Ranking the recruiting classes

[BEARZ77]

A lot of kids who have contributed at the D-1 level have come from the Kirkwood program. And you're right, Juco stats can be pretty hard to evaluate.

[uniftw]

A lot of kids who have contributed at the D-1 level have come from the Kirkwood program. And you're right, Juco stats can be pretty hard to evaluate.

Ali played at Kirkwood.

They play real good ball there (about 4 or 5 of the kids from those Iowa City West teams that Wyatt and Jeremy Morgan played on have gone to Kirkwood).

It helps that they are in Cedar Rapids which has a metro area (CR, Marion, and I'll include Iowa City in there since they are only 20 minutes south) that have 8 or 9 of the largest high schools in the state of Iowa and this metro area has a population of roughly 425K in a 20 minute radius from the center of it stretching from Marion/CR on the north side to Iowa City on the south side.

It helps them in other sports as well as this area has by far the best soccer in the state, some of the best baseball, volleyball and softball.

However, the talent and coaching discrepancies at JUCOs (even within the same conference) are so great that 11 ppg might be way more impressive than 28 ppg....much like high school stats with the size class the kid plays on and how many other D1 kids are sharing the court.

Most people would have a better chance of winning the lottery than "properly ranking" JUCO kids.

[Drakey]

A lot of kids who have contributed at the D-1 level have come from the Kirkwood program. And you're right, Juco stats can be pretty hard to evaluate.

Ali played at Kirkwood.

However, the talent and coaching discrepancies at JUCOs (even within the same conference) are so great that 11 ppg might be way more impressive than 28 ppg....much like high school stats with the size class the kid plays on and how many other D1 kids are sharing the court.

The one thing we know for sure is that 11 ppg is better than 35 ppg.

[Aargh]

I know nothing about Schlatter or the hype (or non-hype) surrounding him, but I have a possibly relevant observation.

Ron Baker played on a 3A team in Kansas. That's typically a high school with maybe 150 - 250 students. Baker's HS has 257 enrolled this year. In schools that size, a 6'3" guy often is a post player and rarely plays further out then forward.

Baker didn't come even close to averaging 35. He was easily the "go to" guy on his team. He probably had a couple of inches on the guy guarding him.

It's hard to judge what small school guys are going to do in college. Some Valley team a couple of years ago had a small school guy with some incredible shooting stats who did approximately nothing in the league. Baker may go NBA after his Jr. year, so there are a lot of possible outcomes for small school guys.

Baker is a bit of an exceptional athlete. 6'3", 220, can run and has decent quickness, and can hit from 25' are not normal traits for human beings. If any of those were missing, Baker would probably be another fairly average Valley wing.

This is one of the dangers of evaluating recruiting classes. Some guys hit their peak in HS and never really progress from there. Anything we do this summer in discussing players who've never played a D1 game should be an exercise in entertainment and just some discussion. There's no reason to put a lot of stock in these discussion because it's all speculation.

My experience is that most fans tend to overvalue their recruits and undervalue everybody else's recruits. That's perfectly normal for fans of a team. There's no reason to find one's panties in a wad over the discussions. Just accept that fans of 2 different schools are going to have quite divergent views about the other school's recruits.

[Wufan]

Shockers got a commitment from Ole Miss decommit Rauno Nurger today. He will be a freshman for the Shockers, and probably ineligible as a freshman due to transfer. It's unclear if any of the current scholarship players (we had 13 prior to his commitment) will be leaving. Word is that all are in class including Rauno.

Rauno is a 6-10, 220 European…Perhaps HCGM is trying to learn something from Marty Simmons (E Mock) and Ray Giacoletti (JE Jensen)?

[shockem]

how do you figure he's an ineligible freshman? I didn't read anything that he had ever enrolled at Miss State unless I'm missing something.

[Wufan]

how do you figure he's an ineligible freshman? I didn't read anything that he had ever enrolled at Miss State unless I'm missing something.

Pure speculation since he signed a commitment. Not certain on the exact rules or terms of his release.

[Aargh]

I think the more common speculation is that he got a full release from Ole Miss when 2 Ole Miss assistants left for other schools. That would make him eligible immediately.

Barring any red shirts, that makes WSU's front court Fr class look like this

Shaq Morris - 6'7", 260 - Red Shirt at WSU last year
Rauno Nurger - 6'10", 240
Rashard Kelly - 6'6", 210 - Hargrave Military Prep last year AFTER completing HS (19 Yr. old Fr)
Eric Hamilton - 6'8", 200

Then there's 6'7" Zach Brown, who's considered more of a wing and played PG in prep school (after finishing HS) this year.

Got some height in the class.

[Wufan]

Also a 6-8 and 7-0 JUCO and 6-3 freshman PG.

[Aargh]

I've edited my previous post to indicate the more commonly reported weight for Nurger - which is 240. The 220 was probably a year old. Sunrise has a solid weight program and players coming out of that prep school are in basketball shape, so the 240 probably doesn't represent weight that needs to be dropped.

Nurger seems to be generally ranked as a 3 star player. The only scouting report I've seen that gave him a position ranking put him at the #35 post player nationally. There isn't a lot of scouting done on foreign players in post-HS prep school, who don't play AAU ball.

His wingspan comes in at 7'2". His prep school coach says he has excellent timing blocking shots and videos show he's a very active shot blocker. The prep program he was in plays a lot of games against JuCo's here in Kansas, so he's been playing against post-HS competition.

The PG on the team Nurger played with last year is Zach Brown, who was a WSU commit before he enrolled at Sunrise, was Nurger's roommate at Sunrise, and is at WSU with Nurger this year.