2011 Recruiting

[MisterRoddy]

I've heard both sides of the coin. There have been strong murmurs coming from the Kabongo camp, but nothing is set in stone that I know of. That includes his verbal to Texas...

To add to this, the rumors are definitely legitimate but for something to happen, Kabongo would have to be the proactive one.

Things should get more clear once K gets back from USA and we will know better where we stand with recruits such as Cook, Miller, and maybe Kabongo.

[Dukeface88]

Adams much higher than Plumlee

Can one of the more knowlegable posters shed some light on why the ranking services are evaluating Plumlee and Adams so differently? I can understand when the diffference is a few spots, but 40 and 30 spot jumps seem very large.

[username]

I've heard both sides of the coin. There have been strong murmurs coming from the Kabongo camp, but nothing is set in stone that I know of. That includes his verbal to Texas...

There's a premium article on Scout.com, that says:

Texas is where he (Kabongo) will sign and there's never been a doubt in his mind.

[DukeBlueNV]

Why would be automatically think that MK would commit to Duke if he does eventually de-commit? I know him and Rivers are close but thats the only reason I could think of that he and Duke could get together.

[MisterRoddy]

There's a premium article on Scout.com, that says:

I remember similar quotes from AR and his camp a few months before his decommitment, point being (as Airowe alluded to), nothing is set in stone.

Why would be automatically think that MK would commit to Duke if he does eventually de-commit? I know him and Rivers are close but thats the only reason I could think of that he and Duke could get together.

I don't think anyone automatically assumes that Kabongo would commit to Duke should he decommit, but if he were to open back up, the feeling is that there would be mutual interest between the two sides.

[Greg_Newton]

A 2011 class of

#2 Quincy Miller
#3 Austin Rivers
#9 Myck Kabongo/#20 Quinn Cook
#21 Michael Gbinije
#40 Marshall Plumlee
#83 Tyler Adams would be higher ranked than UK's class up to this point.

True, but doesn't that also seem extremely unlikely? You'd know better than I would, but our class up to this point is only #s 21, 40 and 83, and #s 2 and 9 seem like real long shots.

#3 Austin Rivers
#20 Quinn Cook
#21 Michael Gbinije
#40 Marshall Plumlee
#83 Tyler Adams

...seems like it might be the more-likely-than-not scenario to me, which is still a great, balanced class. Probably not on the same level as UK's, though.

[BD80]

True, but doesn't that also seem extremely unlikely? You'd know better than I would, but our class up to this point is only #s 21, 40 and 83, and #s 2 and 9 seem like real long shots.

#3 Austin Rivers
#20 Quinn Cook
#21 Michael Gbinije
#40 Marshall Plumlee
#83 Tyler Adams

...seems like it might be the more-likely-than-not scenario to me, which is still a great, balanced class. Probably not on the same level as UK's, though.

Which class has the better chance of being the nucleus of a National Champion?

[MisterRoddy]

Which class has the better chance of being the nucleus of a National Champion?

Lucky for us, that class won't have to be the nucleus of a National Champion right away. When they come in, our nucleus will most likely consist of Seth, Austin (I'll throw him in there because players like AR make a difference right away), Andre, Miles, and Mason/Ryan. With the exception of Rivers, all upperclassmen. Players like Cook, Gbinije, and Adams will have a few years to become the nucleus of a Championship contender after being role players for the aforementioned nucleus.

Kentucky, on the other hand, will have a nucleus that consists of all freshman and their class will have to come in right away and win (in one year for that matter). With their talent level, it's possible, but it's obvious that Duke will probably be in a better position down the road as far as Championships go.

Experience, or lack there of, will be a big problem with Kentucky for years to come as long as Cal keeps recruiting only one-and-dones.

[airowe]

True, but doesn't that also seem extremely unlikely? You'd know better than I would, but our class up to this point is only #s 21, 40 and 83, and #s 2 and 9 seem like real long shots.

#3 Austin Rivers
#20 Quinn Cook
#21 Michael Gbinije
#40 Marshall Plumlee
#83 Tyler Adams

...seems like it might be the more-likely-than-not scenario to me, which is still a great, balanced class. Probably not on the same level as UK's, though.

I agree with you on the #9 being a long shot and the #20 being more likely, but #2 doesn't seem like a real long shot from where I'm sitting...

[SCMatt33]

Can one of the more knowlegable posters shed some light on why the ranking services are evaluating Plumlee and Adams so differently? I can understand when the diffference is a few spots, but 40 and 30 spot jumps seem very large.

It's actually uncommon for the recruiting services to differ by only a few spots, especially once you leave the top 50, and even outside the top 10. I did a real quick excel analysis on the RSCI top 100 from 2010 and found some very interesting characteristics. On average, The difference between the highest and lowest ranking of the 6 used by the RSCI for the top 100 was about 32. If you eliminate the top 25, this jumps to over 38. Eliminating the top 50 causes it to jump to about 42. And if you only look at players ranked 51-90 (the last ten are smaller because no rankings outside 100 are used), the difference spikes to 45.4. And remember, these are the averages. In fact, in the entire top 100, there were only 12 players that all 6 services agreed on to within 10 spots, and 5 of those players were the top 5.

Even among 5 star players, there is a great deal of variance. Individual experts can have vastly different opinions on a player based on several factors. They might not all have seen him play on the same nights, and some may have seen better or worse performances than others, which will affect the final outcome. Individual services may even have different criteria for separating players. One may think that long term potential is more important, while another may weigh readiness to step in right away at a high level as more important. Some guys will value different skills more than others, like speed and athleticism vs. sound fundamentals and technique. That's why more and more, those that don't work for a media outlet with a particular affiliation with a single service will use a consensus ranking, as it lessens the impact of a single recruiting service.

For the record, since the RSCI hasn't come out yet, I started to throw together a consensus of my own, though I did it before most of the post-summer rankings were released, and found that Plumlee and Adams both met in the middle, with both ranked in the high 50's.

This sort of thing may have gone unnoticed by many Duke fans who either don't follow or only casually follow recruiting, because frankly, Duke hasn't brought in a whole ton of players rated this low in the last 5 years. Between 2006 and 2009, Duke brought in only 3 players ranked lower than 25 in the RSCI, Jon Scheyer at 28, Olek Czyz at 66, and Miles Plumlee at 81. For 2010, we have two, Josh Hairston at 32 and Tyler Thornton, who did not make the top 100. On the other side of the coin, before Kyrie committed, the only RSCI top ten recruit Duke brought in during that time was Kyle at #5 in 2007. If you want to look into it further on your own, the RSCI site is rscihoops.com and statsheet.com keeps lists of RSCI top 100 recruits per school since it started in 1998 as well as all time McDonalds all-americans.

[amazinballer323]

I was just watching some Kabongo highlights and man am I sipping the Kool Aid. I know its just highlights but man the guy looks like a great pass first point with amazing passing and good penetration skills.

Could it be a possibility if we dont get QM that we get Kabongo and Cook if Kyrie leaves?

We'd have true points in Thornton, Kabongo, and Cook. Wings in Rivers, Seth, MG, Andre, and Josh and then down low we'd have 2 or 3 Plumlees, Ryan, and Adams.

Wow!

[Duvall]

I was just watching some Kabongo highlights and man am I sipping the Kool Aid. I know its just highlights but man the guy looks like a great pass first point with amazing passing and good penetration skills.

Could it be a possibility if we dont get QM that we get Kabongo and Cook if Kyrie leaves?

No. That has been described as extremely unlikely.

[amazinballer323]

I know its unlikely. They're both true points I don't see them being able to play together.

But still it would be awesome haha.

[MisterRoddy]

I know its impossible.

FIFY

[AlaskanAssassin]

I have always thought that Kabongo disliked Duke because of his comments towards Kyrie, when their respective high school teams played each other.

[Dukeface88]

It's actually uncommon for the recruiting services to differ by only a few spots, especially once you leave the top 50, and even outside the top 10. I did a real quick excel analysis on the RSCI top 100 from 2010 and found some very interesting characteristics. On average, The difference between the highest and lowest ranking of the 6 used by the RSCI for the top 100 was about 32. If you eliminate the top 25, this jumps to over 38. Eliminating the top 50 causes it to jump to about 42. And if you only look at players ranked 51-90 (the last ten are smaller because no rankings outside 100 are used), the difference spikes to 45.4. And remember, these are the averages. In fact, in the entire top 100, there were only 12 players that all 6 services agreed on to within 10 spots, and 5 of those players were the top 5.

Even among 5 star players, there is a great deal of variance. Individual experts can have vastly different opinions on a player based on several factors. They might not all have seen him play on the same nights, and some may have seen better or worse performances than others, which will affect the final outcome. Individual services may even have different criteria for separating players. One may think that long term potential is more important, while another may weigh readiness to step in right away at a high level as more important. Some guys will value different skills more than others, like speed and athleticism vs. sound fundamentals and technique. That's why more and more, those that don't work for a media outlet with a particular affiliation with a single service will use a consensus ranking, as it lessens the impact of a single recruiting service.

For the record, since the RSCI hasn't come out yet, I started to throw together a consensus of my own, though I did it before most of the post-summer rankings were released, and found that Plumlee and Adams both met in the middle, with both ranked in the high 50's.

This sort of thing may have gone unnoticed by many Duke fans who either don't follow or only casually follow recruiting, because frankly, Duke hasn't brought in a whole ton of players rated this low in the last 5 years. Between 2006 and 2009, Duke brought in only 3 players ranked lower than 25 in the RSCI, Jon Scheyer at 28, Olek Czyz at 66, and Miles Plumlee at 81. For 2010, we have two, Josh Hairston at 32 and Tyler Thornton, who did not make the top 100. On the other side of the coin, before Kyrie committed, the only RSCI top ten recruit Duke brought in during that time was Kyle at #5 in 2007. If you want to look into it further on your own, the RSCI site is rscihoops.com and statsheet.com keeps lists of RSCI top 100 recruits per school since it started in 1998 as well as all time McDonalds all-americans.

That's crazy. I figured that the difference was due to how certain factors (athleticism vs. skill; current abilities vs. potential) were being rated, but I hadn't realized that level of disparity was so common. Major props for the stats analysis on that one; posts like these are why I love this site.

Now let's see if I remember enough from stats to do standard deviations (or whether they're even a relavent measurement for these numbers)...

[Dukeface88]

That's crazy. I figured that the difference was due to how certain factors (athleticism vs. skill; current abilities vs. potential) were being rated, but I hadn't realized that level of disparity was so common. Major props for the stats analysis on that one; posts like these are why I love this site.

Now let's see if I remember enough from stats to do standard deviations (or whether they're even a relavent measurement for these numbers)...

Double posting due to editing restrictions.

Apparently RCSI already reports SD and I didn't notice at first glance. The average SD is 9.6, but that doesn't take into account recruits that aren't ranked at all by some services (which could push that number much higher).

[yancem]

A 2011 class of

#2 Quincy Miller
#3 Austin Rivers
#9 Myck Kabongo/#20 Quinn Cook
#21 Michael Gbinije
#40 Marshall Plumlee
#83 Tyler Adams would be higher ranked than UK's class up to this point.

Sure but right now we haven't inked the top 3 of that prospective class so we have a long way to go. Right now KY already has 3 top 10 recruits lined up and its only August. I do like our chances with Rivers and Cook (assuming we offer) and I think that Miller is not too long of a shot and we look to be in better shape now that KY has both Gilchrist and Davis. As for Kabongo, my guess is we won't hear anything new on that front until Rivers makes a decision.

[SCMatt33]

Double posting due to editing restrictions.

Apparently RCSI already reports SD and I didn't notice at first glance. The average SD is 9.6, but that doesn't take into account recruits that aren't ranked at all by some services (which could push that number much higher).

I should have mentioned this in my first post. The RSCI system gives 100 points for being ranked first, 99 for second, all the way down to 1 point for 100th and 0 for unranked. Essentially, this system makes the assumption that all unranked players are ranked 101st even though that is clearly not the case. This is pretty common however. The same thing is done in every media poll for college sports (I choose to believe that every coach not named Spurrier has ranked Duke football 26th in nearly every poll for the last 40 years!).

Anyway, I actually made this assumption in my original analysis and replaced every unranked spot in the RSCI with a 101 when coming up with those numbers. I applied the same thing to standard deviation and found that the average standard deviation jumps up to 12.6. There is no accurate way to assess how an unranked spot should affect a player, but when forced to do so, using 101 is an appropriate measure as it the most conservative assumption possible. So in reality if every service was more like rivals and ranked out to 150, the standard deviation for players ranked 50-100 would be even higher.

[sagegrouse]

The recruits: Announced as committed to Duke:

Austin Rivers
Michael Gbinije
Marshall Plumlee
Tyler Adams

I suppose Quinn Cook is still a good possibility. The travelling vaudeville show of Quincy Miller will stop somewhere, but maybe not at Duke. Who else is still a possibility for 2012?

The roster in 2012: Singler and Smith are entering their final year. I suppose Mason or Kyrie could be gone after this year. That makes the 2011-2012 roster look something like --

Inside:
MP1
MP2??
Ryan Kelly
Josh Hairston
MP3
Tyler Adams

Wing:
Andre Dawkins
Michael Gbinije

Guards:
Seth Curry
Kyrie Irving??
Tyler Thornton
Austin Rivers

Did I leave out someone?

I guess one reaction is that the front court is crowded, and if all the Plumlees stay, Ryan and Josh may get some quality minutes on the wing.

This team will be exciting to watch. I suppose there is life after 2011.

sagegrouse