in HD for recruiting?

For example, why do some states have more good players than others?

Do they try to balance it based on how many programs are in the area, or model it after real life, or is it variant, some years you just get better guys?


For example, Oregon and Washington, though low in population in real life and low in D-1 schools, have been hotbeds of talent for D-1 in the last 5-10 years.  Is there that sort of variance in HD or is it merely on how many schools are in the area?

i know in GD it's partially based off how many schools are in the area. More populated areas (like big cities in texas, and the east coast) have more schools, and more available players..

Which areas get the best players i think are random. So north dakota could have a #1 player one year, and no player in the top 100 the next.

that being said, i don't know if the same can be said about HD

Yep, that's right. It goes by how many schools are in a state for a particular division. The exact talent in a state will vary from year-to-year -- i.e. there may be 50 DI players in a state for two consecutive seasons; one season they may be fortunate and have a good # of highly-rated players, the next it might be more barren. 

And as far as WA-OR, you may have seen a couple seasons where they ended up on the right side of the coin, but no, in general that area is not a hotbed of talent.

# of schools in state in the division creates the number of recruits, then talent among the recruits is random.

Its more than a bit ridiculous when the state of Texas has 2 DI caliber recruits (who are not even very good) and the state of Tennessee has 10.

Population
-Texas has roughly 25,000,000 people
-Tennessee has roughly 6,500,000 people

DI Schools
-Texas has 18 I believe
-Tennessee has maybe 10

So Texas has 4 times as many people and almost double the amount of D1 schools yet only 1/5 the amount of "quality" talent.

Real-life population doesn't matter in HD, nor should it. Using that as the determining factor would be disastrous.

The point about # of schools is legit. Most seasons Texas has a lot of talent -- far more than TN. Part of the issue is that there is so little legit high DI talent now (at least by the old standards), that you're probably going to see more situations like the one that you described. That may mean that DI recruiting might not be quite so hyper localized, which imo is a good thing.

Posted by girt25 on 9/28/2010 9:29:00 AM (view original):
Real-life population doesn't matter in HD, nor should it. Using that as the determining factor would be disastrous.

The point about # of schools is legit. Most seasons Texas has a lot of talent -- far more than TN. Part of the issue is that there is so little legit high DI talent now (at least by the old standards), that you're probably going to see more situations like the one that you described. That may mean that DI recruiting might not be quite so hyper localized, which imo is a good thing.

in general, i think it makes recruiting even more hyper localized. which is another reason i feel the distance costs need to be reduced significantly... anyway, the way it goes now, it seems to me is, for every good recruit, there is a high prestige school in the big 6 close by, who is absolutely going to have his eye on the recruit. no way does he let a 360+ mile school take him. and even 200-360 is very questionable. there are a few exceptions but very few. for most schools there are only going to be a couple recruits you really want within 200 miles, so it puts a laser focus on those recruits. if there are more, you are almost certainly in a high-pop area with a few a prestige schools all focused on them. i feel now, more than ever, my only chance of getting the great recruits is almost all 200 miles, maybe central and west montana etc, and international. 200-360 ill take a chance but know on uneven footing there is always a great chance someone else is going to wind up with them.

also yeah texas is usually pretty solid. it totally depends how many of those texas big 6 schools are doing well though, if you are the only one, its awesome, if not, much less so. i guess lsu/oklahomas are a factor too. you are definitely right that in this new engine the "luck factor" of recruit distribution is going to be magnified enormously...

I don't know, don't really agree with the hyper-localization.

Previously there were more than enough good recruits where you could comfortably stay close to home and have some very nice options, and even nice backup options. Now that is no longer the case, and if teams want to go after high-quality guys, they are often going to be forced to leave their local recruiting area to do so.

Posted by daalter on 9/28/2010 11:46:00 AM (view original):
I don't know, don't really agree with the hyper-localization.

Previously there were more than enough good recruits where you could comfortably stay close to home and have some very nice options, and even nice backup options. Now that is no longer the case, and if teams want to go after high-quality guys, they are often going to be forced to leave their local recruiting area to do so.

well, i guess we can at least agree there is a competing factor on both sides of it. which is stronger, time will tell. i also don't have multiple d1 teams, so i am heavily biased by my own situation, maybe there are more people reaching beyond 200/360 miles but i havent seen it where i am. have you seen it, or are you mostly projecting out?

I've definitely seen it in Allen. I'm in NC and the two guys I signed last season were both long distance (MS and IL), and there was a solid amount of that kind of stuff in the eastern half of the country. (West is a little different imo because it's spread out, so it was always more prevalent over there.)

Posted by girt25 on 9/27/2010 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Yep, that's right. It goes by how many schools are in a state for a particular division. The exact talent in a state will vary from year-to-year -- i.e. there may be 50 DI players in a state for two consecutive seasons; one season they may be fortunate and have a good # of highly-rated players, the next it might be more barren. 

And as far as WA-OR, you may have seen a couple seasons where they ended up on the right side of the coin, but no, in general that area is not a hotbed of talent.

For WA-OR in real life, I'd disagree strongly as far as basketball goes.

Football, they produce very little, hoops it is an absolute recruiting hotbed the last 10-15 years.

As far as HD, I don't care which way they decide to do it, but I would like to know how it's done.