B1G: Talent and Experience

In the ACC, recruiting was a simple thing.  Duke and North Carolina would have their pick of the litter. Latter-day Gary Williams would rarely put together a top class.  NC State, under both Sid Lowe and now Mark Gottfried, was the only other program to consistently put together top classes

The B1G is, or at least could be different, so I figured it's probably interesting to look at next year's B1G and see how Maryland's 13 new rivals have fared in recruiting in recent years.  The numbers will change, and I'll attempt to update them as more players turn pro or transfer into the league.  Ohio State's LaQuinton Ross and Indiana's Noah Vonleh have already declared for the draft, sure to be followed by a couple of other underclassmen.  Meanwhile, Purdue and Indiana have both experienced losses due to transfers. And most of the 14 teams will be active in the transfer market this spring, whether for graduate transfers or for undergraduate transfers that teams hope will get a waiver to play immediately.  This is a snapshot in time of what each roster looks like next year.

I broke recruiting rankings down into the following tiers: top 25, top 75, top 150 and unranked recruits.  I make no claim that those tiers are perfect, but they do reflect general truths in recruiting.  You have your top recruits who everyone knows, everyone wants, and who are destined (allegedly) for the NBA in short order.  The next group are guys who will stick around to see their upperclass years and contest for all-conference honors then.  Tier three is the diamond in the rough territory.  The true heavy hitters have mostly scooped up the players from the first two tiers, but here there are still quality players, and those big boys will round out their class there while competing with lower-tier major programs and top mid-majors.  After that you get the true reaches.  Sure, a Frank Kaminsky emerges here every so often, but living in this territory is dangerous.

First we look at Tier 1:



Surprise #1 is just how little success the B1G has had at the top of the heap the past four cycles.  We know that no program in the league recruits at the level of Kentucky or North Carolina, but Indiana and Ohio State, among others, have reputations as forces on the recruiting trail.  Just six players on next year's rosters were top 25 recruits.  No incoming recruit for 2014 is in this group, and 2013's only entrant was the already-departed Noah Vonleh.  This might look even worse in a few weeks if/when Glenn Robinson III declares.

This is crucial for Maryland.  Maryland has plenty of tier 2 talent, as I'll show next, but none here.  If no one else in the league has premium talent, the Terps should be able to compete - on paper - with anyone in the league.  Of course need to caveat once again about the imperfections of rankings.  Nick Stauskas, for instance, was the leagues POY, and no one would question his talent.  But while other teams might overachieve, there's no reason to think that Maryland can't also do that.

Here's Tier 2.  Note that this includes all players in the top 75, not just those outside of the top 25.

 



 

The Terps clean up here in tier 2.  9 of next season's 13 scholarship players ranked inside the top.  Only three of Ohio State's 11 players on scholarship next year aren't in this group, and one of them is recent grad transfer Anthony Lee, whose performance at Temple against high-level competition certainly belies his recruiting ranking.

Two other notes from this graph.  Michigan State has five players between 90 and 115 in the rankings meaning that their low total is something of an artifact of the boundaries drawn.  Meanwhile, Illinois has four player in this set.  John Groce has had some early success at a school with a rich basketball history and fertile recruiting ground not always mined well by the Illini.  His program is worth watching.

Schools are allowed 13 scholarships.  Only Ohio State and Maryland have at least half of those tied up in top 75 recruits for next year.  Almost any B1G team can be successful next year by cleaning up in the "next 75" range - the tier 3 recruits.  But who isn't even getting those players?  Which schools are feasting on tier 4 - sub-150 - players?



It's not much of a surprise that Penn State, Northwestern, and Nebraska, three of the four worst programs historically in the league, are doing most of their recruiting here.  On paper, Tim Miles did an incredible job to get the Cornhuskers back to the tournament for the first time in 16 years with such an unheralded group.  Purdue, despite recent struggles on the court and personnel losses, doesn't have a lot of under the radar recruits, though most of those came in the 2014 class.  Bo Ryan has a great system, and either he can fit any recruit to it, or more likely, he knows exactly who he needs to be successful.  Sam Dekker was a 5*, but where would the Badgers be without Josh Gasser and Frank Kaminsky?

What will the future hold for the Terps?  Who knows.  Mark Turgeon's coaching is still a question mark, at least to the armchair basketball coaches among us, but there's no doubt that the talent should be there to compete early on in the Big Ten.