A WHOLE LOTTA weird posts come-&-go through here daily, so here's just another:
My Glorious ‘First Post’:
(I doubt it'll remain on Page-1 very long.)
Awhile back, a friend suggested I go look at a specific topic over on the KU board (?), so I'll paste THAT topic below (in black ink). (Some of you may've already seen it, over there.) This might be a long & weird post, but keep in mind: it was ALREADY weird (KU-written). I'll just changed it a bit; add some good UK flair.
U MAY find the info interesting, IF you're trying to guess (as I am) at pre-season, team-talent comparisons.
Disclaimer (If you’re not dumb, you can skip the blue-ink part directly below, & go right-down to the black-ink stuff):
Recruiting services (I don't care if it's Rivals, Scout, ESPN, 247, etc.) have NO CONSISTENT WAY of accurately predicting individual, college basketball success or pro success. They get SOME predictions right, sure, but they miss on SO many. There are SO many different factors (e.g., player work ethic, does a player learn quickly?, high BB IQ?, just how athletic?, does he share the ball? how much talent will he be surrounded by [to compete against and benefit from]? what's his high school/AAU competition been like? is he nervous or cool? a leader? is his coach gonna be first-rate?, is it a tough system to learn? does he have ‘a chip on his shoulder’?,what about injuries?, etc.)
Yes, success is impossible to consistently predict, so take the below info 'with a grain of salt'.
In hindsight, some ‘4-star’ players really shoulda been ranked 5-stars, and some 5-stars: 4-stars. And SOMEtimes 3-stars are really 5-stars. (Some players grow a lot; some very little. Some were really never that talented, or maybe they just ran into major problems.)
Each season, we all just have to be patient to find out the true recruiting answers, yet the teams who have been designated as having a lot of 4-star AND 5-star players are probably gonna be pretty talented, right? So below are those teams, according to Rivals – and I totally 'get' that a lot of fans don’t like Rivals, but whatever. Does it really matter?? It's all just guess-work.
Also, there is a difference between a RANKED player and a RATED player. Sometimes players aren’t RANKED in the top whatever (1-150), early on, but the recruiting service will later go back and say, “Ya know what? Player X has now demonstrated that they’re definitely good enough to have been RANKED in the top-25, or whatever, so, although we won’t 'RANK' them as a 5-star, we’ll still 'RATE' them as a 5-star…and that way we’ll avoid disrupting the established the rankings, cuz we’re constantly re-evaluating players” Also, player rankings can skyrocket just because big-name programs check them out.
___________________________________
Ahhh. Here we are... :
Upcoming number of Rivals. com 4-star AND 5-star ('rated' OR 'ranked') players on the following teams and last season's team records:
UNC 10 (26-12, lost to Wisconsin in Sweet 16 match-up)
KU 10 (including Vick) (27-9, lost to Wichita St., second round)
Texas 9 (20-14, lost to Butler, first round)
Arizona 9 (34-4, lost to Wisconsin in the Elite Eight game)
Kentucky 8 (including Murray)(38-1, lost to Wisconsin, Final Four)
Maryland 7 (28-7, lost to WVU in the second round)
Duke 7 (35-4, Champs)
Villanova 7 (33-3, lost in Sweet 16 game, to NC-State) [great game, imho]
Memphis 6 (veteran 5-star Austin Nichols was granted transfer, last week.) (18-14, last season, no post-season tourney) (*See long note on Memphis, below)
Louisville 7 (27-9, lost to Michigan State, in Elite Eight match-up)
Iowa St 5 (25-9, lost to UAB, first round)
Baylor 5 (24-10, lost to Georgia State, first round)
Virginia 5 (30-4, lost in second round, to Michigan State)
_________________________________
Now:
Of their Rivals 4-star AND 5-star players, ___________ will be upperclassmen.
six of UNC's ten
five of KU's ten
five of Texas' nine
four of Villanova's seven
three of Arizona's nine
three of Kentucky's eight (Lee, Poythress and new, 4-star, juco-transfer Mychal Mulder)
three of Maryland's seven (including new transfer Sulaimon, plus Layman and carter.)
two of Duke's seven (sr Jefferson, jr Jones)
two of Memphis' six (Goodwin, Johnson)
0 of Louisville's seven
_______________________________________
And finally:
Number of Rivals 5-star players on the following teams:
Kentucky: 6 (three frosh [Murray, Briscoe, Labissiere], plus soph Ulis and upperclassmen Poythress and Lee)
Kansas: 5 (upperclassmen Ellis & Selden, plus soph Svi and frosh Diallo & Bragg)
Arizona: 4 (1 senior [Tarc.] and three frosh [Trier, Simon, Smith])
Duke: 4 (all four frosh: Kennard, Ingram, Jeter, Thornton)
UNC: 3 (one upperclassman [jr Hicks] and sophs Jackson & Pinson)
Maryland: 2 (1 senior [newcomer Sulaimon] and 1 frosh [Stone])
Villanova 1 (frosh, Brunson)
EDIT: Memphis 0 (not 1, because Nichols, a 5-star junior, just left [in July])
Texas: 0 (nine 4-stars: 3 frosh, one soph, 3 jrs and 2 srs [Ridley and Ibeh])(Taylor, Lammert and Holland are 3-stars)
Iowa St.: 0 (five 4-stars)(niang, morris, McKay, Thomas, noskowiak)(lost c. custer to Loyala Chi. and k. Jackson to s. miss.)
Baylor: 0 (five 4-stars: gathers, freeman, motley, wainwright, McClure)(prince was a 3-star)
Virginia 0 (five 4-stars: stith, wilkins, nolte, tobey, brogden)
Louisville: 0 (all are underclassmen 4-stars, plus two transfers [Lewis [[2-star, 16.7 ppg and 42.3 3-pt% at Drexel]] and Lee [[3-star, 21.4ppg, 6.1rpg and 1.5spg at Clev. St.]].)(Louisville has recently gone through more turnover than anyone, except maybe Kentucky, Memphis and Kansas State. Louisville lost Harrell and Rozier to NBA, Jones to dismissal and four, recent transfers out: Gill, Gilbert, Aaron, Agau. None of UL's seven, 4-star players averaged more than 3.3 ppg, last season.)
____________________________
(*Although Memphis' 2012 and 2013 classes had a combined eight, Rivals 4-or-5-stars, since August of 2014, Memphis has lost two players to dismissal [Iverson, Woodson], plus five transfers out [King, Powell, Wilson, McGee and -- update: July 2015 -- Pastner finally granted Austin Nichols' release [he was a 5-star from the class of '13]]. They've recently brought-in three, frosh 4-stars and three 3-stars.) (Note: in Pastner's six seasons at Memphis, he is 6-20 vs ranked teams, with five of those six wins coming during the 2013-14 season. He has one NIT appearance [with one NIT win] and 4 NCAA appearances [in six seasons] with two, first-round NCAA victories. Last season, they had one of the strongest teams, as far as # of 4-star and 5-star recruits, but didn't make the NCAAs! They were swept by Tulsa, Temple and SMU and had losses to Tulane, Stephen F. Austin, Wichita St. and E. Carolina, among others.)
______________________________
Ps, unrelated: To anyone out there who knows how to change Wikipedia mistakes (or cares enough), I noticed that Wikipedia's article "List of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball seasons" shows Coach Cal as having 37 UK losses, but it's really 38.
_______________________________
Finally, I have a possibly popular concern to start our season. Yes, I'm confident our new guys will learn fast, unite & become a force, but looking at last season's stats, I've calculated that only 21.93% of our minutes return and Ulis alone claims about 51% of those returning minutes. Ulis played 882 mins, Lee 425, Hawkins 163, Poy 162 (and yes, I realize Poy already has a whole lot of PT experience in previous seasons. He played 852 mins. his freshman season and 734 his sophomore [i.e., close to 20 mpg]. I trust he'll come back strong), and Floreal 20 mins. (Of course, some of our high turnover is due to walk-ons leaving.)
By February, I think we'll be just fine -- maybe not real consistent, but *capable* of playing super-well every, single night! Hopefully, we can get another Aaron Harrison (2014) type of "hot hand" in time for the tourney. We'll have gained a fair amount of experience & chemistry. I'm a HUGE believer in upperclassmen often bringing consistency and mental toughness.
Schedule note: I think we'll have at least seven teams on this-coming schedule who won at least 20 games, last season. That's right on-par with some of the other top schedules.
_________________________________
No more long posts from me.
I just wanna compare teams, EVEN THO' there's a TON 'a guess-work. Thx
(And remember: this rambling, weird thread will probably be out-done by someone very soon.)
*Post edited to remove Austin Nichols & Memphis from the '5-stars' list. As I said, Pastner finally granted Nichols' unconditional release, mid-July ("...hours after Nichols' family hired a lawyer...."), and Memphis no longer has any Rivals '5-star' players. In February, Nichols suffered a significant ankle injury and sat-out the remainder of the season. No word yet on his transfer plans.
My Glorious ‘First Post’:
(I doubt it'll remain on Page-1 very long.)
Awhile back, a friend suggested I go look at a specific topic over on the KU board (?), so I'll paste THAT topic below (in black ink). (Some of you may've already seen it, over there.) This might be a long & weird post, but keep in mind: it was ALREADY weird (KU-written). I'll just changed it a bit; add some good UK flair.
U MAY find the info interesting, IF you're trying to guess (as I am) at pre-season, team-talent comparisons.
Disclaimer (If you’re not dumb, you can skip the blue-ink part directly below, & go right-down to the black-ink stuff):
Recruiting services (I don't care if it's Rivals, Scout, ESPN, 247, etc.) have NO CONSISTENT WAY of accurately predicting individual, college basketball success or pro success. They get SOME predictions right, sure, but they miss on SO many. There are SO many different factors (e.g., player work ethic, does a player learn quickly?, high BB IQ?, just how athletic?, does he share the ball? how much talent will he be surrounded by [to compete against and benefit from]? what's his high school/AAU competition been like? is he nervous or cool? a leader? is his coach gonna be first-rate?, is it a tough system to learn? does he have ‘a chip on his shoulder’?,what about injuries?, etc.)
Yes, success is impossible to consistently predict, so take the below info 'with a grain of salt'.
In hindsight, some ‘4-star’ players really shoulda been ranked 5-stars, and some 5-stars: 4-stars. And SOMEtimes 3-stars are really 5-stars. (Some players grow a lot; some very little. Some were really never that talented, or maybe they just ran into major problems.)
Each season, we all just have to be patient to find out the true recruiting answers, yet the teams who have been designated as having a lot of 4-star AND 5-star players are probably gonna be pretty talented, right? So below are those teams, according to Rivals – and I totally 'get' that a lot of fans don’t like Rivals, but whatever. Does it really matter?? It's all just guess-work.
Also, there is a difference between a RANKED player and a RATED player. Sometimes players aren’t RANKED in the top whatever (1-150), early on, but the recruiting service will later go back and say, “Ya know what? Player X has now demonstrated that they’re definitely good enough to have been RANKED in the top-25, or whatever, so, although we won’t 'RANK' them as a 5-star, we’ll still 'RATE' them as a 5-star…and that way we’ll avoid disrupting the established the rankings, cuz we’re constantly re-evaluating players” Also, player rankings can skyrocket just because big-name programs check them out.
___________________________________
Ahhh. Here we are... :
Upcoming number of Rivals. com 4-star AND 5-star ('rated' OR 'ranked') players on the following teams and last season's team records:
UNC 10 (26-12, lost to Wisconsin in Sweet 16 match-up)
KU 10 (including Vick) (27-9, lost to Wichita St., second round)
Texas 9 (20-14, lost to Butler, first round)
Arizona 9 (34-4, lost to Wisconsin in the Elite Eight game)
Kentucky 8 (including Murray)(38-1, lost to Wisconsin, Final Four)
Maryland 7 (28-7, lost to WVU in the second round)
Duke 7 (35-4, Champs)
Villanova 7 (33-3, lost in Sweet 16 game, to NC-State) [great game, imho]
Memphis 6 (veteran 5-star Austin Nichols was granted transfer, last week.) (18-14, last season, no post-season tourney) (*See long note on Memphis, below)
Louisville 7 (27-9, lost to Michigan State, in Elite Eight match-up)
Iowa St 5 (25-9, lost to UAB, first round)
Baylor 5 (24-10, lost to Georgia State, first round)
Virginia 5 (30-4, lost in second round, to Michigan State)
_________________________________
Now:
Of their Rivals 4-star AND 5-star players, ___________ will be upperclassmen.
six of UNC's ten
five of KU's ten
five of Texas' nine
four of Villanova's seven
three of Arizona's nine
three of Kentucky's eight (Lee, Poythress and new, 4-star, juco-transfer Mychal Mulder)
three of Maryland's seven (including new transfer Sulaimon, plus Layman and carter.)
two of Duke's seven (sr Jefferson, jr Jones)
two of Memphis' six (Goodwin, Johnson)
0 of Louisville's seven
_______________________________________
And finally:
Number of Rivals 5-star players on the following teams:
Kentucky: 6 (three frosh [Murray, Briscoe, Labissiere], plus soph Ulis and upperclassmen Poythress and Lee)
Kansas: 5 (upperclassmen Ellis & Selden, plus soph Svi and frosh Diallo & Bragg)
Arizona: 4 (1 senior [Tarc.] and three frosh [Trier, Simon, Smith])
Duke: 4 (all four frosh: Kennard, Ingram, Jeter, Thornton)
UNC: 3 (one upperclassman [jr Hicks] and sophs Jackson & Pinson)
Maryland: 2 (1 senior [newcomer Sulaimon] and 1 frosh [Stone])
Villanova 1 (frosh, Brunson)
EDIT: Memphis 0 (not 1, because Nichols, a 5-star junior, just left [in July])
Texas: 0 (nine 4-stars: 3 frosh, one soph, 3 jrs and 2 srs [Ridley and Ibeh])(Taylor, Lammert and Holland are 3-stars)
Iowa St.: 0 (five 4-stars)(niang, morris, McKay, Thomas, noskowiak)(lost c. custer to Loyala Chi. and k. Jackson to s. miss.)
Baylor: 0 (five 4-stars: gathers, freeman, motley, wainwright, McClure)(prince was a 3-star)
Virginia 0 (five 4-stars: stith, wilkins, nolte, tobey, brogden)
Louisville: 0 (all are underclassmen 4-stars, plus two transfers [Lewis [[2-star, 16.7 ppg and 42.3 3-pt% at Drexel]] and Lee [[3-star, 21.4ppg, 6.1rpg and 1.5spg at Clev. St.]].)(Louisville has recently gone through more turnover than anyone, except maybe Kentucky, Memphis and Kansas State. Louisville lost Harrell and Rozier to NBA, Jones to dismissal and four, recent transfers out: Gill, Gilbert, Aaron, Agau. None of UL's seven, 4-star players averaged more than 3.3 ppg, last season.)
____________________________
(*Although Memphis' 2012 and 2013 classes had a combined eight, Rivals 4-or-5-stars, since August of 2014, Memphis has lost two players to dismissal [Iverson, Woodson], plus five transfers out [King, Powell, Wilson, McGee and -- update: July 2015 -- Pastner finally granted Austin Nichols' release [he was a 5-star from the class of '13]]. They've recently brought-in three, frosh 4-stars and three 3-stars.) (Note: in Pastner's six seasons at Memphis, he is 6-20 vs ranked teams, with five of those six wins coming during the 2013-14 season. He has one NIT appearance [with one NIT win] and 4 NCAA appearances [in six seasons] with two, first-round NCAA victories. Last season, they had one of the strongest teams, as far as # of 4-star and 5-star recruits, but didn't make the NCAAs! They were swept by Tulsa, Temple and SMU and had losses to Tulane, Stephen F. Austin, Wichita St. and E. Carolina, among others.)
______________________________
Ps, unrelated: To anyone out there who knows how to change Wikipedia mistakes (or cares enough), I noticed that Wikipedia's article "List of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball seasons" shows Coach Cal as having 37 UK losses, but it's really 38.
_______________________________
Finally, I have a possibly popular concern to start our season. Yes, I'm confident our new guys will learn fast, unite & become a force, but looking at last season's stats, I've calculated that only 21.93% of our minutes return and Ulis alone claims about 51% of those returning minutes. Ulis played 882 mins, Lee 425, Hawkins 163, Poy 162 (and yes, I realize Poy already has a whole lot of PT experience in previous seasons. He played 852 mins. his freshman season and 734 his sophomore [i.e., close to 20 mpg]. I trust he'll come back strong), and Floreal 20 mins. (Of course, some of our high turnover is due to walk-ons leaving.)
By February, I think we'll be just fine -- maybe not real consistent, but *capable* of playing super-well every, single night! Hopefully, we can get another Aaron Harrison (2014) type of "hot hand" in time for the tourney. We'll have gained a fair amount of experience & chemistry. I'm a HUGE believer in upperclassmen often bringing consistency and mental toughness.
Schedule note: I think we'll have at least seven teams on this-coming schedule who won at least 20 games, last season. That's right on-par with some of the other top schedules.
_________________________________
No more long posts from me.
I just wanna compare teams, EVEN THO' there's a TON 'a guess-work. Thx
(And remember: this rambling, weird thread will probably be out-done by someone very soon.)
*Post edited to remove Austin Nichols & Memphis from the '5-stars' list. As I said, Pastner finally granted Nichols' unconditional release, mid-July ("...hours after Nichols' family hired a lawyer...."), and Memphis no longer has any Rivals '5-star' players. In February, Nichols suffered a significant ankle injury and sat-out the remainder of the season. No word yet on his transfer plans.
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