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Fighting Artichoke
Joined: 12 Dec 2012
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 Posted: 04/28/15 9:15 am ::: UConn's recruiting dominance illustrated statistically |
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This article compares the depth of college basketball talent in the men's and women's games and also compares recruiting success across teams, both men's and women's. It's fairly short and definitely worth a look.
Here are the best recruiting teams over the past 4 years (not including the 2015 class that will enroll this fall):
1. UConn
2. Tennessee
3. Duke
4. South Carolina
5. Notre Dame
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/womens-college-basketball-is-better-than-mens/
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Brinx
Joined: 03 Oct 2013
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
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| Posted: 04/28/15 2:18 pm ::: |
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| Just read the article also. It makes some interesting points.
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ripleydc
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 04/28/15 5:37 pm ::: |
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| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes.
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auntie
Joined: 16 May 2006
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| Posted: 04/28/15 7:39 pm ::: |
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| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT.
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ripleydc
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 04/29/15 6:59 am ::: |
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By the same method, Maryland's recruiting classes were ranked 18th.
So I'd say that while some teams have underperformed, the Terps have definitely exceeded expectations relative to their recruiting.
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readyAIMfire53
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 04/30/15 8:44 pm ::: |
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| ripleydc wrote: |
By the same method, Maryland's recruiting classes were ranked 18th.
So I'd say that while some teams have underperformed, the Terps have definitely exceeded expectations relative to their recruiting. |
Yep, two FF's with the 18th best recruiting vs zero FF's with the 3rd best. Pretty dramatic, I'd say.
BTW, I give Tennessee a pass here. Having a declining/confused Pat Summitt, then diagnosed but still there and then the inevitable retirement is a mighty big deficit to overcome. The injuries, as many and as significant as they've had, pale in comparison to this.
By contrast, Duke has also suffered significant injuries but has had the same head coach for 8 straight years. JPM gets no pass here.
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linkster
Joined: 27 Jul 2012
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| Posted: 04/30/15 10:27 pm ::: |
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| There is also the issue of whether the ratings of the recruits were accurate. From what I have seen in the last several years there isn't a single rating service in wcbb that has the resources to cover and properly evaluate the entire country. And even within the rankings one cannot say that the gaps between 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 etc are equally spaced. To me, the drop off of talent between No 1 and No 75 is much greater in wbb as opposed to men. So one can only make a fuzzy ranking of any school's classes.
Last edited by linkster on 05/01/15 6:37 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 05/01/15 9:39 am ::: |
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| linkster wrote: |
| There is also the issue of whether the ratings of the recruits were accurate. From what I have seen in the last several years there isn't a single rating service in wcbb that has the resources to cover and properly evaluate the entire country. And even within the rankings one cannot say that the gaps between 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 etc are equally spaced. To me, the drop off of talent between No 1 and No 75 is much greater ib wbb as opposed to men. So one can only make a fuzzy ranking of any school's classes. |
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bullsky
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: 05/01/15 8:56 pm ::: |
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| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
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| Posted: 05/01/15 9:49 pm ::: |
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| bullsky wrote: |
| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as |
Your opinion. Worth exactly the pixels it took for me to read it.
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Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 05/02/15 9:49 am ::: |
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| summertime blues wrote: |
| bullsky wrote: |
| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as |
Your opinion. Worth exactly the pixels it took for me to read it. |
Setting aside the unnecessary vitriol, I think the overall point, though, is valid: Players improve at UConn and some other schools; at the vast majority of schools, they don't get much better (outside of playing for four years and gaining experience).
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Durantula
Joined: 30 Mar 2013
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| Posted: 05/02/15 12:01 pm ::: |
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| ClayK wrote: |
| summertime blues wrote: |
| bullsky wrote: |
| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as |
Your opinion. Worth exactly the pixels it took for me to read it. |
Setting aside the unnecessary vitriol, I think the overall point, though, is valid: Players improve at UConn and some other schools; at the vast majority of schools, they don't get much better (outside of playing for four years and gaining experience). |
UConn gets the best players though and we only look at the stars. For every Breanna Stewart you have a Lauren Engelin or Sadie Edwards or just any other kid who transfers. Kiah Stokes was a decent player but who is to say she wouldn't have shined if she stayed home and went to Iowa? With their lack of size outside of Doolittle she would have played a lot of minutes and given how skilled all of Iowa's players are, maybe they would have done a better job making her into a more skilled offensive player.
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Durantula
Joined: 30 Mar 2013
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| Posted: 05/02/15 12:03 pm ::: |
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| linkster wrote: |
| There is also the issue of whether the ratings of the recruits were accurate. From what I have seen in the last several years there isn't a single rating service in wcbb that has the resources to cover and properly evaluate the entire country. And even within the rankings one cannot say that the gaps between 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 etc are equally spaced. To me, the drop off of talent between No 1 and No 75 is much greater in wbb as opposed to men. So one can only make a fuzzy ranking of any school's classes. |
I'm not professing to know how good or bad they are but for the most part the teams getting the best recruits are the best teams so the rankings can't be that bad, at least at the top. Obviously some rankings will be wrong especially the further down you go but what people ignore is sometimes a player can outplay their rank and no one was really wrong. Sometimes a player just wasn't that good in high school and IMPROVED in college.
I always see Dan Olsen and Bret McCormick tweet about different events they attend all across the country so I think they are probably the most reputable. The other scouts all have more obvious biases depending on camps, AAU teams and the like.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
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Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 05/02/15 3:33 pm ::: |
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| Durantula wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| summertime blues wrote: |
| bullsky wrote: |
| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as |
Your opinion. Worth exactly the pixels it took for me to read it. |
Setting aside the unnecessary vitriol, I think the overall point, though, is valid: Players improve at UConn and some other schools; at the vast majority of schools, they don't get much better (outside of playing for four years and gaining experience). |
UConn gets the best players though and we only look at the stars. For every Breanna Stewart you have a Lauren Engelin or Sadie Edwards or just any other kid who transfers. Kiah Stokes was a decent player but who is to say she wouldn't have shined if she stayed home and went to Iowa? With their lack of size outside of Doolittle she would have played a lot of minutes and given how skilled all of Iowa's players are, maybe they would have done a better job making her into a more skilled offensive player. |
There are, of course, players who go to UConn and don't progress. Just to pick a current example, Saniya Chong doesn't seem to have done much improving (and gets very little PT as a result).
Also, "the vast majority of schools" is different from the group we're talking about here. I will agree that a top player who goes to, oh, Georgetown is going to get better on her own or not at all, but there are plenty of coaches who develop players.
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Durantula
Joined: 30 Mar 2013
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| Posted: 05/02/15 3:44 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| Durantula wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| summertime blues wrote: |
| bullsky wrote: |
| auntie wrote: |
| ripleydc wrote: |
| What I take from this is Duke and UT are under-performing relative to their recruiting classes. |
Injuries are certainly a factor for UT. |
Excuses, excuses. Every team has injuries. Let's put it this way, Tennessee is lucky that they're "Tennessee" because Warlick's player development is piss poor. Ariel Massengale left as the same player she came in as |
Your opinion. Worth exactly the pixels it took for me to read it. |
Setting aside the unnecessary vitriol, I think the overall point, though, is valid: Players improve at UConn and some other schools; at the vast majority of schools, they don't get much better (outside of playing for four years and gaining experience). |
UConn gets the best players though and we only look at the stars. For every Breanna Stewart you have a Lauren Engelin or Sadie Edwards or just any other kid who transfers. Kiah Stokes was a decent player but who is to say she wouldn't have shined if she stayed home and went to Iowa? With their lack of size outside of Doolittle she would have played a lot of minutes and given how skilled all of Iowa's players are, maybe they would have done a better job making her into a more skilled offensive player. |
There are, of course, players who go to UConn and don't progress. Just to pick a current example, Saniya Chong doesn't seem to have done much improving (and gets very little PT as a result).
Also, "the vast majority of schools" is different from the group we're talking about here. I will agree that a top player who goes to, oh, Georgetown is going to get better on her own or not at all, but there are plenty of coaches who develop players. |
The vast majority of the schools have such little talent relative to the "have's" in WBB. I don't think there would be a big change in individual player development if you took say the coach of Kansas and let him coach UConn's players.
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 05/03/15 9:06 pm ::: |
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| Durantula wrote: |
| I don't think there would be a big change in individual player development if you took say the coach of Kansas and let him coach UConn's players. |
Now, THERE'S an interesting project: Take a Geno and a Jeff Mittie (Kansas State). Or a Sherri Coale (OK) trade with Nia Butts (AZ). Trade teams for 2 years. 
There are certainly coaches that are (a) outstanding at developing excellent players, and coaches that are (b) simply GREAT at developing what they get.
a: Geno, Pat, GG, Kim M.
b: Brian Giorgis, Sherri Coale, Karl Smesko, Scott Rueck.
(....and I have no idea where to put Tara in this--a 1/2, maybe?  )
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shadowboxer
Joined: 18 Jul 2008
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| Posted: 05/19/15 9:11 am ::: |
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Not just changing coaches, but if more teams had consistent access to play more highly competitive teams, they tend to "play up" to the higher standard. If this approach included playing more demanding(and well known) teams consistently, the player base all schools could now recruit from would be in the higher 1/3 or 1/4 as players would know they have more of a shot on getting on tv, to the Dance, perhaps even a shot at European teams upon graduating. This would happen over time, but not much. If the big 5 conferences played competitive mid and lower majors more liberally, it would raise lower boats, and would start closing the obscene stat differential between the Titans and the majority of other teams. Which is exactly why it would never happen and pt of why those behemoths merged to begin with.
The main reason one usually hears against this is that it would lower quality of those 5-8 WBB teams and no one would watch or pay for this long term, permanent, eventually raising all boats approach to US wide WBB. Don't even know why I raised this treasonous, financially unfeasible idea in a country where capitalism reigns. Just felt ridiculously idealistic for a moment.
There, I think it's out of my system.
(I really will not be able to respond for several hrs, though I doubt this post will gain much traction.)
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shadowboxer
Joined: 18 Jul 2008
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| Posted: 05/19/15 7:44 pm ::: |
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| Sorry for wasting the space. Won't attempt to dream online again.
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 05/20/15 10:19 am ::: |
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I think it would be good for the game as a whole if the Power 5 teams played top-level mid-majors more often, but consider this:
Tara VanDerveer at Stanford has consistently offered to play other NorCal D1 teams -- and they don't want to.
It's not always the big dogs that are to blame for this situation ...
In the long run, though, I think the overall amount of talent is really the key to generating more competition. I can have my less-talented team play a more-talented team 10 times, and though there will be some improvement, the bottom line is still that we have less talent. And you can argue that we'd get better, but it can also be argued that we'd lose confidence, and confidence is almost as important as talent. (I've never seen the advantage in getting blown out ...)
Another issue would be cutting the scholarship limit to 13. Though not all, and maybe not many, Power 5 teams use all 15 scholarships, I do think there would be a trickle-down effect.
Finally, I don't think money has much to do with it. A Dayton-Ohio State game, say, isn't going to generate thousands of more ticket sales (or even hundreds) or TV ratings. Would it be better? Yes. Would it make a significant financial difference? I don't think so.
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
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| Posted: 05/20/15 12:09 pm ::: |
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| ClayK wrote: |
I think it would be good for the game as a whole if the Power 5 teams played top-level mid-majors more often, but consider this:
Tara VanDerveer at Stanford has consistently offered to play other NorCal D1 teams -- and they don't want to.
It's not always the big dogs that are to blame for this situation ...
In the long run, though, I think the overall amount of talent is really the key to generating more competition. I can have my less-talented team play a more-talented team 10 times, and though there will be some improvement, the bottom line is still that we have less talent. And you can argue that we'd get better, but it can also be argued that we'd lose confidence, and confidence is almost as important as talent. (I've never seen the advantage in getting blown out ...)
Another issue would be cutting the scholarship limit to 13. Though not all, and maybe not many, Power 5 teams use all 15 scholarships, I do think there would be a trickle-down effect.
Finally, I don't think money has much to do with it. A Dayton-Ohio State game, say, isn't going to generate thousands of more ticket sales (or even hundreds) or TV ratings. Would it be better? Yes. Would it make a significant financial difference? I don't think so. |
Tennessee usually plays Chattanooga (and sometimes loses to them). They sometimes also play MTSU. They've played Memphis, WKU. and Austin Peay in the past, to name a few (I particularly remember that last because the "Let's Go Peay" chant caused laughter in the stands every time). I'm hopeful that there will be a renewal of the LA Tech rivalry now that Tyler Summitt is coaching there; I think that game would fill the arena in either venue.
JMU would love to increase its visibility by scheduling more games with Power 5 teams. It certainly draws a good crowd when those games happen here. Unfortunately, some of those teams don't want to schedule JMU...what if they lose? Sometimes that happens, as it did to UCLA last year. Maybe some of those teams are going to feel that way about Dayton now......
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It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom
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themick1952
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 05/20/15 10:27 pm ::: |
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Chong improved her shooting percentage from 42% to 47% and her three point shooting from 32% to 36.6%.
She increased her points, rebounds, assists.
And she played 17 mpg her freshman year and 19 mpg her sophomore year, solid backup numbers. No, she didn't play much down the stretch but Geno always shrinks his bench in the tournament.
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Durantula
Joined: 30 Mar 2013
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| Posted: 05/21/15 4:55 pm ::: |
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Regarding the original topic and UConn's recruiting dominance, I was surprised to see that in ESPN's final rankings released today, UConn is #3 for the 2015 class. Now part of this is because UConn has 3 players while Duke and Louisville have 5.
http://espn.go.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/class-rankings?class=2015
1. Duke
2. Louisville
3. UConn
4. Baylor
5. Notre Dame
6. Texas
7. North Carolina
8. California
9. Purdue
10. UCLA
11. Maryland
12. Kentucky
13. Tennessee
14. Michigan
15. Penn State
16. NC State
17. Iowa
18. Kansas
19. Virginia Tech
20. Arkansas
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