I will preface this post by saying that for my team in question, my prestige went from B to A- this past season, which clearly does make it easier to pull ranked players down to D2.

I sent out phone calls during the first cycle in Crum to a lot of ranked players.  Prior to the last update it was fairly common to be able to pull down players ranked ~150+ at their position if your prestige was A- or better and even C+ prestige schools could pull down guys in the 190s.  However, after the update pretty much every ranked player I called gave me the cold shoulder.  Well, in the most recent recruiting season in Crum I got backup messages from over 90% of the ranked D1 players I called, the highest of which was the #134 center.  I pulled down the #168 SF fairly easily and signed him (didn't sign the #134 C because believe it or not I found a much better player with better potential in D2).

So my question is this: has anyone else noticed it appears to be a tad bit easier again to pull down ranked players to D2 or was I just lucky?

I brought this very thing up in another thread.  It's either getting easier again, or certain worlds are easier to recruit in than others.

Iba just finished recruiting and pulling down ranked DI's was IMPOSSIBLE. Not only that, virtually none droped down the final day. World wide, there were less than 10 ranked players signed by DII's. There were a lot more DI players unranked, though, and a decent number of them apparently signed.
I'm an A and not one ranked DI player gave me a backup message. Lots of the 170's-200 were considering SIMs right off the bat too.

There were 12 ranked players signed in my Crum D2 conference alone - the highest actually being the #134 center that mduncan mentioned in his initial post (by A+ St. Mary's).

C+ W. Florida signed the #139 C (an international recruit).

B+ Valdosta St. was able to pull in the #152 SF (who was in WY while Valdosta is in GA).

Could it be that the ability to pull down is a combination of your prestige + something random?

About 3 cycles ago I just gave up on trying to pull down ranked D1 players at all.  I've noticed that even the 180+ ranked guys were being grabbed by D1 programs, leaving nothing for D2.

It'd be great if that nudged back towards the middle a bit.  I would never expect to be able to pull down anyone ranked higher than 100, but as mduncan notes, quite often I find regular pulldowns better than the ranked ones.

Posted by ryrun on 7/8/2011 12:31:00 PM (view original):
There were 12 ranked players signed in my Crum D2 conference alone - the highest actually being the #134 center that mduncan mentioned in his initial post (by A+ St. Mary's).

C+ W. Florida signed the #139 C (an international recruit).

B+ Valdosta St. was able to pull in the #152 SF (who was in WY while Valdosta is in GA).

In the same conference, a D+ prestige team signed the #194 SF

A C+ prestige signed the #139 (Juco1) and #199 SF

That is crazy.  It definitely seems there is something going on.  I'm also in Iba and had the same problem getting ranked D1s to consider me (only one I got the backup message from was the #195 center).  In fact, in Iba I found better players on my D2 screen than the unranked D1 guys.  In Crum I got the backup message from almost all of the guys I called.  I didn't even bother calling guys under #100, but maybe I should have tried since pulling those players down was so easy.

Here is the other thing I don't get: the effort needed to pull down D1 players appears to differ between worlds.  In Crum I am at an A- school in a C+ conference.  In Iba my conference is also C+ and my school is B+.  In Iba I was able to pull down every D1 player I went after for 10 SVs, and since I did them all at once it is possible it could have been done for less.  The two players in question were at 150 miles and 60 miles.  In Crum it took me 14 SVs to pull down an unranked D1 PG and 13 to pull down the #168 SF.  The PG was at 280 miles and the SF was at 220 miles.  So, in summary, with my higher prestige team it took more SVs to pull down D1 players.  Other than a slight difference in distance and a small prestige difference there isn't much else different.

So does this imply that the distance you are from the D1 player, even if they are all under that magical 360 miles radius, plays a role in how easy they are to pull down?  It seems to be a forum fact that it is easier to pull down players under 70 miles, but that doesn't explain the pull down of the player at 150 miles in Iba for 10 SVs vs. 13 or 14 SVs at 220 miles and 280 miles.

IBA's DII's were often more attractive with way better potential. There were over 180 top 150 rated  players that were unsigned at the end of IBA recruiting.. No rated players dropped down except for 1/2 dozen shooting guards in the 180's and 190's.