With the completely expected news of MSU losing out on a Top 10 recruit today, I thought that it might be a good time to look back at some data to see how important (or not) Top 10 Freshman talent is to the ultimate goal of cutting down the nets.
I went back over the rosters of the NCAA Champs for the last ten years and looked at both the Top 3 scorers on each team as well as the Top 6 scorers. I then categorized these players by class (Freshman to Seniors) and by High School RSCI rankings (because that was the easiest source of data to use). Here is the plot by class:
and here is the plot by High School ranking:
The first graph paints a pretty clear picture. Over a ten-year period over 2/3 of the Top 3 scorers for the Champ and almost 60% of the Top 6 scorers are upper classmen, with Juniors actually dominating the statistic. Only 5 players (8%) in the Top 3 scorers of a championship team were Freshman.
The second chart suggests that high-level talent is also important. Championship teams are in general dominated by Top 30 talent. But, roughly half of the top scorers on a championship team our outside of the Top 30.
But, when it comes to Top 10 Freshman talent, there really are only two examples of teams in the last 10 years where they made a serious impact: the 2012 Kentucky team (with Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) and the 2015 Duke team (with Okafor). That's it. That is only a 20% success rate. Talented upper classmen won the other 80% of the titles, as a general rule.
And, guess who in 2019 happens to have a talented Junior class with at least two Top 30 players as the leader scorers (hint: it's Winston and Langford)? How many other teams have that? How many other teams will have that next year?
So, yeah, an 18-year kid picked another school. Good luck to him. In the mean time, things look just fine in East Lansing for the foreseeable future.
I went back over the rosters of the NCAA Champs for the last ten years and looked at both the Top 3 scorers on each team as well as the Top 6 scorers. I then categorized these players by class (Freshman to Seniors) and by High School RSCI rankings (because that was the easiest source of data to use). Here is the plot by class:
and here is the plot by High School ranking:
The first graph paints a pretty clear picture. Over a ten-year period over 2/3 of the Top 3 scorers for the Champ and almost 60% of the Top 6 scorers are upper classmen, with Juniors actually dominating the statistic. Only 5 players (8%) in the Top 3 scorers of a championship team were Freshman.
The second chart suggests that high-level talent is also important. Championship teams are in general dominated by Top 30 talent. But, roughly half of the top scorers on a championship team our outside of the Top 30.
But, when it comes to Top 10 Freshman talent, there really are only two examples of teams in the last 10 years where they made a serious impact: the 2012 Kentucky team (with Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) and the 2015 Duke team (with Okafor). That's it. That is only a 20% success rate. Talented upper classmen won the other 80% of the titles, as a general rule.
And, guess who in 2019 happens to have a talented Junior class with at least two Top 30 players as the leader scorers (hint: it's Winston and Langford)? How many other teams have that? How many other teams will have that next year?
So, yeah, an 18-year kid picked another school. Good luck to him. In the mean time, things look just fine in East Lansing for the foreseeable future.
