Dali Llama
Well-known member
Because I’m a college basketball and data dork, this was a mini-project I started a couple months ago purely out of curiosity, compiling recruiting rankings for a couple teams a day. Thought I’d share it on here for anyone interested. I was interested in seeing how teams’ on-court success compares to their recruiting level over the last decade (since one-and-done began). I want to emphasize that this is supposed to be a very rough estimate. There are a lot of limitations. I knew before I started the results would not be kind to Wake. Looking solely at the pre-[name redacted] era, things might look a little better, ha.
To measure on-court performance over the last decade, I took each team’s KenPom adjusted efficiency margin (AdjEM, which is how KenPom ranks teams within seasons) from each season, starting with the 2006-07 season and concluding with the 2016-17 season, and simply summed them all up. The summed AdjEMs from all teams were then ranked from highest to lowest to create an on-court performance ranking for all teams.
To measure recruiting ranking, I was originally just going to use 247's class rankings; however, I quickly realized they are really, really off once you go back a few years. Also, in the 2005 class, the calculation includes players who originally committed to a college before deciding to enter the NBA draft (Gerald Green at Oklahoma State or Monta Ellis at Mississippi State, for instance). So, using 247Sports' rankings, I (slowly) compiled individual player rankings for all players committed to each team in the top 150 (in on-court performance), starting with the class of 2005 and ending with the class of 2016. So, the class of 2005 were sophomores when on-court success began to be captured (06-07 season), and only one year of on-court performance captured for class of 2016. Perhaps not the best, but there will be a loss of information no matter how you do it. Players without a ranking (NA) were assigned a ranking of 500. The bottom 15% of players committed (by ranking) to each team were then dropped to mitigate the effect of outliers and because sometimes schools give scholarships to lower-level players without really affecting on-court success (Stilman White at UNC is one example).
The average ranking of players committed to each team during this time period was then taken. I then simply sorted the average player ranking by team (from lowest to highest) to create a recruiting ranking for all teams.
The plot below includes all teams from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, and Big East, as well as some teams from other conferences. The dashed line is where Recruiting Rank = On-Court Performance Rank. So, the (vertical) distance from each team’s logo to the line is the ranking differential.
The top right is a bit crowded. Here is a zoomed-in plot of all teams that had both rankings in the Top 30.
Top 20 Biggest "Overperformers"
(Rank Differential = Recruiting Rank – On-Court Performance Rank in parentheses)
1. Wichita State (+66)
2. BYU (+52)
3. Saint Mary’s (+51)
4. Butler (+46)
5. VCU (+44)
6. Northern Iowa (+43)
7. West Virginia (+42)
8. Kansas State (+40)
9. Wisconsin (+39)
10. Gonzaga (+36)
11. Creighton (+31)
12. Davidson (+30)
13. New Mexico (+26)
14. San Diego State (+25)
15. Tulsa (+21)
16. Iowa State (+19)
16. Utah (+19)
18. Richmond (+18)
19. Clemson (+16)
19. Iowa (+16)
Top 20 Biggest "Underperformers"
1. Rutgers (-94)
2. DePaul (-80)
3. Auburn (-66)
4. Wake Forest (-58)
5. Oregon State (-56)
6. UNC-Charlotte (-53)
7. NC State (-50)
7. Georgia Tech (-50)
9. LSU (-45)
9. St. John’s (-45)
11. Washington (-38)
12. UCF (-37)
13. Mississippi State (-35)
14. Alabama (-32)
15. Stanford (-28)
16. TCU (-27)
17. Illinois (-26)
18. Boston College (-25)
19. Arkansas (-24)
20. Florida State (-22)
Like I said, this is supposed to be a very rough estimate. There are a lot of limitations. For instance, KenPom doesn't add any extra value to postseason games, so UConn, despite winning 2 championships during this time period (2008 and 2011), is only 24th in on-court success. Also, I assumed all recruiting classes are equal in quality, which is obviously not accurate in reality. But it was a fun little project. I think there are some substantive things that can be taken from it. I'm open to suggestions to improve it.
To measure on-court performance over the last decade, I took each team’s KenPom adjusted efficiency margin (AdjEM, which is how KenPom ranks teams within seasons) from each season, starting with the 2006-07 season and concluding with the 2016-17 season, and simply summed them all up. The summed AdjEMs from all teams were then ranked from highest to lowest to create an on-court performance ranking for all teams.
To measure recruiting ranking, I was originally just going to use 247's class rankings; however, I quickly realized they are really, really off once you go back a few years. Also, in the 2005 class, the calculation includes players who originally committed to a college before deciding to enter the NBA draft (Gerald Green at Oklahoma State or Monta Ellis at Mississippi State, for instance). So, using 247Sports' rankings, I (slowly) compiled individual player rankings for all players committed to each team in the top 150 (in on-court performance), starting with the class of 2005 and ending with the class of 2016. So, the class of 2005 were sophomores when on-court success began to be captured (06-07 season), and only one year of on-court performance captured for class of 2016. Perhaps not the best, but there will be a loss of information no matter how you do it. Players without a ranking (NA) were assigned a ranking of 500. The bottom 15% of players committed (by ranking) to each team were then dropped to mitigate the effect of outliers and because sometimes schools give scholarships to lower-level players without really affecting on-court success (Stilman White at UNC is one example).
The average ranking of players committed to each team during this time period was then taken. I then simply sorted the average player ranking by team (from lowest to highest) to create a recruiting ranking for all teams.
The plot below includes all teams from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, and Big East, as well as some teams from other conferences. The dashed line is where Recruiting Rank = On-Court Performance Rank. So, the (vertical) distance from each team’s logo to the line is the ranking differential.
The top right is a bit crowded. Here is a zoomed-in plot of all teams that had both rankings in the Top 30.
Top 20 Biggest "Overperformers"
(Rank Differential = Recruiting Rank – On-Court Performance Rank in parentheses)
1. Wichita State (+66)
2. BYU (+52)
3. Saint Mary’s (+51)
4. Butler (+46)
5. VCU (+44)
6. Northern Iowa (+43)
7. West Virginia (+42)
8. Kansas State (+40)
9. Wisconsin (+39)
10. Gonzaga (+36)
11. Creighton (+31)
12. Davidson (+30)
13. New Mexico (+26)
14. San Diego State (+25)
15. Tulsa (+21)
16. Iowa State (+19)
16. Utah (+19)
18. Richmond (+18)
19. Clemson (+16)
19. Iowa (+16)
Top 20 Biggest "Underperformers"
1. Rutgers (-94)
2. DePaul (-80)
3. Auburn (-66)
4. Wake Forest (-58)
5. Oregon State (-56)
6. UNC-Charlotte (-53)
7. NC State (-50)
7. Georgia Tech (-50)
9. LSU (-45)
9. St. John’s (-45)
11. Washington (-38)
12. UCF (-37)
13. Mississippi State (-35)
14. Alabama (-32)
15. Stanford (-28)
16. TCU (-27)
17. Illinois (-26)
18. Boston College (-25)
19. Arkansas (-24)
20. Florida State (-22)
Like I said, this is supposed to be a very rough estimate. There are a lot of limitations. For instance, KenPom doesn't add any extra value to postseason games, so UConn, despite winning 2 championships during this time period (2008 and 2011), is only 24th in on-court success. Also, I assumed all recruiting classes are equal in quality, which is obviously not accurate in reality. But it was a fun little project. I think there are some substantive things that can be taken from it. I'm open to suggestions to improve it.
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