being compared against much larger leagues, that is definitely saying something. But why is Bill M wrong? He is just stating that there remain many Top of the list kids who have yet to decide, and many of those kids seem to be leans of schools outside of the BE. The meaning of "phenomenal" is being studied in 2 different contexts. If you look at just raw # of recruits in the Top 150, nBE is doing "phenomenal." If you look at Top 50, the nBE is doing fairly well. If you looked at Top 15 the nBE is currently shut out. I think BillM is just stating that in this highest tier of players, the nBE hazs yet to make a splash. No one is saying that the recruiting so far is poor or average. But the context in which these value judgements are being made are simply different.

You can tell the season is nearing. Everyone seems to be fighting over semantics. I'll admit it myself.

[Noonzy]

If the conference, in it's first year, can make a couple of deep runs in the tourney, it will get kids excited. Lots of people just wrote this conference off after losing Cuse, Ville etc. I think for the most part, we have the right coaches in place to continue the good recruiting. The best teams come tourney time are the schools with new kids and seasoned kids. UK lost to Rober tMorris in the first round of the NIT and UK was loaded with the top recruits only missing Noel.

[Dew]

If the conference, in it's first year, can make a couple of deep runs in the tourney, it will get kids excited. Lots of people just wrote this conference off after losing Cuse, Ville etc. I think for the most part, we have the right coaches in place to continue the good recruiting. The best teams come tourney time are the schools with new kids and seasoned kids. UK lost to Rober tMorris in the first round of the NIT and UK was loaded with the top recruits only missing Noel.

Which is exactly why this league is going to be refreshing in a lot of ways. We will all benefit from success achieved by our conference mates this season.

[TheHall]

I don't think anyone is saying that, TO DATE, the BE has not done a great job on the recruiting trail. The fact that every team is getting a couple good recruits here and there is very encouraging. For a 10 team league, which is being compared against much larger leagues, that is definitely saying something. But why is Bill M wrong? He is just stating that there remain many Top of the list kids who have yet to decide, and many of those kids seem to be leans of schools outside of the BE. The meaning of "phenomenal" is being studied in 2 different contexts. If you look at just raw # of recruits in the Top 150, nBE is doing "phenomenal." If you look at Top 50, the nBE is doing fairly well. If you looked at Top 15 the nBE is currently shut out. I think BillM is just stating that in this highest tier of players, the nBE hazs yet to make a splash. No one is saying that the recruiting so far is poor or average. But the context in which these value judgements are being made are simply different.

You can tell the season is nearing. Everyone seems to be fighting over semantics. I'll admit it myself.

It's not semantics, the lower the number the less you are measuring conference strength & the more you are actually measuring school recruiting strength, that's the point you & bill seem to be missing. No one is arguing providence is going to out recruit UNC or SHU is going to out recruit Kansas. How many recruits can you spread around a conference from the top 15, if anything top 100 is too exclusive to measure conference strength which again is what the OP was highlighting...rivals gets it the best IMO with a top 150?

[hoyahooligan]

The argument also presumes that this is a marked difference in players ranked top 15 vs. top 25, vs. top 35, vs. top 50 vs. top 75 vs. top 100.

So a player ranked 25th is a game changing recruit but a guy ranked 26th isn't?

The line between a great recruit and a good recruit is not so easily drawn.

[handdownmandown]

What's being ignored is the top 10 will be one and dones. If you recruit where we have, say 26-150, those are the players who are a lot less likely to bolt early.

Frankly I don't give a crap if Creighton ever gets a top 10 recruit. In some ways those guys wind up being a PITA to have, especially if you get one who feels 'entitled'. If it's not repeatable, do you really want to do that, if you can get a nice 4 year top 100 guy?

I'd much rather have one of them than Eddie Griffin.

[GumbyDamnit!]

The argument also presumes that this is a marked difference in players ranked top 15 vs. top 25, vs. top 35, vs. top 50 vs. top 75 vs. top 100.

So a player ranked 25th is a game changing recruit but a guy ranked 26th isn't?

The line between a great recruit and a good recruit is not so easily drawn.

Not necessarily because you are only looking at a small deviation and a single sample. I would argue that Top 10 talent is Top 10 talent. By and large these guys are future pros. If we were to graph it out over time I would expect that the higher a player is in the recruiting rankings, the more likely he is of succeeding down the road. It's not exact but its surprisingly accurate. You are right that there is prob no big difference between 25 and 26 but there is a considerable difference between 25 and 50, and between #20 & #3, and you have to begin to group them somehow.

Whitehead is rated 20th by ESPN. There are some on the board that are convinced that he should be Top 10. I guess time will tell if he is closer to 50 or closer to 10. But I would bet that the players 1-10 have a much better likelihood of making an impact in college and in the pros than 11-20. And much of this discussion is around those players that are uncommitted, and there are 4 right at the top that can change a program immediately, and have yet to commit. I would concede that DePaul getting just Alexander would instantly make theirs a better recruiting class than Nova has teed up. Alexander might be an immediate program changer, where I expect our recruits to develop behind some upper classmen for a couple years.

Maybe they should assign a point value to each player and just add them all up to determine recruiting class strength. Player #1 = 150 pts, player 150=1 pt. Add all players together and see how it shakes out. That way the value of #26 & #25 is truer as you note.

[GumbyDamnit!]

What's being ignored is the top 10 will be one and dones. If you recruit where we have, say 26-150, those are the players who are a lot less likely to bolt early.

Frankly I don't give a crap if Creighton ever gets a top 10 recruit. In some ways those guys wind up being a PITA to have, especially if you get one who feels 'entitled'. If it's not repeatable, do you really want to do that, if you can get a nice 4 year top 100 guy?

I'd much rather have one of them than Eddie Griffin.

Would you rather have 3 guys in the 75-150 range or Carmelo? For every PITA there is a Derrick Rose, Anthony Davis or Kevin Durant that is talented enough to carry a team for one year. But to your point, as a conference, if our sweet spot is 25-100, then we'll be just fine in the long term.