RAMification
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It never ceases to amaze me how fluid recruiting rankings are. We are seeing empirical evidence of that again this very week as the various services up-date their player rankings.
In the good old days you basically had ONE national recruiting guru, that being Howard Garfinkel. He ran the Five-Star camps and recruiting service and you literally dare not sign a kid unless you got Garfinkels blessing. He was the God-Father of basketball at the prep level. I will never forget that Garfinkel proclaimed the best recruited backcourt in the nation at any level, was the Lamb, Duncan, Silva trio going to VCU. I still have the article somewhere. After Howard the God-Father became Bob Gibbons with his All-Star Sports reports out of Lenoir, NC. Bob was an insurance guy as his main occupation. I used to talk to him about recruiting often, particularly as it related to VCU. He was and is a great guy.
It was the internet that began the mass production and distribution of recruiting data and the ever changeable rankings. Kids could be participating in a week-end AAU or other tournament, Blow-Up(sort of like Theus), and suddenly their recognition, rankings etc. change and everyone gets after them. Remember Jonathan Mandeldove, a VCU commit who blows up one week-end, decommits and signs on with Jim Calhoun and UCONN.
Along these lines the Mason people may be crying a little tonight because in the newly released rankings, Mason only has ONE 3-Star player, that being Sherrod Wright who drops to the #45 2-Guard in the country. No big deal, but they have absolutely blown their class out of proportion.
With respect to VCU, as DB noted earlier, Ben stays a 3-Star, but drops to #28, and Darius is upgraded to a 2-Star which was inevitable(he's that good). Darius also now get's a #89 ranking by ESPN, as well as being rated the #20 PG in the class. This young man really blew-up late, and from what Tim Pearrell tells me was the MVP in some All-Star game where he supposedly scored in the 30's. All of this explains his rise, but the overall fluidity is amazing!
In the good old days you basically had ONE national recruiting guru, that being Howard Garfinkel. He ran the Five-Star camps and recruiting service and you literally dare not sign a kid unless you got Garfinkels blessing. He was the God-Father of basketball at the prep level. I will never forget that Garfinkel proclaimed the best recruited backcourt in the nation at any level, was the Lamb, Duncan, Silva trio going to VCU. I still have the article somewhere. After Howard the God-Father became Bob Gibbons with his All-Star Sports reports out of Lenoir, NC. Bob was an insurance guy as his main occupation. I used to talk to him about recruiting often, particularly as it related to VCU. He was and is a great guy.
It was the internet that began the mass production and distribution of recruiting data and the ever changeable rankings. Kids could be participating in a week-end AAU or other tournament, Blow-Up(sort of like Theus), and suddenly their recognition, rankings etc. change and everyone gets after them. Remember Jonathan Mandeldove, a VCU commit who blows up one week-end, decommits and signs on with Jim Calhoun and UCONN.
Along these lines the Mason people may be crying a little tonight because in the newly released rankings, Mason only has ONE 3-Star player, that being Sherrod Wright who drops to the #45 2-Guard in the country. No big deal, but they have absolutely blown their class out of proportion.
With respect to VCU, as DB noted earlier, Ben stays a 3-Star, but drops to #28, and Darius is upgraded to a 2-Star which was inevitable(he's that good). Darius also now get's a #89 ranking by ESPN, as well as being rated the #20 PG in the class. This young man really blew-up late, and from what Tim Pearrell tells me was the MVP in some All-Star game where he supposedly scored in the 30's. All of this explains his rise, but the overall fluidity is amazing!
