Recruiting Rankings-Basketball

[LakeHighlandsPony]

2112 is right on! Those DISD coaches were ready to turn the hilltop into the L.A Riots if Tubbs was overlooked for the SMU job. I can even remember Tubbs pointing to them at the press conference saying don't let your studs go to other schools. I support JT being hired-I just want to see us start getting a few players from DISD we can only dream about.

[jtstang]

I support JT being hired-I just want to see us start getting a few players from DISD we can only dream about.

Thank you for your support. I'll be landing dream talent presently.

[ponyboy]

It's somewhere between depressing and flat-out amusing to me that any good players would want to go to Baylor for a few years. And while I'd much rather see SMU at the #6 spot, how does #61 compare to our rankings in years past? I would think the Hopkins and Sasser years would be good, but even #61 has to be better than usual, right?

How many teams do they take in the Dance?

[Stallion]

what the ranking means is we signed 1 stud and one average Division 1a caliber player. The other kid decommitted. Our rating might even drop since I'm not sure if they would consider Matt Williams a Top 300 Player. Of course, then you'd have to factor in Brian Morris, Theryn Hudson and any one else we signed. Note there could be two spots open if Paulis Ritter is now a football player and no longer plays Basketball. Right now, even including the decommitted recruit our class is rated 6th in the state of Texas ie. mediocre.

[The XtC]

HoopScoop is always good for a laugh. You know I dont put that much stock in most of these rankings, but Hoopscoop is a notorious joke. How can you take seriously a ranking that includes a player that didnt sign with us, and leaves out someone who did? Hoopscoop does that sort of thing constantly, I've even seen them mix up years, including a player who actually signed and played for a team the year before in the upcoming years rankings. They're sloppy, lazy and incomplete. Their rankings are meaningless.

Adding Matt Williams cant lower our ranking. HoopScoops rankings are cumulative, remember? Signing someone else can only raise your ranking. If we signed 9 more kids who all had a "2" ranking., that would put our class on the same level as Duke. I remember last year you threw a coniption fit over Lamar's rankings. They were somewhere in the top 10 of Hoopscoops rankings because they signed 10 new guys. Same principle applies here. Only one of those recruits turned out to be above average, and frankly his stats are padded by their blowout games against teams like Jarvis Christian and Arkansas Tech (4 games against non-D1 teams.)

That top-10 recruiting class earned Lamar a 5th place finish in the Southland Conference, and an OOC loss to WAC cellar-dweller, Tulsa. ie, slightly less than mediocre. Their final Sagarin ranking was 179. There's a lot of distance between the top-10 and #179, so apparently somebodies rankings were a little bit off.

[Stallion]

Geez I said I don't put very much stock in their rankings. Thought it might interest some people. It was also the first time I noticed that Baylor had committed one of the Top JUCOs in America. Baylor, by anyone's assessment has recruited outstanding classes the last two years and I don't see why they can't compete even in the Big 12 South in coming years especially since they brought in some more mature JUCOs and International Players. Also, that International kid they brought in last year was just named to several freshman All-American teams. Watch out for the Bears-sooner rather than later.

[The XtC]

Last years Baylor class I thought was a touch overrated, but just a bit. I saw them ranked as high as 11 in some publications, and a few of thier signees (Shipman, Fields) would have been bench warmers on a team that wasnt desperate for warm bodies. Bruce and Bush both stepped right in and played very well. Next years Baylor class is truly one of the best in the country, its loaded with guys who would contribute immediately on almost any team in the country. Someone is doing a tremendous sales job down there.

[The XtC]

Mamdou Diene was redshirted this year, he didnt play a single minute. How did he get on a Freshman All-American team?

Since you seem to have a high opinion of Diene, does this change your view on Bamba Fall, at all? They came up through the same program in Senegal, and played against each other for years.

[Stallion]

it was Bruce the Australian who was the one named Freshman All-American. I think hw was the leading freshman scorer in the nation.

[The XtC]

You're right, I forgot for a moment that Bruce was from Australia. He averaged around 18 a game, I dont know offhand if that was first in the nation, but I cant really think of anyone else who did better.

Congrats to Bruce, thats really impressive. Particularly considering he only got 2 stars on Rivals..........

[Sic_em]

I believe that HoopScoop badly overrated Baylor's recruiting class from last year. Aaron Bruce turned out to be much better than expected.

Patrick Fields, Kevis Shipman, & Roscoe Biggers (who is transferring) were all serviceable at best. I believe that a couple of them were brought in just because we missed out on two of our main targets (Juan Palacios who started for Louisville and Jihad Mohammed, who decommitted from BU at the last second and signed with Cincinnati).

Tim Bush wasn't a recruit, but was actually a transfer from LSU.

The other highly touted player in the group, Mamadou Diene, didn't make it to campus until the Spring semester started because he had caught malaria and then had a relapse and couldn't get clearance to leave Senegal until his health had improved. We'll find out more about him next season.

I do think the incoming recruiting class will measure up to its hype and from what I'm hearing, the coaching staff may not be done yet.