Re: The difficulty of achieving parity with Tennessee, Connecticut

warren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, warren
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, cb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > Did you even think before you wrote that comment? Don't you think you're
> > > being a bit naive when you say that after UCONN and TN get their players,
> > > there are enough good players for other schools so that they can be
> > > competitive? 
> > 
> > Sure. Look at how their players are ranked. Didn't Duke get the #1
> > freshman class (based on Blue Star et al) last year and somebody else
> > (besides UCONN and TN) this year? UCONN has only two seniors this year
> > and one of them was among the players (coming out of high school) in
> > the rankings of 30-50th best. So what happened to the schools that got
> > the "best" incoming class of freshmen 4 years ago or 3 years ago? Were
> > they "competitive" last year or will they be this year?
> > 
> > -WG
> 
> Look here for additional enlightenment about the strength of incoming
> groups of players.
> http://www.bluestarbb.com/blue50.htm

> In order starting with this year...
> CT:4, TN:1
> CT:4, TN:17
> CT:1, TN:3
> CT:not in top 20, TN:1
> CT:1, TN:2
> CT:10, TN 1

This isn't really an argument that they do not do all that much better
than everyone else in recruiting.  In 5 of these 6 years, one of these
has been #1, and CT has only been outside the top 5 twice, and TN once.
Given that in some years, you recruit only one or two players, and even
if you get exactly who you are looking for, you probably don't make the
top 5 classes, this is pretty impressive.  I doubt any school has this
good a record on the men's side, except maybe Duke.

It would be interesting to see where other top women's programs fit into
such a list, like Stanford, Duke, Purdue, Georgia, etc.  If the problem
is really CT/TN vs. the world, so much as it is top-10-15 vs. everybody
else.  I think it's more the latter, and the problem is the size of the
talent pool.  As I see it, there are about a dozen teams that get enough
good players to challenge for the top when CT or TN is not dominant or
has injuries/bad chemistry/whatever.   A couple of those (Duke,
especially) seem poised to join them at the top if they can get a few
more key wins in big-time games.

Everybody else has almost no chance.


Michael