Jump to content

Shavon, Kale, and the reliability of Rivals 150


Norm Peterson

Recommended Posts

Was kind of excited thinking about signing day tomorrow and signing our first official Rivals 150 members in the history of the Rivals 150.  That's a big effin deal.

 

Right?

 

But then I thought to myself, hey, Rivals, they've been off before, so how much stock can we put in their rankings, really?  Take two guys that we targeted two years ago, one of whom we didn't sign who was on their list and, IMO, didn't belong there; another we signed who probably was good enough but didn't get listed.  I'm speaking, of course, of Kale Abrahamson and Shavon Shields.

 

Kale was the #135 player in the Rivals 150 for 2012.  His freshman year at Northwestern, he put up respectable but not impressive numbers including logging 16.3 minutes and 4.9 points per game.

 

Shavon on the other hand was left out of the Rivals 150.  And all he did was come in as a freshman and log 28.7 minutes and 8.6 points per game.  As I see it, they blew it on those two.

 

So, thinking that Rivals might miss a lot, I decided to crunch some numbers tonight and what I found kind of surprised me.

 

 

More to follow ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me explain my number-crunching methodology first of all. 

 

1.  I looked at the Rivals 150 for 2012 just because that's the class Shavon and Kale were in and it was a fairly recent class for which there was data on how they did as freshman.

 

2.  I didn't crunch numbers for the whole 150.  I figure it's fairly easy-ish to spot the very best players.  There's generally a pretty strong consensus among recruiting services about who the very top players are each year.  One service's 50th best player might not be in another guy's top 50 but he'd probably be in that other guy's top 100. 

 

3.  I was more curious how they, Rivals, did further down their list, assuming it's tougher to get it right and easier to miss after a certain point; and

 

4.  Our two newest Rivals 150 recruits are both in the bottom half of this elite group.  So ...

 

5.  I looked at the bottom 80 (#'s 71-150) and then split them into two groups of 40.  It's roughly the bottom half of the Rivals 150 but since splitting 75 players into two groups leaves you with half a player in each group, I decided to go with two groups of 40.

 

6.  I left out redshirts, guys who didn't qualify, were arrested and for any other reason didn't show up to play.  I looked at the minutes played by each player from #71 through #150 in their true freshman season but I didn't factor in zeros for the guys who sat out for whatever reason.

 

 

More to follow ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Conclusions:

 

1.  Rivals was surprisingly solid in their picks for what basically amounts to the third quartile.  These would be players #71-110.

 

2.  The reliability of their picks, judged in terms of both playing time and points, really dropped off for the bottom quartile, which would be players #111-150.

 

3.  This is good for us because Glynn Watson (#89) and Ed Morrow (#103) both fall within the third quartile where Rivals was pretty solid.

 

 

Now, the numbers:

 

Among players ranked 71-110, there were only 4 players who sat out.  All because of eligibility and not because they needed time to develop or whatever.  

 

The average minutes logged per game as true freshmen for these players was 18.8 min/game.  The inner-quartile range (middle 50%) was 13.9 to 25.1 minutes, meaning that 75% of the players from #71-110 played at least, basically, 14 minutes or more.

 

I arbitrarily decided that starters' minutes were anything over 22/game, and fully 45% of the Rivals 71-110 earned starters minutes.

 

I arbitrarily decided that key reserves' minutes were anything from 15 to 22/game, and 25% of the Rivals 71-110 landed in this category.

 

Which means that about 70% of the Rivals #71-110 in the Class of 2012 either started or played in the main rotation as true freshmen.

 

Again, this bodes pretty well for our two Rivals 150 kids.  Based on data from the 2012 class, it's rare for players at this level to need a redshirt year to develop and the vast majority of them are in the regular rotation, including starters.

 

You might almost say that if they aren't playing substantial minutes, they're a miss.

 

Less than 20% of those players got only single-digit minutes per game.

 

 

More to follow ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The data for the next group wasn't so strong. 

 

Fifteen of the 40 players from #111-150 didn't play as freshmen.

 

The average minutes for the bottom 4th of the Rivals 150 was only 12.25 minutes.

 

The range of the middle 50% was 6.8 minutes to 16.3 minutes.

 

Only 1 player (4%) managed to log starter-level minutes (at least 22/game).

 

Only 32% played at least key reserve minutes (15-22/game).

 

Forty percent of the Rivals #111-150 played only single-digit minutes as true freshmen.

 

So, from #110 to #150, the reliability of the Rivals 150 picks seems to drop off considerably.  To the point that I wonder how much stock you can really put in anything outside of the top 110.

 

There are very good players who don't make it into the Rivals 150 (Shavon Shields).  And there are kids who get there, but then don't play to that level.  At least not out of the gates their freshman year.

 

If I had more time, I'd look at more of a longitudinal analysis and see if anything changes as those kids get older.  But, for now, I feel good about our Rivals 150 kids.  And, frankly, it doesn't bug me too much that a third was left out of the Rivals rankings because their reliability suffers greatly in that bottom 4th of their list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One more takeaway from this. Huskers used to get grief for never having had a Rivals 150 guy. After this, I'm saying if you have a guy in the Rivals 130s, don't brag to me about your recruiting. He's as likely to wash out as pan out. And if he's top 100 but isn't in the rotation battling for near starters' minutes, then he was over-rated and didn't belong there. Just sayin'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ummmm what about ranking the schools those players went to? A 125th best player going to a school with considerable talent wouldn't gsther the same minutes as a school with a lower profile?

I think quality of program matters, of course.  How many returning players, etc. 

 

But one of the big takeaways from the numbers I crunched was that it didn't matter how good of a school or program or returning players, etc.  If you were in the range of #71-110 in the Rivals 150 in 2013, your chances of logging significant minutes were very good.  Seventy-five percent got 14 minutes or more!  As true freshmen.

 

Looking at that stat, though, there's another takeaway from all of this, which is that Shavon Shields played to the level of a Rivals top 100 player.  His numbers would have put him in the top quarter of the Rivals 71-110 players that year both in terms of minutes and scoring.  That's a 4-star player right there.  Now, of course we knew that.  But to see the stat comparison bear that out was a type of vindication I guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Something to possibly consider is the overshadowing affect on Shavon.  Sometimes in high school when you have a very highly rated player on your team you get overlooked.  Shavon played with 4 star "brother" Willie Cauley Stein heading to kentucky.  He was considered the "star" in terms of recruiting while Shavon was the glue guy.

 

Now go to another midwest high school in Ames, IA.  You have a highly rated 5 star Harrison Barnes with a well rounded 3 star glue guy in Doug McDermott that was overlooked.  We all know how that played out.

 

In the end I think ratings are an inexact science but are fun data to look at.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys. Started another thread entitled "signing day"'. Hope that was okay and can be used for the news relative to this signing day. Norms thread title threw me off and when I read through all of his analysis of prior rivals150 rankings I realized there was some talk of this signing day and pertaining to our new class. I just put up some twitter action on today's signings. If someone wants to combine them they can. Or maybe the current news doesn't need to be in with the discussion of Norm's data. I don't know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys. Started another thread entitled "signing day"'. Hope that was okay and can be used for the news relative to this signing day. Norms thread title threw me off and when I read through all of his analysis of prior rivals150 rankings I realized there was some talk of this signing day and pertaining to our new class. I just put up some twitter action on today's signings. If someone wants to combine them they can. Or maybe the current news doesn't need to be in with the discussion of Norm's data. I don't know.

No, it's cool.  Separate thread for the new signees is fine.  This was more of a thought-process thread about what it means to be a Rivals 150 kid.  Shavon was not.  He's clearly the goods, though.  And I just had to try to figure out how spot-on those Rivals guys are or whether they're just making wild-ass guesses. 

 

And no system is perfect for evaluating talent, but my numbers crunching tells me that Rivals is actually pretty good through the first 100 or so.  After that, it's more like a crapshoot and players get included who really aren't all that good and players get left off who really are that good.

 

I just had to dig to find the answer and, having done so, wanted to post it.  So, this was not about our signing class per se but it did involve them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Something to possibly consider is the overshadowing affect on Shavon.  Sometimes in high school when you have a very highly rated player on your team you get overlooked.  Shavon played with 4 star "brother" Willie Cauley Stein heading to kentucky.  He was considered the "star" in terms of recruiting while Shavon was the glue guy.

 

Now go to another midwest high school in Ames, IA.  You have a highly rated 5 star Harrison Barnes with a well rounded 3 star glue guy in Doug McDermott that was overlooked.  We all know how that played out.

 

In the end I think ratings are an inexact science but are fun data to look at.

I had thought the same thing, Kamdy.  Also thought of the example with McDermott and Harrison Barnes.  Good thoughts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Want to find a MAJOR fail on Rivals part? Russell Westbrook. 3 star, not a top 150 guy, that had Creighton as a finalist before signing with UCLA and goes in the first round the very next year.

Steph Curry and Kenneth Faried also outplayed their Rivals Ranking.

 

 

I agree but I see Russell as the biggest in the last 10 years.  Curry played 3 years in college and Faried played 4 years.  Westbrook was so good as a freshman, a year removed from high school, that he went 4th overall in the draft.  I dont see how you could miss out on a talent that good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Want to find a MAJOR fail on Rivals part? Russell Westbrook. 3 star, not a top 150 guy, that had Creighton as a finalist before signing with UCLA and goes in the first round the very next year.

Steph Curry and Kenneth Faried also outplayed their Rivals Ranking.

 

 

I agree but I see Russell as the biggest in the last 10 years.  Curry played 3 years in college and Faried played 4 years.  Westbrook was so good as a freshman, a year removed from high school, that he went 4th overall in the draft.  I dont see how you could miss out on a talent that good.

 

FWIW, Scout had Westbrook at 66 national ranking and a 4 star in their final ranking.  Quite a bit better than Rivals.

 

Isn't Rivals largely considered the worst of the basketball recruiting sites?  I know they are usually considered the best for football, but I thought Scout and ESPN fare much better in terms of bball.  I maybe wrong.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...