Friday, June 20, 2008
Little consensus on UVa signee
Why the lack of basketball prospects
Doug Doughty
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I must confess that the start of this week’s Notebook Plus was delayed by a trip to Salem for the International Softball Federation’s Senior World Cup.
Let me first clarify that I was writing about the tournament, not participating in it, though I was certainly eligible for the latter.
Much of my time this week has been spent preparing The Roanoke Times’ annual basketball recruiting wrap-up, which belatedly appears each June.
The Roanoke Times was one of the first sports departments to cover recruiting and no matter what you think of retired ex-sports editor Bill Brill, he was responsible for that.
Now, there are a dozen or so online services that rank the nation’s top basketball prospects and The Roanoke Times’ annual top 40 has become an anachronism among daily newspapers, but, at one time, Brill’s list was the gospel.
There was a time, even since I’ve been at The Roanoke Times, when Brill’s list was carried across The Associated Press wire. I don’t know when Brill stopped doing it, but I think it was well before his retirement in 1991.
Originally, Brill talked to coaches cronies like George Raveling before doing his list, but it eventually became a compilation. Before doing this year’s list, I reviewed the McDonald’s and Parade All-America teams, but also took into account the online ratings that appeared on rivals.com, scout.com and prepstars.com.
After the fact, I also came across USA Today’s All-America team, consisting of three five-man teams that included juniors, and didn’t see anything that called my picks into question.
Interestingly, one of the toughest players to rate is Virginia signee Sylven Landesberg, a 6-foot-6 wing player from Flushing, N.Y., who was named to the McDonald’s All-America team, as well as the Parade All-America second-team.
There are 10 players on each of the Parade All-America teams, which also included five juniors. Three of the juniors were on the Parade second team, which put Landesberg among the top 17 seniors, at least in Parade’s eyes.
There are 25 McDonald’s All-Americans, which would make Landesberg a unanimous Top 25 prospect, except that he was rated 66th by rivals.com, 44th by scout.com and 29th by prepstars.com.
After sorting all of that out, I picked Landesberg 24th, which actually wasn’t the lowest rating for a combination Parade-McDonald’s All-American. Nothing against North Carolina, but I had Tar Heels’ point guard signee Larry Drew ranked 34th.
Like Landesberg, Drew made the Parade and McDonald’s All-America teams, but he was rated 71st by rivals.com and 67th by scout.com (22nd by Prep Stars). Few players were the subject of as much disagreement as UNC signees Drew and Tyler Zeller.
Zeller, a 7-footer from Washington, Ind., made first-team Parade All-American, as well as McDonald’s All-American, but was rated 33rd by rivals.com and 21st by parade.com.
For the Virginia Tech basketball fans in the Notebook Plus readership base, top recruit Victor Davila was rated 96th by prepstars.com and 136th by rivals.com. I can say that Greenberg thinks that Davila is vastly underrated.
(Stories about Landesberg and Davila will appear in Sunday’s print editions of The Roanoke Times).
MAYBE THE GREATEST revelation upon researching the recruiting section was the dearth of in-state boys’ basketball prospects who were recruitable at the Division I high-major level.
Here’s all you need to know: Aside from point guard Brandon Jennings, rated the No. 1 prospect in the country, Oak Hill Academy did not have another senior sign a letter-of-intent this season.
Oak Hill does have a couple D-I prospects in its junior class, including 6-9 Tiny Gallon, rated 36th in the class of 2009 by prepstars.com; 6-6 wing Brian Oliver, who is rated 82nd, but it’s not like Oak Hill not to have multiple signees.
Of course, Oak Hill’s top players rarely come from Virginia, but I continue to include Oak Hill on our lists because it is located in Virginia and does not have postgraduates. I will include players from the postgraduate teams at Fork Union and Hargrave only when those players are in their fourth year of high school, such as Florida recruit Deshawn Painter, who is transferring after his junior season at Booker T. Washington in Norfolk.
The top Virginia-bred player in the 2008 senior class was North Carolina-bound Ed Davis, but even Davis went to a private school, Richmond’s Benedictine High School. The highest-rated VHSL product to sign a men’s basketball letter-of-intent this year was Nansemond River guard Andre Jones, who is going to Winthrop.
Given its success over the past decade, Winthrop might be considered a mid-major program but it plays in a league, the Big South, that most would consider low-major Division I.
WHAT MAKES THAT confusing is the fact that Virginia was loaded with high-major Division I women’s basketball recruits this year, six who are headed to ACC schools, five of them from VHSL programs.
Moreover, it appears that 50 or more football players from Virginia will sign with Division I-A programs, which would be an all-time high. I just read a VirginiaPreps.com piece on Bethel High School defensive end James Gayle, a 6-4, 220-pounder with four I-A offers.
Gayle is the nephew of Washington Redskins defensive back Shawn Gayle but I swear I had never heard of him. It seems that Division I-A football players like the younger Gayle are popping up in Virginia every other day.
