Not landing five stars not always a bad thing

I think it has become more and more obvious that high school recruiting rankings are a tad flawed. Of course the top recruits in the nation deserve that five-star rating that coaches and programs covet.

They are the “cats meow” or the “bees knees” if you will.  But after maybe the top 10 or 20 prospects (players in the four or three star bracket) the talent becomes more watered down.

It’s a lot like the NBA draft.  The top five prospects are usually guys who can step in and make things happen early.  After that?  Well lets just say there are a lot of Tyler Hansboroughs and Rashad McCants to go around.

What top end recruits do for you in any sports is obvious.  They give you the sexy recruiting class that ESPN will cover and give you good national exposure.  But in the end, just because a team doesn’t land top talent doesn’t mean both the class is no good and players will not contribute.

Look at teams like Boise State and Texas Christian in football, I don’t believe either school has ever had a top 10 recruiting class, but year in and year out they make it work.

Chris Petersen and Gary Patterson bring guys into their programs that fit their systems and coach them up into something better.  This is a trend that seems to be capturing the imagination of schools across the nation in any sport.

The thing about those flashy five-star recruits (The ones who deserve the five-star ratings and are truly a unique talent) is that they will contribute early and often.

Whats wrong with that?  Well when a player contributes early and often he earns the attention of pro scouts who then get in his ear and tell him he can make his millions now, no reason to stay at school any longer.

This is especially prevalent in the NBA.  Since the NBA’s age change forcing high school athletes to attend college at least one year, the “one and done” has become a staple of recruiting classes.

Each year the Kentuckys, North Carolinas and so on bring kids into their programs they know will only be around for a year, two at the most.  Kids like John Wall, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, and Greg Oden serve their sentence in college and go on to bigger and better things.

But that revolving door model of top high school prospects might be doing more harm than good.  Simply because it seems that teams who bring players in who intend on staying in college at least two years tend to remain competitive more often and longer than their counterparts.

This seems obvious in two sports more than others, hockey and basketball.  Look at the top teams in college basketball this year.  Ohio State, Texas, Kansas, Pittsburgh, and BYU to name a few.  Almost ever single one of these teams are led by leadership brought on by kids who are in their third or fourth year at school.

Obviously the Buckeye’s best player Jared Sullinger is a freshman, but the other four starters are juniors and seniors.  If you look at all those top teams you will notice each one of them is senior or junior oriented.  The only one that has a strong freshman team is Texas.  The nations leading scorer out of BYU, Jimmer Fredette is, of course, a senior.

This seems obvious I know, but what are teams suppose to do who are usually freshman oriented?

In college hockey the University of Minnesota was a dominating force in the early to mid 2000′s, winning back to back national championships in 2002-2003.  With that success came an influx of outstanding players from a state that homes the best hockey talent in the United States.

Players like Kyle Okposo, Phil Kessell, Eric Johnson, and Jim O’Brian led a wave of freshmen that won the WCHA, but could not bring home a national championship.

After the season Johnson became the first overall pick in the NHL draft.  following him was Kessell at five, Okposo at seven and O’Brian would be a first round pick the next year.

None of those players played a full two years at the University of Minnesota before going to the NHL.  Leaving big scoring gaps and defensive responsibilities to fill for head coach Don Lucia.

While this was happening, Minnesota’s biggest rivals, the University of North Dakota fighting Sioux, was retaining players such as Jean-Philippe Lamoureux, Ryalan Kaip, Robbie Bina, T.J Oshi, and Nate Finley.  Thus allowing them to remain more competitive consistently than Minnesota.

Coaches are in a tough spot, you want and need the best players, but at the same time one cannot let the top talent flee to the pros every single year.

Consistency is important in sports and it is becoming more clear that finding players who want to finish their education might be just as important as the number of stars a scout gives them.

As the cliché goes, “its like a fine wine, getting better with time.”  If I am to stick with the cliché, coaches need to convince their players to “ferment” a little while longer, before uncorking them and serving them up to the professional wine snobs…. Or something like that.

- Adam St. Paul

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