Originally Posted by Anonymous
College coaches are going to learn very quickly in the next 1-3 years as ER recruits flow in that it was a mistake to flatter kids who played down to get noticed. It counts for a lot less as kids age into their later teens, but 13-23 months older than kids in the same grade is a huge advantage to kids through their mid teens. When I see a bigger, stronger, faster, more mature and more technically developed 16 year old versus a 14 1/2 year old all I really think is that kid SHOULD be better by a large margin against the younger competition. The spread collapses as they age up. Look at some DMV area prep teams. Gonzaga, PVI, Prep, Landon, yeah they get all the lights out 8th graders to assemble. Then as juniors and seniors a lot of those kids aren't even the 3rd best middie or attackman on their own team. Of course the accolades keep coming if they were early commits, but that just beards the reality that these kids lost their alpha which was to just be older than the herd during the growth phase years for boys. Look at the UVA commits in the 2016 and 2017 classes playing at WCAC and IAC schools. Zero examples of being elite versus high school competition. Yes, those are good prep leagues but high school ball is light years below college ball.

This can be said about all college recruits in all sports. The hit to miss ratio is low no matter when they verbal/sign the kids. The point people miss is most teams bring in 12 to 14 recruits. And most schools have somewhere between 2 to 4 full rides to spread out between these 12 to 14 boys. So lets just say for easy math the give 6 kids half rides. That means 6 to 8 of the kids coming in are paying there way into school. So where is the risk the school is taking by picking some or all of them early. The game is played with what 20 to 25 kids playing 99% of the minutes.And most D1 schools carry 40 to 50 kids on the team. So if they hit on 4 to 6 of the 14 kids they are more then good. So my point is ER hurts the school very very little unless all 14 kids are busts.