CofCFans.com

If so has anyone seen any of them on the court. Just curious because I know Hall wa here working out most of last summer

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My son said Weideman will be there for the July semester. He also said he's a legit 6'8" and has added about 15 lbs.

Johnson had an ESPN grade of 40. Our other 3 are in the 80,s. Socon ave in the mid 70,s I believe. Sounds like he was signed on possible potential more than where his game is now. Hope he developes into at least a role player. You never know. One who played here was not recruited by anyone but he has been in the NBA a number of years now. You can take those grades with a grain of salt. You never know for sure how good or bad they are until they show up and play regardless of how high or low they are rated

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Grade of 40 simply means he wasn't graded. I'm not sure why they do this because people get the impression the player isn't very good. They should instead just say they don't know anything about him and declare him "unrated". Weideman was rated a 40 until well after he signed...

So, does this bring our total to four incoming frosh now?

Four years ago there were very few SoCon recruits rated 80+ by ESPN. This year there are many more recruits rated 80+ than there are in the 70's. Several are in the high 80's to low 90's. The quality of incoming players seems to be on the rise. I think it will be harder for one school to dominate and there should be more out of conference success in the future.

EDIT: I looked at the 2008 list of SoCon recruits. 20 had not been rated (a grade of 40). Only 2 were rated 80+. This year 20 recruits are rated 80+.

grade inflation

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Not so sure it is "grade inflation", I just think there is more and more national exposure for these kids and that ever increasing number of recruiting services are actually ranking them rather than dishing out "40's" for everyone they haven't had a chance to see in person in the past.

I agree with you that the ease with which information may now be gathered and disseminated has made it possible for the recruiting services to rate many more players than they used to be able to rate.

Grade inflation was mainly said in jest. However, either the talent level of SoCon recruits has gone up or the rankings have been inflated. In 2008 there was only one recruit rated higher than 78 by ESPN. That was Frank Ben-Eze. The 2010 list of SoCon recruits includes 20 players rated 80 or higher. I would like to be able to report that the talent level has gone up across the conference, but so far the results don't tell this story. In D1 games OoC, the SoCon on the whole had these records against teams ranked 1-50, 50-150, and >150 (KenPom final rankings)

2010 1-23 vs 1-50, 10-36 vs 50-150, 41-19 vs >150
2009 1-20 vs 1-50, 12-27 vs 50-150, 24-21 vs >150
2008 6-17 vs 1-50, 6-23 vs 50-150, 25-13 vs >150

Looking at those numbers the conference as a whole has not improved since 2008. It would be reasonable to assume that if the quality of players being recruited were to increase, so would the success rate against OoC foes, particularly the middle to low teams. Maybe the more highly ranked recruits have not had a enough time to make an impact on the performance of the conference in OoC games. Time will tell.

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Davidson's '07-'08 success may have skewed the results. Additionally Curry was still around for the '08-'09 season. Davidson definitely did not improve from '08 to '10. The numbers may be more meaningful if Davidson's results are left out.

Now we can just sit back and relax and watch the two Davy posters discuss this.

No real reason to. We're already doing such on our board.
http://www.davidsoncats.com/viewtopic.php?t=12308
I thought that y'all might have some different views of the topic.

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A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

Eagleskins is the one who should be posting on this. On paper GSU has the best recruiting class in the conference. Of course the game isn't played on paper.

All the new guys have been there for a week now, anyone seen them on the courts or weightroom?

The entire concept of "grading" recruits is basically laughable unless you know EXACTLY who the grader is, and whether he incorporates both corrent and "upside" grades. From a recruiter's perspective, assuming a kid is admissable, it's all about the "eye," "nose" and "gut" tests (Can he play? Do we want him on campus? What does my gut tell me?). The "upside" is particularly relevant at low- and mid-major programs, where you SELDOM get a finished product.

That's where the "teaching" side of coaching comes in. I'd rather recruit a 70 and coach him up to a 90, than recruit an 80 who's either too lazy or I'm unable to coach up to a 90.

As regards the original question, I have it from a reliable source that the newcomers as a group look very good.

Thanks Backscreen. All the talk about ratings has always gone in one ear and out the other. I prefer to judge them after they show up here.

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