WNBA Draft vs. ESPN HoopGurlz Rankings

This is great stuff -- and lots of work. Thanks ...

Now, as to high school rankings, which I did for many years. (To be clear, I only worked with ESPN Hoopgurlz for a couple years, but I did pick all-American teams for 20+ years.)

Obviously, high school rankings are incredibly difficult to do, especially on the girls' side. The only people who can really do them are those who are out on the road all summer, watching lots of boring AAU games (while college coaches babysitting prospects sit in the stands texting). Even then, though, some girls don't play for club teams that travel much, and don't get out of their region.

So how it works is this: When the top schools offer a girl early in her high school career, her name immediately goes on the list. When a girl gets picked up by an elite club team and starts, she gets serious consideration. But there is a major bias towards girls who hit the scene early (middle school), as there's lots of time to see her.

The other issue is that athleticism plays up during club basketball because of the lack of practice time -- and competition. Most elite recruits simply out-athlete their competition, and it's difficult to project how they will do when they're no longer hugely superior athletically to their competition. (And even at the highest levels, there aren't that many elite players, and coaches seldom have their stars guard other stars because they might foul out.)

Also note that college coaches have to answer to their ADs, so their recruiting process also includes job security. For example, if a coach recruits a superbly athletic 6-1 girl who lacks skills and basketball IQ, and she bombs out, the AD can understand why she was recruited. If, on the other hand, the coach recruits a 5-7 girl who's highly skilled and smart but not that athletic, and she bombs out, the AD will think "Even I could tell she wasn't going to be that good."

And given the long lead-up -- most girls are pretty much fully mature as freshmen -- group think tends to take over and the very small number of people involved settle into a consensus. The same, of course, is true at the WNBA level, as Charli Collier shows most dramatically.