activebadger
Banned
This article lists Wisconsin as #1 but I post it on here due to its references to the state of Iowa, Iowa State and Wisconsin.
It lists Wisconsin as an underachiever on the recruiting front but it's decidedly a compliment to Bo Ryan and Wisconsin's program. Iowa will face similar challenges due to geography etc.
-----------------------------------------
On Monday, I nominated five major-conference programs as superior examples of
overachievement in recruiting: UCLA Bruins, Alabama Crimson Tide, Texas Longhorns, Kentucky Wildcats and Arizona Wildcats. Looks like kind of a weird group, right? What possible connection can there be between how well Kentucky recruits and how well Alabama attracts talent?
If you read Monday's piece, you already know the answer to that question, so feel free to proceed directly to the list of underachievers below. If not, here's how I went about creating these lists:
I grouped major-conference programs according to how well they've performed in the past five NCAA tournaments. For instance, the following 10 teams have won eight or more tournament games over the past five years: Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan State, Duke, Connecticut, Louisville, Ohio State, Syracuse and Wisconsin. I called those programs "elite." The 41 teams that have won anywhere from one to seven tournament games in the past five seasons are "competitive." And the 24 major-conference programs that didn't win a tournament game during that time are called the "outsiders."
Then I simply compared each team's success in recruiting (also during the past five years, including the freshmen who will arrive on campus this fall) to their peer groups. I defined "success in recruiting" as signing prospects who are judged as top-100 players in their class when they begin their freshman season. I used Drew Cannon's invaluable multiyear data on recruiting rankings and scoring system (signing the No. 1-rated player in the nation is worth 10 points, and values descend until the No. 100 player is worth one point).
The only other note I'd add is one of perspective. When I say these programs are "underachieving" in recruiting, I could just as easily classify them as overachievers in terms of actual on-court performance. Basically they're all winning as many NCAA tournament games as other more talented teams -- at least where "talent" is defined by what we think of these players when they come out of high school. Strictly speaking, what distinguishes the teams below is a relative (and, on occasion, total) lack of top-100 talent compared to other similar programs. As we'll see, however, that hasn't always been a barrier to success.
These programs have recruited less successfully than their "peer" teams in terms in recent NCAA tournament performance.
1. Wisconsin Badgers
Five-year recruiting score: 1.7
"Elite" group average: 10.1
So the numbers say Wisconsin has been notably unsuccessful in bringing top-100 talent to campus the past five years. Numbers don't lie (in Big Ten terms, UW's five-year recruiting score is most similar to Iowa's), but I have to tell you I honestly believe Bo Ryan's recruiting has often been underrated.
A player such as ex-Badger Joe Krabbenhoft, for example, was perceived as just another lunch-pail-toting, hard-working Wisconsin-type player. Shake a stick near the Kohl Center, and you'll hit a dozen of those, right? Maybe so, but that particular hard worker was also the No. 35-ranked player in the country coming out of high school. To oversimplify, upper-Midwestern recruits who choose Kansas (where Krabbenhoft had an offer) make fans remember Cole Aldrich, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich. Upper-Midwestern recruits who choose Wisconsin make fans remember Greg Stiemsma.
That being said, it is true Wisconsin went six years between top-50 recruits. Funny thing is, the Badgers kept right on winning. In fact, those wins landed them in the "elite" group for this comparison. Whether that means Bo Ryan "can't" recruit or that he'd be absolutely invincible if he just got a normal better-than-Iowa ration of talent (or both) would be in the eye of the beholder. I say "would be" because the question has likely become moot: Ryan has a blue-chip freshman arriving this fall in No. 17-ratedSam Dekker. On paper, Dekker is the highest-rated recruit to come to Madison since Brian Butch.
2. South Florida Bulls
Five-year recruiting score: 0.0
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Bulls did sign top-100 performer Gus Gilchrist once upon a time, but that feat falls just outside my five-year window. In the more recent past, USF has failed to secure a single top-100 player. Head coach Stan Heath might be more broken up about that if not for the fact that his team is coming off easily its best season ever, coming within two possessions of the Sweet 16.
This might be a good time to add an obvious but important point. The recruiting rankings that this exercise is based on can, on occasion, miss talented players. Former Bull Dominique Jones wasn't rated a top-100 performer coming out of high school, but he turned out to be an excellent college player, one who more or less single-handedly led his team to what was, at the time (2009-10), its best season in the Big East.
3. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Five-year recruiting score: 0.4
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
Mike Brey has done some amazing things in South Bend, particularly when it comes to offense. Consider that the Fighting Irish were in serious contention right up to the last minute for a No. 1 seed in the 2011 NCAA tournament. Pretty amazing when you consider that the run made by that team came in the middle of a recruiting dry spell for ND.
Then again, if you're seeing this glass as half-full, maybe Brey made a conscious choice to navigate the post-Luke Harangody era with seasoned transfers like Ben Hansbrough (Mississippi State) andScott Martin (Purdue). In any event, the recruiting dry spell may have just come to an end. Incoming freshman Cameron Biedscheid is the highest-rated prospect to choose ND in seven years.
4. Washington State Cougars
Five-year recruiting score: 0.7
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Cougars have signed one top-100 player in the past five years, and that was five classes ago: Klay Thompson in 2008.
Speaking of five years ago, that's when Washington State made it to the Sweet 16 with former head coach Tony Bennett. WSU hasn't won an NCAA tournament game since.
5. Iowa State Cyclones
Five-year recruiting score: 0.7
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Cyclones' presence on this list requires an asterisk. Obviously, Royce White was a highly rated prospect coming out of high school, and just as obviously he did indeed play for Iowa State before being chosen with the 16th pick by the Houston Rockets in this year's NBA draft. But White arrived in Ames by way of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
In fact, ISU head coach Fred Hoiberg has succeeded in attracting a host of quality transfers to his program, including Chris Allen and Korie Lucious from Michigan State, and Anthony Booker from Southern Illinois in addition to White. All of the above were top-100 players out of high school. So let's put it this way: Historically speaking, very few top-100 players have chosen to proceed directly from high school to Iowa State. Hoiberg has already found a way to work around that, and now maybe he will change that. He's off to a good start in that direction, having signed highly rated incoming freshmanGeorges Niang.
John Gasaway covers college hoops for ESPN Insider. First covering college basketball in 2004, he has written for Basketball Prospectus since its inception in 2007, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times. You can find his ESPN archives here and follow him on Twitter here.
Comment on this story
It lists Wisconsin as an underachiever on the recruiting front but it's decidedly a compliment to Bo Ryan and Wisconsin's program. Iowa will face similar challenges due to geography etc.
-----------------------------------------
On Monday, I nominated five major-conference programs as superior examples of
overachievement in recruiting: UCLA Bruins, Alabama Crimson Tide, Texas Longhorns, Kentucky Wildcats and Arizona Wildcats. Looks like kind of a weird group, right? What possible connection can there be between how well Kentucky recruits and how well Alabama attracts talent?
If you read Monday's piece, you already know the answer to that question, so feel free to proceed directly to the list of underachievers below. If not, here's how I went about creating these lists:
I grouped major-conference programs according to how well they've performed in the past five NCAA tournaments. For instance, the following 10 teams have won eight or more tournament games over the past five years: Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan State, Duke, Connecticut, Louisville, Ohio State, Syracuse and Wisconsin. I called those programs "elite." The 41 teams that have won anywhere from one to seven tournament games in the past five seasons are "competitive." And the 24 major-conference programs that didn't win a tournament game during that time are called the "outsiders."
Then I simply compared each team's success in recruiting (also during the past five years, including the freshmen who will arrive on campus this fall) to their peer groups. I defined "success in recruiting" as signing prospects who are judged as top-100 players in their class when they begin their freshman season. I used Drew Cannon's invaluable multiyear data on recruiting rankings and scoring system (signing the No. 1-rated player in the nation is worth 10 points, and values descend until the No. 100 player is worth one point).
The only other note I'd add is one of perspective. When I say these programs are "underachieving" in recruiting, I could just as easily classify them as overachievers in terms of actual on-court performance. Basically they're all winning as many NCAA tournament games as other more talented teams -- at least where "talent" is defined by what we think of these players when they come out of high school. Strictly speaking, what distinguishes the teams below is a relative (and, on occasion, total) lack of top-100 talent compared to other similar programs. As we'll see, however, that hasn't always been a barrier to success.
These programs have recruited less successfully than their "peer" teams in terms in recent NCAA tournament performance.
1. Wisconsin Badgers
Five-year recruiting score: 1.7
"Elite" group average: 10.1
So the numbers say Wisconsin has been notably unsuccessful in bringing top-100 talent to campus the past five years. Numbers don't lie (in Big Ten terms, UW's five-year recruiting score is most similar to Iowa's), but I have to tell you I honestly believe Bo Ryan's recruiting has often been underrated.
A player such as ex-Badger Joe Krabbenhoft, for example, was perceived as just another lunch-pail-toting, hard-working Wisconsin-type player. Shake a stick near the Kohl Center, and you'll hit a dozen of those, right? Maybe so, but that particular hard worker was also the No. 35-ranked player in the country coming out of high school. To oversimplify, upper-Midwestern recruits who choose Kansas (where Krabbenhoft had an offer) make fans remember Cole Aldrich, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich. Upper-Midwestern recruits who choose Wisconsin make fans remember Greg Stiemsma.
That being said, it is true Wisconsin went six years between top-50 recruits. Funny thing is, the Badgers kept right on winning. In fact, those wins landed them in the "elite" group for this comparison. Whether that means Bo Ryan "can't" recruit or that he'd be absolutely invincible if he just got a normal better-than-Iowa ration of talent (or both) would be in the eye of the beholder. I say "would be" because the question has likely become moot: Ryan has a blue-chip freshman arriving this fall in No. 17-ratedSam Dekker. On paper, Dekker is the highest-rated recruit to come to Madison since Brian Butch.
2. South Florida Bulls
Five-year recruiting score: 0.0
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Bulls did sign top-100 performer Gus Gilchrist once upon a time, but that feat falls just outside my five-year window. In the more recent past, USF has failed to secure a single top-100 player. Head coach Stan Heath might be more broken up about that if not for the fact that his team is coming off easily its best season ever, coming within two possessions of the Sweet 16.
This might be a good time to add an obvious but important point. The recruiting rankings that this exercise is based on can, on occasion, miss talented players. Former Bull Dominique Jones wasn't rated a top-100 performer coming out of high school, but he turned out to be an excellent college player, one who more or less single-handedly led his team to what was, at the time (2009-10), its best season in the Big East.
3. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Five-year recruiting score: 0.4
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
Mike Brey has done some amazing things in South Bend, particularly when it comes to offense. Consider that the Fighting Irish were in serious contention right up to the last minute for a No. 1 seed in the 2011 NCAA tournament. Pretty amazing when you consider that the run made by that team came in the middle of a recruiting dry spell for ND.
Then again, if you're seeing this glass as half-full, maybe Brey made a conscious choice to navigate the post-Luke Harangody era with seasoned transfers like Ben Hansbrough (Mississippi State) andScott Martin (Purdue). In any event, the recruiting dry spell may have just come to an end. Incoming freshman Cameron Biedscheid is the highest-rated prospect to choose ND in seven years.
4. Washington State Cougars
Five-year recruiting score: 0.7
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Cougars have signed one top-100 player in the past five years, and that was five classes ago: Klay Thompson in 2008.
Speaking of five years ago, that's when Washington State made it to the Sweet 16 with former head coach Tony Bennett. WSU hasn't won an NCAA tournament game since.
5. Iowa State Cyclones
Five-year recruiting score: 0.7
"Competitive" group average: 4.3
The Cyclones' presence on this list requires an asterisk. Obviously, Royce White was a highly rated prospect coming out of high school, and just as obviously he did indeed play for Iowa State before being chosen with the 16th pick by the Houston Rockets in this year's NBA draft. But White arrived in Ames by way of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
In fact, ISU head coach Fred Hoiberg has succeeded in attracting a host of quality transfers to his program, including Chris Allen and Korie Lucious from Michigan State, and Anthony Booker from Southern Illinois in addition to White. All of the above were top-100 players out of high school. So let's put it this way: Historically speaking, very few top-100 players have chosen to proceed directly from high school to Iowa State. Hoiberg has already found a way to work around that, and now maybe he will change that. He's off to a good start in that direction, having signed highly rated incoming freshmanGeorges Niang.
John Gasaway covers college hoops for ESPN Insider. First covering college basketball in 2004, he has written for Basketball Prospectus since its inception in 2007, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times. You can find his ESPN archives here and follow him on Twitter here.
Comment on this story
