The final 2011 rankings are out for all the big services here how the Minnesota class of 2011 did along with others who appeared locally.
Rivals
Joe Coleman #121
Others who appeared locally
Brad Beal (#4) - Florida
Cody Zeller (#15) - Indiana
Adonis Thomas (#17) - Memphis
Branden Dawson (#20) - Michigan St
BJ Young (#25) - Arkansas
Myck Kabongo (#26) - Texas
Ky Madden (#32) - Arkansas
Quinn Cook (#38) - Duke
Mychael Henry (#39) - Illinois
Julien Lewis (#57) - Texas
Marshall Plumlee (#79) - Duke
Hunter Mickleson (#100) - Arkansas
Jerome Seagears (#101) - Rutgers
Andre Hollins (#110) - Minnesota
TaShawn Thomas (#113) - Houston
Jarion Henry (#119) - New Mexico
Josh Oglesby (#122) - Iowa
Paul Jesperson (#136) - Virginia
Aaron Ross (#143) - Arkansas
Cedrick McAfee (#145) - Auburn
Spencer Dinwiddie (#146) - Colorado
Jarrod Uthoff (#149) - Wisconsin
Scout
No Minnesota players ranked
ESPN
Joe Coleman #93 behind Paul Jesperson #87
Hardwood Elite
Joe Coleman #80 behind Paul Jesperson #69
Ross Travis #91
Add #61 Todd Mayo (Marquette) to the list of others who appeared locally.
Andre Hollins #46
For the record, I think Coleman and Jesperson will have nice college careers. I don't think either is quite to the top 100 level. Coleman consistently dominated his higher level competition both in the winter and the spring. He averaged 22 PPG while sitting major minutes as Hopkins destroyed people. Jesperson's team was 11-11 this year in the regular season against inferior competition. If not for Onalaska's top 2 bigs blowing out knees, Jesperson's Merrill team doesn't get out of section play. He averaged 22.6 PPG playing big minutes. While he had 45 in a game here last spring, in the spring games that I saw Jesperson play against our top teams he generally struggled against more physical play. Coleman also did all of this with a loaded roster where Jesperson's team didn't have nearly that kind of talent. The general recruiting rule is that you can teach skills but not athleticism. Schools recruit bigger, stronger and faster because they have to. So put all of that together and even though I'm clearly no expert on player evaluation, based on the facts above, it really shocks me that at least 2 of the rankings put Jesperson ahead of Coleman. It proves my complaint with rankings. Anybody who says they can see kids enough to do an intelligent ranking at a state or national level is full of it. I spend as much time in the gym as anybody and I know first hand that you can't see a significant amount of any large number of players. Especially when many of the writers focus mostly on Nike events (but don't get me started on that). That's why kids like a Gordon Hayward or even Alec Brown fall through the cracks.
Great point on minutes played. If you take stats per minute played and level of competition, there is no way anyone should have ranked Jesperson above Coleman. Seems like with anything, some kids just need a better hype machine. But that too could be part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to both players on their success and all the best to them as they move on up!
Marty, you bring up a great point on the hype machine. Mark Miller wrote a ton about Jesperson and how he was ranked the top prospect in Wisconsin. We don't have the same type of thing here and I've had a coach tell me that hurts our kids.
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