Looks Are Deceiving: High School Player Ratings Nothing More Than Hype

Kentucky loyalists are counting on returning to elite status next season. The follow-the-pack national media already is falling in lockstep predicting the Wildcats will claw back to at least near the top of the national polls. But Big Blue Nation and welfare writers (accepting guesswork handouts from well-meaning but ineffectual middle men) better hope the recruiting gurus ranking high school hotshots emerge from a sorry slump.

What good are prep player rankings if the brainiac analysts can't come close to pinpointing a prospect who will become a college All-American in a couple of years? This season provided ample evidence of rating ineptitude when four of the five NCAA unanimous All-American first-team selections, including national player of the year Trey Burke (Michigan), weren't ranked among the consensus Top 100 H.S. recruits assembled by RSCI the years they left high school. First-teamer Kelly Olynyk (Gonzaga) and Final Four MOP Luke Hancock (Louisville) weren't among the top 100 in 2009. First-teamers Doug McDermott (Creighton) and Victor Oladipo (Indiana) plus honorable mention All-American Russ Smith (leading scorer for NCAA champion Louisville) weren't among the top 100 in 2010.

Burke wasn't included among the consensus top 100 in 2011 although every scout in this burgeoning charade saw him play on the same high school squad with eventual Ohio State All-American Jared Sullinger. The media hacks, apparently incapable of calculating the difference between AAU-pickup street ball and genuine team ball, should be deep-sixed when you consider that the following long list of mediocre players were ranked higher than Burke but have averaged fewer than six points per game in their DI college careers: Tyler Adams (Georgetown/2.5 ppg), Juan Anderson (Marquette/1.8), C.J. Barksdale (Virginia Tech/4.2), Jamal Branch (Texas A&M & St. John's/5.4), Carlton Brundidge (Michigan & Detroit/0.4), Angelo Chol (Arizona & San Diego State/2.4), Trevor Cooney (Syracuse/3.4), Eric Copes (George Mason/4.8), Nnanna Egwu (Illinois/4.3), D.J. Gardner (Mississippi State/RS kicked off team), Malcolm Gilbert (Pittsburgh/0.5), Cezar Guerrero (Oklahoma State & Fresno State/5.6), Mychael Henry (Illinois/3.2), Mikael Hopkins (Georgetown/4.2), Sidiki Johnson (Arizona & Providence/2.9), Ty Johnson (Villanova & South Carolina/3.3), Damien Leonard (South Carolina/5.5), Rashad Madden (Arkansas/5.4), Hunter Mickelson (Arkansas & Kansas/5.2), Alex Murphy (Duke/2.1), Dai-Jon Parker (Vanderbilt/4), Marshall Plumlee (Duke/0.1), Norman Powell (UCLA/5.3), Zach Price (Louisville/0.9), Julian Royal (Georgia Tech/3.2), Mike Shaw (Illinois/0.9), Deville Smith (Mississippi State/4.2), Antwan Space (Florida State & Texas A&M/0.7), Bernard Sullivan (Clemson/1.6), Naadir Tharpe (Kansas/3.4), Shaquille Thomas (Cincinnati/3), Sam Thompson (Ohio State/4.8), Kevin Ware (Louisville/3.3) and Amir Williams (Ohio State/2.7).

At least the so-called experts offering these mistake-ridden critiques had first-teamer Otto Porter Jr. (Georgetown) and second-teamer Ben McLemore (Kansas) ranked among the top 50 in 2011. But as a cautionary measure, pore over this information again the next time some lazy broadcaster needing a drool bucket begins slobbering over a pimple-faced teenager without ever seeing him play firsthand and just using recruiting services as a resource. In fact, the purveyors of know-it-all opinion should be behind the eight ball when they had the following players averaging less than eight points per game thus far in their college careers ranked ahead of Porter and McLemore: Khem Birch (Pittsburgh & UNLV/6.4 ppg), Wayne Blackshear (Louisville/6.2), Rakeem Christmas (Syracuse/4), DeAndre Daniels (Connecticut/7.5), Dorian Finney-Smith (Virginia Tech & Florida/6.3), Michael Gbinije (Duke & Syracuse/1.9), Levi Randolph (Alabama/7.3), Shannon Scott (Ohio State/3.1), Josiah Turner (Arizona/6.8) and Kyle Wiltjer (Kentucky/7.3).

Turner was jailed a couple of days this spring as punishment for "extreme" DUI. He should have been joined behind bars by dopey devotees intoxicated by recruiting services proclaiming him and more than 100 other players as better than Burke. Who really is more inebriated if they accept as gospel player rankings dwelling on wingspans, weight reps, Soul Train dance moves and carnival-like dunk contests? How about focusing solely on whether they'll continue to improve against comparable athletes, boast the proper attitude to learn to fit in with teammates in a me-myself-and-I generation and make a major bottom-line impact on the game?

NBA three-point shooting sensation Stephen Curry (Davidson) is perhaps the premier collegian thus far this century. If you've got a life, you don't have time to go over all of the no-names ranked better than Curry when he graduated from high school in 2006. You'd have an easier task trying to size up all of the issues involving Missouri coach Frank Haith's checking account when he was at Miami (Fla.).

Rating recruits - the ultimate sports distortion foisted upon dupes - is akin to believing government grifters telling the gullible masses that taxpayer-financed Muslim extremist terrorism is workplace violence or fueled by a largely unseen movie. Pilfering a propaganda-like phrase spun during the institutionalizing of political correctness to the detriment of the safety of the American people, the player ratings are authentic "man-made disasters." They need to make a dramatic turnaround comparable to the White House's appeasing administration now lauding Cambridge/Boston area police after previous exploitation portraying them as "acting stupidly" when it suited their agenda. Amid the insulting misinformation overload, it might be time to visit Rev. Wrong's church and see if he is recruiting susceptible supporters by telling his captive audience that "America's Chechens have come home to roost." Truth escape artists can simply deny you ever heard or read such impudence.

The same play-dumb mindset comparable to the Benghazi stonewalling applies to entitlement-era "ridiculists" stemming from recruiting service player ratings. Resembling Jason Collins' long-time fiancée, you look like a full-fledged fool by putting a significant amount of stock in these breathless rush-to-judgment projections spawning a slew of blue-chippers turned prima donnas. But don't muzzle 'em with a jock jihad or sound as lucid as the buffoonish Bomb Mom. Just give the sane a barf bag when clueless adults hold their collective breath to see if some coddled kid dons their alma mater's cap on TV announcing a college choice. Why can't we simply wait until the impressionable athletes compete in an actual game on a college court before rendering assessments on their ability at the next level?