I think most teams making the Final Four -- the Penn States, Nebraskas, Stanfords of the world -- have Top-25 recruits. These are the Rolls Royce cant-miss phenom players that are pretty much a sure thing in college. And most of these teams have more than 1. Usually 2-3-4.
After you get past the top 20 or 30 kids however, the field becomes far more marginalized. Sure those programs still round out their rosters with Top-150 kids, but my impression is their last 8-9 players on the roster are no better than our first 8-9 players. Theirs might be rated higher out of HS, but in terms of "the eyeball test", its pretty even in terms of what they actually do in college.
You take the 2-3 Top-30 kids off of Nebraska, and I think we can play Nebraska even or even beat them. The rest of their roster is not appreciably better than ours. We just do not have the "Lebron James" player who can match up with the other team's superstar.
And I doubt we ever get those kids. Only 5-6 schools are gonna ever get those cant-miss, sure-fire Rolls Royce studs that are guaranteed commodities. After that initial group of kids, I dont see much difference at all between kids 40-300.
If a kid ranked #55 is the perfect fit for us, fills a need, and has the right attitude and aptitude to work within our program, Im all for it. But I have no problem passing up a #55 kid for a #201 kid if the #201 kid is just a better fit or has a better work ethic and embraces what we do. Because I doubt theres really all that much of a difference in college potential between either one. Whichever kid works harder and applies themselves will probably have the better career.
Few and far between are the kids that can just walk on the court go through the motions and still be dominating. Penn State and UCLA get those kids. We dont. I doubt we ever will.
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