Premature Expectation: Many Aroused Fans Faked Out By Recruiting Frauds

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

Anyone with a functioning brain knows high school player ratings are so much unadulterated bull-spit reminiscent of Sochi accommodations. All of the so-called recruiting analysts/experts and slobbering announcers with drool buckets giving credence to the charade are doing a disservice to the fans and impressionable teenagers. Why can't the player pimps simply wait until the athletes compete in an actual game on a college court before rendering judgment on their ability at the next level?

There should be a teen-protective law regarding player ratings forcing them to be written on toilet paper so they can be flushed down the toilet. Conducting a live press conference on a Signing Day Special announcing a teenager's college intentions is obscene. Keep-it-pithy Mark Twain would have been nauseated watching adults hold their collective breath to see if a pimple-faced kid dons cap of their alma mater.

What good are the prep player rankings anyway if the brainiacs can't pinpoint a prospect who will be an NCAA consensus first-team All-American three successive seasons? In 2010, Creighton's Doug McDermott wasn't listed among the consensus Top 100 recruits. It's not as if no one saw him in Ames, Iowa, because his H.S. teammate, Harrison Barnes (North Carolina), ranked as the nation's premier prepster.

But previously-shunned McDermott, who rarely dunks to shine the spotlight on himself and spends more time practicing his free throws than getting tattoos, emerged as a consistent standout. McDermott isn't infallible, scoring a meager five points against UAB last season and only seven versus George Washington this campaign. But even if he averaged five points per game, that would be a higher mark than the career averages posted by the following alphabetical list of frontcourters in the same class mistakenly rated higher than him coming out of high school: Evan Anderson (Wisconsin/0.6 points per game), Demarco Cox (Mississippi/3.1), Keith Davis (Texas A&M/1.1), Carson Desrosiers (Wake Forest & Providence/4.3), Josh Hairston (Duke/2.2), James Johnson (Virginia & San Diego State/1.4), Nate Lubick (Georgetown/4.9) and Melvin Tabb (Wake Forest & Kent State/3.3).

Seemingly incapable of calculating the difference between street ball and team ball, the recruiting gurus can't seem to assess backcourters any better. For instance, Michigan's Trey Burke, designated national POY last season over McDermott, wasn't listed among the Top 100 in 2011. Again, it wasn't as if he was an unknown commodity insofar as Burke was a prep teammate of eventual Ohio State All-American Jared Sullinger. It would take all week to read the list of players ranked ahead of Burke, McDermott and fellow consensus 2012-13 first-team All-Americans Victor Oladipo (Indiana), Kelly Olynyk (Gonzaga) and Otto Porter Jr. (Georgetown) when they left high school.

Elsewhere, guard Jeremy Lamb averaged 14.1 ppg in two seasons with 2011 NCAA champion Connecticut before leaving school early and becoming an NBA lottery pick (12th overall). But Lamb's scoring average is more than twice as high as those compiled by the following alphabetical list of guards in the same 2010 class incorrectly rated ahead of him entering college: Rion Brown (Miami/7), Gary Franklin (California & Baylor/4.5), Crandall Head (Illinois & Southern Methodist/1.1), Jamail Jones (Marquette & Florida Gulf Coast/3.3), Jelan Kendrick (Memphis, Mississippi & UNLV/6.1 ppg), Mychal Parker (Maryland/3.4), Stacey Poole Jr. (Kentucky & Georgia Tech/1.9) and Jordan Sibert (Ohio State & Dayton/5.1).

Obesely-overrated Josh Smith was a consensus Top 20 player coming out of H.S. while McDermott was virtually ignored. Smith was declared academically ineligible at Georgetown after flopping with UCLA while McDermott, schooling opponents and media flunkeys, closed in on becoming only the eighth player in DI history cracking the 3,000-point plateau. What are the recruiting-wizard credentials of the chattering class who couldn't see any possible distinction between them? Never underestimate how gullible some observers can be if they don't let mistake-ridden recruit regaling go in one ear and out the other until authentic evidence exists.