@WBBfolllwer , thank you for responding. I agree with you that all recruiting/rating services have had issues (not just Blue Star) in terms of having "missed" on good players.
I disagree about Megan Gustafson, however. There is a difference between showing up to college on dominating as a freshman (e.g., Alana Beard at Duke) and slowly developing over the years, in the course of natural player development as a result of talent and hard work.
Alana Beard was a "miss" by Blue Star, in terms of evaluating where she was at the time; she showed up and dominated the ACC from the jump. This is what Alana accomplished her rookie year:
- Earned USBWA, Sports Illustrated for Women, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sportsline and Women’s Basketball Journal National Freshman of the Year honors
- Garnered Basketball Times Freshman All-America, Kodak District II All-America, Associated Press All-America, Women’s Basketball News Service third team All-America and Women’s Basketball Journal first team Freshman All-America honors
- Selected to the West Regional All-Tournament team
- Named ACC Freshman of the Year
- Named First Team All-ACC, becoming the first freshman to ever be selected to the First Team
- Named to the All-ACC Tournament First Team
In the summer after HS and before Beard arrived at Duke, she led USA Basketball Women’s Junior World Championship Team to a 5-0 record and the gold medal, averaging 15.4 points and 4.4 rebounds. In other words, Blue Star had her ranked very low, but it was clear before she even started college that BS's ranking was, well, BS.
Gustafson averaged 10.7 ppg and 6.8 rpg her first year and was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team. But she was not the best player on her team (
Ally Disterhoft had that honor for 2015-16; Disterhoft was also named Second Team All-Big Ten that year), nor was she the best freshmen in the Big Ten (Nebraska's Jessica Shepard earned that honor and Shephard and Penn State's Teniya Page
were the only two unanimous selections to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team). And in terms of immediate impact, the Big Ten comparable player to the ACC's Alana Beard was Ohio State's Jantel Lavender, who became the first Big Ten player, male or female, to be named the Big Ten Player of the Year four times (winning the coaches' award, the media award, or both) and the only women’s basketball player in a Power Five conference to accomplish that feat.
Gustafson improved her sophomore season and was named to the
2016-17 All-Big Ten First Team (both coaches and media), as was teammate Ally Disterhoft. But neither was a unanimous selection to either First Team (coaches or media); Maryland's Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Brionna Jones, Michigan State's Tori Jankoska, and Ohio State's Kelsey Mitchell
were the only unanimous selections for both (with Mitchell winning POY).
Gustafson really improved by the team her junior year rolled around and turned into a dominating offensive force around the rim. But to say she was a recruiting "miss" is a bit difficult for me, only because she accomplished this a few years after the fact, under the tutelage of college coaches, thousands of hours of workouts, etc. The difference with Beard is that Alana was dominating USA Basketball before she started college, then went on to tear up the ACC during her first year.
As an aside,
Blue Star did not have Gustafson ranked among its top 300 prospects for the HS Class of 2015.
Blue Star and ASGR both go back that long, as I have archived the ratings for two decades. And yes, there is something to be said for longevity.
But part of the reason as to why there are more recruiting/rating services now is that there is more money in doing so for women's college basketball. It is nowhere near that of the men (or the level of fan interest in such rankings/ratings of HS players), but there more services now, more opportunities to be seen, and, to be frank, better evaluators of talent (both new people coming in to do the evaluations and experienced evaluators who have improved in terms of their talent assessment abilities).
As for your comment about what is most widely used and reliable...while it may be to the best of your knowledge, it is not to the best of mine. But I agree that most coaches/schools of which I am aware use more than one recruiting/rating service.
In my previous post, I stated:
A few years ago, I commented that Blue Star is based in the Northeast, is sponsored by Nike, and is run by individuals with strong ties to the old Big East. Blue Star's rankings are handled by Mike Flynn, who tended to bump up the rankings for players from the Northeast, players who attended Nike camps, and/or players who give verbal commitments to one of the old Big East schools.
Reading your post about "splitting up the competition" and Nike/adidas, I should add the following.
A few years ago, I commented (when I made the above statements regarding Blue Star/Nike/Flynn) that ASGR is based in the Southeast, is sponsored by adidas, and is run by individuals with strong ties to the ACC. ASGR''s rankings were/are handled by Mike White (White now works with Bret McCormick and others), who tended to bump the rankings for players who gave verbal commitments to ACC schools.
As an example, this is how ASGR analyzed UConn's HS Class of 2002 -- and notice the discrepancies (some of them extreme) for UConn's class in terms of the ASGR rankings as compared to the others.
View attachment 43741
But like said above --- and putting aside any geographic or sneaker/apparel bias -- evaluating HS players and projecting them for four years into the future after they finish college is tricky business. The same questions are there:
--- Is the evaluation done based on where they rank now (how they are playing now)?
--- Is there an allowance for potential/upside?
--- What about a player's on-court demeanor?
--- Ability to be coached? Interactions with teammates? (
I added this one, as I neglected to include it in my initial post.)
--- Is it a combination of these things -- and, if so, what are the percentages for each category?
--- And how does a rating service factor in a player seen 3-5 times as compared to one seen 10-12 times?
Side note --- I believe
@HuskyNan can shed light on the years she was part of a team of evaluators for Scout (2006 for sure; not sure about other years), in terms of how talent evaluators/assessors consider some of these things. As I recall, Epiphanny Prince was widely regarded as a very talented and elite recruit with a good amount of upsdie, but received a slightly lower ranking/rating (#10 overall) from that Scout rating team, as a result of things like on-court attitude, ability to play team basketball, interactions with teammates/coaches, etc.
My personal preference is Dan Olson's Collegiate Girls Basketball Report (which I believe started publishing rankings in/around 2011). Olson constantly updates his rankings on his site; as an example, one of Duke's commitments for the HS Class of 2019 had her ranking change (both up and down) five times over the summer of 2018, as Olson saw that player more and saw other players more. Olson's subscription service also has player assessments (usually 3-4 sentences about each player's skillset and strengths/weaknesses). But again, that is my personal preference -- and Olson has "misses" just as the others do.
In any event,
@WBBfolllwer , I am really enjoying this discussion with you --- and I hope the rest of the Boneyard finds this topic interesting.