Accuracy of High School Player rankings

[DanL53]

CONCLUSION:

With the increasing importance of winning placed on competitive athletic
programs, institutions and athletic departments seek ways to ensure athletic success. The
need to select the best possible recruit to capitalize on team outcome has led to a growing
movement to measure the efficiency of players. Recruit selection is constrained by a
number of factors including NCAA limits on team size, contact with potential recruits,
scholarships, the costs of recruiting and the competition from other Division I programs.
Because of these constraints, coaches looked towards recruiting websites in effort to
make their recruiting efforts more efficient.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the value or utility
of the rankings given to men's basketball high school recruits. 236 Division I basketball
recruits gathered from the 2007, 2008, and 2009 recruiting class were included in this
study and their recruit rankings were taken from three different web services. The study
revealed in terms of a player's ranking and best NCAA tournament appearances, players
in Q1 and Q2 made it further into the NCAA tournament. However players in Q3 seemed
to have the poorest success in the NCAA tournament. For winning a conference regular
season championship, players in Q4 have had the most success even though they have the
lowest rankings. The results for conference tournament championships won revealed that
the lower the ranking a recruit received, aside from recruits in Q4, the more conference
tournament championships they won. The study was able to demonstrate that there is no
conclusive evidence that shows that if a player is highly ranked, they will help the team
they compete on to appear in more NCAA tournament games, to win conference regular
season championships, or to become conference tournament champions. At the very least
this study reveals that while player rankings alone cannot predict success, there is a
possibility that the rankings may be one of many factors that contribute to the success of
an athletic team.

Recently PhantomFlyer has been posting little bits of this study trying to twist the conclusions. One of his attempts:

"The study revealed in terms of a player's ranking and best NCAA tournament appearances, players
in Q1 and Q2 made it further into the NCAA tournament."

Read alone it seems to support Phantom's lies. Read in context above, it does not.

PhantomFlyer has made other such claims and provided out of context pieces of the study. I'd feel sad if this board allow itself to be taken in.

This is an excellent opportunity to increase one's basketball IQ, or to at least confirm the existence of supposed high IQ.

People, there is no such thing as a set in stone team recruiting rankings in the Big Ten. Iowa is not tenth, or second, or fourteenth just because someone says so. Rankings are meant for entertainment purposes. It's that simple, it has been proven.

So the next time someone like PhantomFlyer decides to spread his doom and gloom (Did real well predicting Iowa's success this year, didn't you Phantom?), believe me, he's just trying to spread his doubts like they were an STD.

Again, here is a link to the entire study. I strongly suggest people read at least the discussion and comments section.

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=cps_professional

And, Phantom...I'll keep posting this link as long as you keep trying to lie.

 

[DavenportHawk8]

Originally posted by DanL53:
CONCLUSION:

With the increasing importance of winning placed on competitive athletic
programs, institutions and athletic departments seek ways to ensure athletic success. The
need to select the best possible recruit to capitalize on team outcome has led to a growing
movement to measure the efficiency of players. Recruit selection is constrained by a
number of factors including NCAA limits on team size, contact with potential recruits,
scholarships, the costs of recruiting and the competition from other Division I programs.
Because of these constraints, coaches looked towards recruiting websites in effort to
make their recruiting efforts more efficient.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the value or utility
of the rankings given to men's basketball high school recruits. 236 Division I basketball
recruits gathered from the 2007, 2008, and 2009 recruiting class were included in this
study and their recruit rankings were taken from three different web services. The study
revealed in terms of a player's ranking and best NCAA tournament appearances, players
in Q1 and Q2 made it further into the NCAA tournament. However players in Q3 seemed
to have the poorest success in the NCAA tournament. For winning a conference regular
season championship, players in Q4 have had the most success even though they have the
lowest rankings. The results for conference tournament championships won revealed that
the lower the ranking a recruit received, aside from recruits in Q4, the more conference
tournament championships they won. The study was able to demonstrate that there is no
conclusive evidence that shows that if a player is highly ranked, they will help the team
they compete on to appear in more NCAA tournament games, to win conference regular
season championships, or to become conference tournament champions. At the very least
this study reveals that while player rankings alone cannot predict success, there is a
possibility that the rankings may be one of many factors that contribute to the success of
an athletic team.

Recently PhantomFlyer has been posting little bits of this study trying to twist the conclusions. One of his attempts:

"The study revealed in terms of a player's ranking and best NCAA tournament appearances, players
in Q1 and Q2 made it further into the NCAA tournament."

Read alone it seems to support Phantom's lies. Read in context above, it does not.

PhantomFlyer has made other such claims and provided out of context pieces of the study. I'd feel sad if this board allow itself to be taken in.

This is an excellent opportunity to increase one's basketball IQ, or to at least confirm the existence of supposed high IQ.

People, there is no such thing as a set in stone team recruiting rankings in the Big Ten. Iowa is not tenth, or second, or fourteenth just because someone says so. Rankings are meant for entertainment purposes. It's that simple, it has been proven.

So the next time someone like PhantomFlyer decides to spread his doom and gloom (Did real well predicting Iowa's success this year, didn't you Phantom?), believe me, he's just trying to spread his doubts like they were an STD.

Again, here is a link to the entire study. I strongly suggest people read at least the discussion and comments section.

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=cps_professional

And, Phantom...I'll keep posting this link as long as you keep trying to lie.

What was White rated out of High School (2-3 star)? Yeah I take the coaches word for it over any internet message board person.
Same with Marble (2 star)? 2nd round draft choice in the NBA?

Lets face it hard work beat talent, when talent doesn't work hard. Any player can come into Iowa and if they work their tail off to improve can get better. I mean Marble was lost as a freshman and graduated a scorer and got drafted.

I agree stars are cool to see next to a recruits name, but overall if they are hard working and come from a tough basketball area, then Im sold. Could care less what their rated. If they are being offered by Wisky, WVU, ISU, and other Power 5 programs thats a good sign that Fran is on the right track.

 

[nu2u]

My personal opinion: outside of the consensus top 3-5 players at each position (maybe a little deeper at Guard i.e. "top prospects" /Top 25), the value of the next 150-200 prospects depends upon a variety of individual factors and circumstances.

Players outside of the consensus "top prospect" class require a deeper evaluation beyond raw talent and an assessment of developmental capability and other personal factors such as character, work ethic, basketball IQ, desire, etc. This is where most coaches / recruiters earn their money. IMO McCaffery is very good at evaluating this group and that is why he is a great coach for Iowa.

 

[nattybumpo]

That's a poorly designed study. I wouldn't rely on it.

 

[nu2u]

Originally posted by nattybumpo:
That's a poorly designed study. I wouldn't rely on it.

How is it deficient?

 

[Hawkeye2222]

because nu2nu ir does not fit his belief that all 4* rated players need to be on IA 's team for it to be successful.

 

[nattybumpo]

Dividing recruits into quartiles increases the chance they will find no effect; it needlessly creates categorical data.

Also, confining the response variable to a brief tournament increases chance of no effect.

They may be overly agressive with multiple comparison adjustments.

But you don't need a masters in statistics to see that there's problems with this paper. It doesn't pass the laugh test. There is no correlation between a players' high school recruiting ranking and team success in college? Really?!? Tell that to Kentucky.

 

[iowalawhawk]

Yeah, that looks like a garbage study that can't justify it's broad conclusions.

We all understand that, broadly speaking, highly ranked players are better than unranked players. There are always exceptions. We want/need good players, whether that's Aaron White or a McDonalds All American.

I'm also not sure that coaches actually pay much or any attention to ranking services. My take has always been that services like Rivals were more entertainment for the fans than actual scouting for coaches.

 

[nattybumpo]

Also, all the players they started with *are* ranked. So, its only looking at say the difference between getting the 50th ranked player and the 100th ranked player. They aren't considering unranked players who constitute the majority of college players.

So, the paper, flawed as it is, doesn't argue that rankings don't matter per se, its that among ranked players, their relative ranking doesn't matter wrt a particular team outcome. Or I should say, they couldn't find conclusive evidence that relative ranking mattered.

The data does show a clear relationship between the first three quartiles and success in the NCAA tournament--higher quartile leads to more success. It just didn't meet the .95 threshold for validity.

This post was edited on 3/24 4:59 PM by nattybumpo

This post was edited on 3/24 4:59 PM by nattybumpo

 

[Hawkeye2222]

coaches evaluate these players during AAU games and spring and summer camps across the country a coach worth his salt DOES NOT rely on the recruiting services to find the players they want and need for their system,

then you have services that rate these kids on the offers and who they commit to, for example

if Ulis had never been looked or committed to Kentucky he would never have been a 5* McDonalds AA, he would have been just another unranked 3* signed by Fran, but he committed to Kentucky and he was given that 5th * and named to the McD's AA game, and posters would not say a word about him.

this happens to other players as well, and in other sports and to other teams players.

 

[4th & 9 inches]

We all know rankings don't mean squat unless the guy has committed to Iowa and is a 4 or 5* player
This post was edited on 3/24 5:31 PM by 4th & 9 inches

 

[ft254]

I'm always humored by the "stars conspiracy theorists" attempts to disprove the value of the recruiting services' evaluating processes. After all, there are thousands of players, in varying stages of physical and mental development, five positions with varying skill sets, and evaluations tend to be somewhat subjective.

But, as always, someone has to explain to me why the perennial power teams' rosters are comprised of the highest ranked players. Do these programs wait and read Rivals before they recruit? Of course not. But these publications know what they are doing for the most part. They can't know every player and everything about every player, but they can find obvious talent.

White is an interesting player. Many fans were not sold on him until the last 6 games of his Senior year and would have scoffed at him being called a "highly" regarded recruit. He was no doubt positioned right at 3* and blossomed his final year.

 

[DanL53]

Got it. ft254 says that White's last five games were why he ended up so high on the all time scoring and rebounding list at Iowa.

As to the rest. What? Let's just begin and end here: "five positions with varying skill sets" fail. done.