Jay Bilas' Top 68

[LINY89]

[You need McD AA's/Top 25's to make the top 68? News to me. As I said, I'm sure there are tons of mid-majors on that list that we will be better than and have way more talent than. To have 6 ESPN100 players on the team including our leading scorer, a healthy coach Lav, and a much bigger and deeper team, there is no reason to not be in the top 68 or top 40 for that matter. It's rare to get a McD's AA's...to be a top 68 team you don't have to be great. Last year, some of the top 68 teams included: Mississippi Valley State (didn't even know they existed), Vermont, Lamar (who?), Montana, Loyola, South Dakota St., etc. Granted that's last year, but still...it just goes to show what kinds of teams crack the top 68. If you don't think we would beat either of those teams at least 7/10 times, there is a problem. Many teams on the list don't even have ONE ESPN100 player. Come on now...to not make the top 68 means they don't know who we are. 

 

I generally believe that we are underrated and we are better than what the pundits have been predicting for our team. I also have said to myself: "We have all these top 100 guys! What gives? Why are we so underrated?" Then I started thinking about it some more and I did some quick math and I was surprised by what I came up with:

There are 100 'top 100' recruits entering every year into a freshmen class to play ball. I presume there are 85 to 90 or so 'top 100' guys that are playing in their sophomore year. (Top 5 to 10 guys go to NBA, assume some other guys stop playing basketball all-together). Presume 80 to 85 'top 100' guys play in junior class at a given time.. and then presume 75 to 85 guys play in a senior class. So when you add that all together, there are roughly 340 to 360 'top 100' guys playing in D1 at any given time.
Now use St. John's as example. We have 6 'top 100' guys. Are we an average top/good/great team with our 6 'top 100' players? Sure, that seems reasonable. So, divide 340 to 360 top players by an average of 6 top guys per team. That math equals 56.6 to 60 teams. That's insane to me.
I was shocked by that. If on average, for the better teams, they each contain 6 'top 100' guys, in D1 basketball, then there will be 57 to 60 teams each with 6 'top 100' guys.
I found that fascinating. Long-story short: It's really hard to be a top 25 to 35 team...

When the pundits don't list us in the Top 40 or Top 50 or Top 60... I understand why now. There are tons of top 100 players out there playing all around the country. I don't get bent out of shape when people rank us so low... We have to earn their respect. It'll come with time I hope under Lavin's leadership. We have wait this out, be patient and hopefully make all these pundits eat their words who don't have time to understand the talent level we have (we have great juco transfers who don't count toward this math)...

Anyway, so i thought i would share this. I found it interesting.
Is my math off? Am i making a mistake? I may be making a mistake in my analysis. All criticism of this welcome.
Thanks.[/quote] 

Thanks for the detailed post. I was actually curious myself as to the distribution on average of top 100's. If your numbers are right then I am surprised, but doesn't that mean tons of mid majors have 6 top 100's? That doesn't make sense to me. Mid majors rarely have 1 as it is let alone 6. I would also be willing to bet we have more top 100's than many teams on that top 68 list. Am I wrong to assume that?

 

[austour]

 We are not listed. No surprise as I believe he picked us 11th in the BE. Has 7 teams from the conference in his rankings including Louisville at #1 overall. Regardless, other than Louisville and Syracuse, the BE should have a down year. That IMO opens the door for our talented, young squad.

 

I don't put much stock in his opinion he never has a positve ting to say about us

 

In fairness to Bilas, there hasn't been too many reasons to say something positive about SJU during his broadcasting career. 2010, that's pretty much it.

 

No excuses...good analysts realize which teams are primed to be relevant again even if it's been a while since they have. Look at Iona...they were nothing notable then they started getting these big time players and now they get high rankings from analysts. I bet you they are listed. It should not be about culture of winning lately...it should be about THIS upcoming season. By the way, I was wondering before what this team would have looked like had Harkless stayed. Can you imagine Harrison, Harkless, Sampson, Branch, Jones, etc.? Ok I have to stop dreaming lol. I think had we kept Harkless, with this current lineup, we would be picked to be a top 5 Big East team and a sure fire top 25.

 

Disagree (I know that's a shocker). There is one guy returning that any analysts would pay any mind to off of last year's achievements, DLo obviously. There are 3 three recruits that are fairly well discussed on sites/boards though none are considered program changers from the get go (CO, Jakarr, Branch). There's one Juco that was on a national team and got a little press.. That's about as much as national analysts can be expected to digest on STJ when they really have to be following 100+ teams (BCS teams plus mid majors with potential). So even if Bilas is correct not to have STJ in the top 68 he really doesn't know enough about the team to say why, at least that's what I think. You need returning All Conference Players and new McD AA's/Top 25's to make an impact in the preseason rankings. Luckily they're useless after 4 weeks of play, the rankings . . . not the players.

 

You need McD AA's/Top 25's to make the top 68? News to me. As I said, I'm sure there are tons of mid-majors on that list that we will be better than and have way more talent than. To have 6 ESPN100 players on the team including our leading scorer, a healthy coach Lav, and a much bigger and deeper team, there is no reason to not be in the top 68 or top 40 for that matter. It's rare to get a McD's AA's...to be a top 68 team you don't have to be great. Last year, some of the top 68 teams included: Mississippi Valley State (didn't even know they existed), Vermont, Lamar (who?), Montana, Loyola, South Dakota St., etc. Granted that's last year, but still...it just goes to show what kinds of teams crack the top 68. If you don't think we would beat either of those teams at least 7/10 times, there is a problem. Many teams on the list don't even have ONE ESPN100 player. Come on now...to not make the top 68 means they don't know who we are. 

 

OK Joe, reading comprehension again. First there's a difference between a top 68 and being ranked. But what I said was to make someone like Bilas notice you enough to get on a list like this you need to be returning top players or have new McD AA's/top 25's. He's not going to look at the roster and research where everyone was ranked coming out of HS, not do any of these guys. They look at what's returning (or lost) and what big names are joining. I'm not saying its right I'm just trying to explain to you how it works. That's why I said it doesn't matter as plenty of teams are overrated or underrated pre season and the real rankings will start to bear out who's best pretty much once November's over.

 

[LINY89]

 We are not listed. No surprise as I believe he picked us 11th in the BE. Has 7 teams from the conference in his rankings including Louisville at #1 overall. Regardless, other than Louisville and Syracuse, the BE should have a down year. That IMO opens the door for our talented, young squad.

 

I don't put much stock in his opinion he never has a positve ting to say about us

 

In fairness to Bilas, there hasn't been too many reasons to say something positive about SJU during his broadcasting career. 2010, that's pretty much it.

 

No excuses...good analysts realize which teams are primed to be relevant again even if it's been a while since they have. Look at Iona...they were nothing notable then they started getting these big time players and now they get high rankings from analysts. I bet you they are listed. It should not be about culture of winning lately...it should be about THIS upcoming season. By the way, I was wondering before what this team would have looked like had Harkless stayed. Can you imagine Harrison, Harkless, Sampson, Branch, Jones, etc.? Ok I have to stop dreaming lol. I think had we kept Harkless, with this current lineup, we would be picked to be a top 5 Big East team and a sure fire top 25.

 

Disagree (I know that's a shocker). There is one guy returning that any analysts would pay any mind to off of last year's achievements, DLo obviously. There are 3 three recruits that are fairly well discussed on sites/boards though none are considered program changers from the get go (CO, Jakarr, Branch). There's one Juco that was on a national team and got a little press.. That's about as much as national analysts can be expected to digest on STJ when they really have to be following 100+ teams (BCS teams plus mid majors with potential). So even if Bilas is correct not to have STJ in the top 68 he really doesn't know enough about the team to say why, at least that's what I think. You need returning All Conference Players and new McD AA's/Top 25's to make an impact in the preseason rankings. Luckily they're useless after 4 weeks of play, the rankings . . . not the players.

 

You need McD AA's/Top 25's to make the top 68? News to me. As I said, I'm sure there are tons of mid-majors on that list that we will be better than and have way more talent than. To have 6 ESPN100 players on the team including our leading scorer, a healthy coach Lav, and a much bigger and deeper team, there is no reason to not be in the top 68 or top 40 for that matter. It's rare to get a McD's AA's...to be a top 68 team you don't have to be great. Last year, some of the top 68 teams included: Mississippi Valley State (didn't even know they existed), Vermont, Lamar (who?), Montana, Loyola, South Dakota St., etc. Granted that's last year, but still...it just goes to show what kinds of teams crack the top 68. If you don't think we would beat either of those teams at least 7/10 times, there is a problem. Many teams on the list don't even have ONE ESPN100 player. Come on now...to not make the top 68 means they don't know who we are. 

 

OK Joe, reading comprehension again. First there's a difference between a top 68 and being ranked. But what I said was to make someone like Bilas notice you enough to get on a list like this you need to be returning top players or have new McD AA's/top 25's. He's not going to look at the roster and research where everyone was ranked coming out of HS, not do any of these guys. They look at what's returning (or lost) and what big names are joining. I'm not saying its right I'm just trying to explain to you how it works. That's why I said it doesn't matter as plenty of teams are overrated or underrated pre season and the real rankings will start to bear out who's best pretty much once November's over.

 

Top 68 is still a type of ranking. You say to get the attention we need to return top players. Ok, Harrison aka Big East ROY if Harkless wasn't here and 2nd team all Big East and the best freshman scorer in our history. He was our leading scorer more than Harkless. IMO we would do worse without Harrison than without Moe as good as he was. We also bring back Pointer and Garrett (top 100's), Greene who doesn't get hype but is as reliable a shooter as we have, etc. Now add nationally notable recruits like Obekpa, Sampson, and Branch (I know he's technically a transfer but he was a top 40 out of HS). This is all without including Sanchez incase he doesn't qualify, but if he does, he's a national team player and a 4 star recruit...enough said right there. You don't just wake up and make a national team no matter where you are. You say you need McD's AA's and or top 25 recruits? You are talking about maybe 10-15 teams who actually have those. What about the other 50 or so? Top 68 is a pretty big chunk...it's not top 25...it's almost top 70. How many of the teams on that list have McD's AA's and/or top 25 national recruits? I'd guess very few since they are rare and the best teams lock up more than just 1. Are you telling me that teams like Texas Southern, LIU, Akron, Savannah St, South Dakota St, Oral Roberts, etc. have All American and top 25 recruits? Of course not. So clearly to make the top 68 you don't need to have that much talent because we should be better than all of them talent wise fairly easily.

 

[austour]

To be honest I haven't even looked at his list. I'll just leave it that STJ only has one guy returning who accomplished anything worth writing a blurb about, and has a recruiting class that didn't make anyone's top 20. They have no upperclassmen besides a JUCO who's played ball for 5 years. There's really nothing there for a national journalist to do a quick eye test and say that there could be anything special. PS STJ doesn't have ANY top 25 or McD recruits so complaining about other teams not having them is not an argument. It's a preseason ranking, it's irrelevant.

 

[MCNPA]

To be honest I haven't even looked at his list. I'll just leave it that STJ only has one guy returning who accomplished anything worth writing a blurb about, and has a recruiting class that didn't make anyone's top 20. They have no upperclassmen besides a JUCO who's played ball for 5 years. There's really nothing there for a national journalist to do a quick eye test and say that there could be anything special. PS STJ doesn't have ANY top 25 or McD recruits so complaining about other teams not having them is not an argument. It's a preseason ranking, it's irrelevant.

 

I believe we actually did make Rivals top 20 recruiting classes this year after the Obekpa signing.

 

[LINY89]

 That assumes only recruits ranked 1-25 are worth anything. Simply not true. Look at us...Harkless was #41 nationally with 4 stars. Jakarr is #51 with 4 stars, Obekpa #58 with 4 stars, Pointer is #44 with 4 stars, Branch #65 with 4 stars, etc. Garrett was #60 ish and Harrison was #40. Harkless was the 15th overall in the 1st round of the NBA draft ranked 41. You seem to imply that players like these are a dime a dozen. They are not 3 star prospects...they are a tier above. If you wanted to focus on teams only with AA's and top 25's, it would be a very short list. By the way you say our class wasn't ranked in the top 25 this year...that's because Sanchez isn't weighed heavily since he missed the top150 ranking but he is still a 4 star player. Also, they didn't count Branch since he's a transfer. Those would have certainly put us in the top 25 if they were given any consideration.

 

[sirvoo]

 That assumes only recruits ranked 1-25 are worth anything. Simply not true. Look at us...Harkless was #41 nationally with 4 stars. Jakarr is #51 with 4 stars, Obekpa #58 with 4 stars, Pointer is #44 with 4 stars, Branch #65 with 4 stars, etc. Garrett was #60 ish and Harrison was #40. Harkless was the 15th overall in the 1st round of the NBA draft ranked 41. You seem to imply that players like these are a dime a dozen. They are not 3 star prospects...they are a tier above. If you wanted to focus on teams only with AA's and top 25's, it would be a very short list. By the way you say our class wasn't ranked in the top 25 this year...that's because Sanchez isn't weighed heavily since he missed the top150 ranking but he is still a 4 star player. Also, they didn't count Branch since he's a transfer. Those would have certainly put us in the top 25 if they were given any consideration.

 

Unless you're Kentucky, Duke, UNC, Kansas, the rankings of the players you get can be ambiguous. Maurice was clearly better than his #41 ranking, in fact he should've been top 10. But for every Harkless that pans out there are dozens of other top 40-100 talents who need 2-3 years of action before they can really contribute and show merit in their ranking. For that reason I don't take issue with Bilas not posting us. Have you seen the fg percentages for Harrison last year? Dom, Amir, and Phil have a long way to go(although Greene has improved it appears).

 

[MJDinkins]

To be honest I haven't even looked at his list. I'll just leave it that STJ only has one guy returning who accomplished anything worth writing a blurb about, and has a recruiting class that didn't make anyone's top 20. They have no upperclassmen besides a JUCO who's played ball for 5 years. There's really nothing there for a national journalist to do a quick eye test and say that there could be anything special. PS STJ doesn't have ANY top 25 or McD recruits so complaining about other teams not having them is not an argument. It's a preseason ranking, it's irrelevant.

 

I believe we actually did make Rivals top 20 recruiting classes this year after the Obekpa signing.

 

CBS Sports (Jeff Borzello)....

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...finishes-atop-recruiting-class-rankings-again

 

[doodyny33]

To be fair, St. John's is still one of the youngest teams in the nation. Nobody is saying that they won't have a good season. But outside of a few players (Harrison, Pointer, Garrett, Greene, God's Gift), nobody has legitimate D1 experience. If they go out and play well in their first few games, I guarantee people will start paying closer attention to them. 

 

[austour]

To be honest I haven't even looked at his list. I'll just leave it that STJ only has one guy returning who accomplished anything worth writing a blurb about, and has a recruiting class that didn't make anyone's top 20. They have no upperclassmen besides a JUCO who's played ball for 5 years. There's really nothing there for a national journalist to do a quick eye test and say that there could be anything special. PS STJ doesn't have ANY top 25 or McD recruits so complaining about other teams not having them is not an argument. It's a preseason ranking, it's irrelevant.

 

I believe we actually did make Rivals top 20 recruiting classes this year after the Obekpa signing.

 

I'm a scout guy. They had SJU at 23 ; )

 

[austour]

To be honest I haven't even looked at his list. I'll just leave it that STJ only has one guy returning who accomplished anything worth writing a blurb about, and has a recruiting class that didn't make anyone's top 20. They have no upperclassmen besides a JUCO who's played ball for 5 years. There's really nothing there for a national journalist to do a quick eye test and say that there could be anything special. PS STJ doesn't have ANY top 25 or McD recruits so complaining about other teams not having them is not an argument. It's a preseason ranking, it's irrelevant.

 

I believe we actually did make Rivals top 20 recruiting classes this year after the Obekpa signing.

 

CBS Sports (Jeff Borzello)....

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...finishes-atop-recruiting-class-rankings-again

 

DAMN YOU Jeff Borzello!!! (Shaking Fist and Mad as Heck)

 

[LINY89]

 Austour, 20 or 23 take your pick but a top 25 class not in the top 68 is stupid.