First of all, I know this is a pointless list, but I am still curious as to how they come up with these rankings. My Duke team signed four 5 star players and we are only ranked 7th.

The ranking system evaluates players similar to how they are evaluated for EE. From what I can tell, it doesn’t look at potential. What matters to class rankings is 1) average of goodness per open slot, right now, and 2) it does consider how long you’ll have the player (ignoring likelihood of leaving early) so it penalizes signing jucos and transfers, even if they’re excellent. A walkon won’t kill you in the ranking if everyone else is excellent, but often a small class of a couple 3-4 stars will beat out big classes of mostly 5-stars, if the big class also comes with walkons or projects or jucos.

I thought the same about Jucos but I just had the opposite happen on my Georgia Tech team. My class was ranked #15 overall. I had a 5-star Juco, a 3-star freshman, and 2 other non-top 100 freshmen. I signed the Juco with zero opposition because, quite frankly, he's not that great. I also did fill all my scholarships, but I would assume the Juco is carrying the majority of my #15 ranking.

My assumption is that the formula is based on positional and/or overall rankings as opposed to individual ratings. Or maybe some combination? I don't know if there's a penalty for a Juco if they're the #3 PF.

yeah i always saw jucos and transfers inflate class ranking, not deflate. like it didnt factor in the class and almost always jucos/transfers have better starting ratings than freshman.

recruit rankings date to a time before potential and almost certainly do not factor potential in, which contributes to their overall uselessness. they were sort of reasonably decent but not really back in 1.0. but after potential came into existence they just are garbage now. not that i care.

If the player you signed had 4 years of eligibility rather than 2, your ranking would be higher. That’s what I mean by “penalize”. If you find one that is elite, it really doesn’t matter that much, obviously. But for most jucos, who aren’t ranked in the OVR top 100 and are not 5-star recruits, the deflation is noticeable.

FWIW, I am not convinced the class rankings really pay much (if any) attention to stars or ranking, either. I think, like EE evaluation, they focus on how the system evaluates the “goodness” of the player, so essentially the default “player roles” rating that goes along with them.

Used to be true that signing JC's at D2 and D3 would inflate your rankings (I didn't play D1 much).

But at some point they made a change. I'm always signing JC's and a few transfers and my class rankings are never high now.

I think it is mostly just average overall ratings of signed players. As we all know, overall really means nothing.. So the list is fairly worthless.

Posted by hughesjr on 3/9/2021 12:05:00 PM (view original):
I think it is mostly just average overall ratings of signed players. As we all know, overall really means nothing.. So the list is fairly worthless.

It *definitely* penalizes jucos and transfers though. Consider the current rankings for Iba’s Sunshine conference. It’s between sessions, so no D1 recruits have been signed yet. Barry sits well below the other human coaches teams in conference who have signed recruits, despite an average recruit rating of about 50-60 points higher. The difference is that Barry’s 2 signees are both Jucos.

The class rankings page is really useful because you can easily see how many openings every team has at once, instead of having to go one by one.

Haven't ever looked at the actual rankings though.

The rankings are sometimes interesting, but not very important in the big picture.

My New Mexico class in Rupp got little to no respect by the ranking-bots, but I loved my recruiting class last season. Probably more, top to bottom, than any other class I've ever had. A ton of potential that's developing nicely. They'll be solid as Juniors and Seniors. But anybody who looked at the rankings report last season and gave it any merit would think that I screwed something up.

Posted by shoe3 on 3/9/2021 1:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hughesjr on 3/9/2021 12:05:00 PM (view original):
I think it is mostly just average overall ratings of signed players. As we all know, overall really means nothing.. So the list is fairly worthless.

It *definitely* penalizes jucos and transfers though. Consider the current rankings for Iba’s Sunshine conference. It’s between sessions, so no D1 recruits have been signed yet. Barry’s 2 signees are both Jucos.

Are you sure that its not based on positional and overall rankings (ie #5 PF, #36 Overall player) and that the Juco penalty isn't already baked into those rankings, thus affecting your recruiting ranking?

For example, a freshman and Juco with similar attributes would have different positional rankings. The freshman might be the #1 PF, but the similar Juco would be the #12 PF.

I don't know if this is the case, but it was always my theory.

Posted by mlitney on 3/10/2021 9:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 3/9/2021 1:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hughesjr on 3/9/2021 12:05:00 PM (view original):
I think it is mostly just average overall ratings of signed players. As we all know, overall really means nothing.. So the list is fairly worthless.

It *definitely* penalizes jucos and transfers though. Consider the current rankings for Iba’s Sunshine conference. It’s between sessions, so no D1 recruits have been signed yet. Barry’s 2 signees are both Jucos.

Are you sure that its not based on positional and overall rankings (ie #5 PF, #36 Overall player) and that the Juco penalty isn't already baked into those rankings, thus affecting your recruiting ranking?

For example, a freshman and Juco with similar attributes would have different positional rankings. The freshman might be the #1 PF, but the similar Juco would be the #12 PF.

I don't know if this is the case, but it was always my theory.

I don’t think anyone is sure of anything, other than the folks who can see behind the curtain. As I said before, my assumption is that the evaluation is similar to the EE process. Rankings are all “window dressing,” so to speak, and that includes the recruit rankings of course. I‘ve seen too many cases of teams with one or two 3-4 star signings in the top 5 classes to believe that positional rankings and player overall rankings influence the evaluation much, if at all. My impression is that it’s the guys who have BOTH really high starting attributes within the relative division, AND have 4 years of eligibility that push the recruit rankings upward.

Posted by mlitney on 3/10/2021 9:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 3/9/2021 1:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hughesjr on 3/9/2021 12:05:00 PM (view original):
I think it is mostly just average overall ratings of signed players. As we all know, overall really means nothing.. So the list is fairly worthless.

It *definitely* penalizes jucos and transfers though. Consider the current rankings for Iba’s Sunshine conference. It’s between sessions, so no D1 recruits have been signed yet. Barry’s 2 signees are both Jucos.

Are you sure that its not based on positional and overall rankings (ie #5 PF, #36 Overall player) and that the Juco penalty isn't already baked into those rankings, thus affecting your recruiting ranking?

For example, a freshman and Juco with similar attributes would have different positional rankings. The freshman might be the #1 PF, but the similar Juco would be the #12 PF.

I don't know if this is the case, but it was always my theory.

FWIW, after a few signing cycles in Naismith, the top 3 teams in D1 are teams with one opening, who have signed 5-star players. The top team signed the #10 OVR (762) player, ranked #4 by position (SF); the second place team signed the #27 OVR player, ranked #3 by position (PG); and the third place team signed the #16 OVR (745) player, ranked #1 by position (another PG).

I think the OVR and position rankings are entirely aesthetic in this process.

Posted by phalla on 3/9/2021 2:33:00 AM (view original):
Used to be true that signing JC's at D2 and D3 would inflate your rankings (I didn't play D1 much).

But at some point they made a change. I'm always signing JC's and a few transfers and my class rankings are never high now.

good to know, thanks! sounds like shoe was spot on, kinda weird they'd go tweak something like, the value of jucos in recruiting class rankings.