The Big 10 & Home Grown Recruits

I've wasted much of an afternoon at work diving into the statistics and prep locations of several of the Big 10 teams to ascertain how the Gophers compare to their peers in the conference. I didn't have time or the wherewithal to do the entire Big Ten, so I took a look at the following programs: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin. I chose these seven programs because they have fit into one of these categories: they have had a traditionally strong program, are located in reputed hotbeds of recruiting, and/or are natural rivals of the Gophers. Taking a stark look at the programs, if Gopher fans were honest with themselves, we would trade the last 20 years of any of these programs (I suppose you could quibble with Iowa, but the others are indisputable, in my estimation).

The first thing I looked at was how many "home grown" players averaged 10 or more minutes for their squad last year (this includes players such as McRoberts from Indiana who were injured/missed time during the season):
Indiana: 3
Iowa: 5
Michigan: 1
Michigan St.: 3
Minnesota: 3
Ohio St.: 4
Purdue: 3
Wisconsin: 1

I then took a look at the number of recruits that the respective states produced over the years of 2015-2018 (senior to freshman year with these classes) that signed with other "big conference" programs in that period of time, with players ranked somewhere in the neighborhood of top 200-250:
Indiana: 28
Iowa: 0
Michigan: 5
Minnesota: 9
Ohio: 18
Wisconsin: 10

Finally, I took a look at the top end recruits (listed within top 40), including 2019, for each particular state:
Indiana
2019-#6 recruit (Stewart) committed to Washington; 2018 #8 (Langford)-Indiana; 2017 #8 (Jackson)-Michigan St; 2017 #19 (Bowen)-Louisville; 2017 #21 (Wilkes)-UCLA; 2017 #27 (Williams)-Louisville; 2017 #34 (Scruggs)-Xavier; 2016 #37 (Guy)-Virginia; 2015 #19 (Swanigan)-Purdue; 2015 #37 (Coleman-Lands)-Illinois
Iowa
No one
Michigan
2016-#1 (Jackson)-Kansas; 2016 #31 (Winston)-Michigan St; 2015 #26 (Davis)-Michigan St.
Minnesota
2018-#15 (Jones)-Duke; 2019 #9 (Hurt)-Duke; 2019 #36 (Njeme)-Arizona
Ohio
2015-#21 (Kennard)-Duke; 2015 #24 (Bragg)-Kansas; 2016 #20 (Spellman)-Villanova; 2016 #24 (King)-Louisville; 2018 #17 (Bazley)-Syracuse, before deciding to skip college to focus on pros
Wisconsin
2018-#37 (Herro)-Kentucky; 2015 #6 (Stone)-Maryland; 2015 #9 (Ellenson)-Marquette

A few takeaways from all this:
* The Gophers are certainly not alone in relying upon a great deal of contribution from out of state performers.
* I was stunned to see how little talent is being produced by the state of Michigan; I expected numbers similar to Ohio, but that's just not the case. Hence, the dipping into the state of Ohio for both programs from Michigan to establish their excellence.
* Fran McCaffery rules the state of Iowa and shuts down the borders-it should be noted though that Iowa has not produced a top 50 talent in the years listed, with only Wieskamp (#60) listed in the top 100. Easier to keep the poachers away when there's no one eating at McDonald's.
* No one does a stellar job of corralling their state's elite talent-only five players among the 24 players listed as "top end" stayed in their home state with four of those players staying within the Big Ten. Take Michigan State out of the equation, and it narrows to two (Langford with Indiana and Swanigan with Purdue)
* A lot of respect to Matt Painter and the job he's doing at Purdue. Even though the state produces bountiful talent, he's doing most of his work with out of state players and not so highly ranked, and doing all this in West Lafayette. Similar respects to Beilein in Ann Arbor.
* It's hard, really hard to keep talented players at home when they are being courted by programs from all over the country, or just a few hours drive away. Look at some of the programs on this list and how little they're getting from in-state. And, also consider, how some of the programs are managing just fine without the elite talent that occasionally comes along.

Finally, here's a look at what's coming soon. No doubt about it, Minnesota is producing some really high end talent, and outside of Indiana, as good as anyone within the Big Ten recently.

2020
Iowa: Xavier Foster (#27)-committed to Iowa
Minnesota: Jalen Suggs (#9); Dawson Garcia (#28)
Ohio: Isaiah Jackson (#14)-committed to Michigan St.
Wisconsin: Jalen Johnson (#3)

2021
Indiana: Khristian Lander (#18); Caleb Furst (#31)
Minnesota: Kendall Brown (#24)
Wisconsin: Patrick Baldwin Jr. (#1)-committed to Duke; Michael Foster (#4)

247 Sports was the sole source of this data

Surprised by the number of Indiana players that leave the state.
I guess another area of contention is having just 1 division 1 college in Minnesota while these other states have 2-4 major ones. The better players who "stay home" in those states could be staying home in multiple places. Competing with instate institutions.

Indiana with the U, Purdue, Notre Dame, and Butler.
Wisconsin with the U, and Marquette.
Michigan with the U and Michigan St.
Iowa and Iowa st.
Ohio with Oh State, Cincinnati, and Xavier.

Indiana could almost be linked to Louisville and Kentucky as both of those schools are pretty close.

march madness said:

Surprised by the number of Indiana players that leave the state.
I guess another area of contention is having just 1 division 1 college in Minnesota while these other states have 2-4 major ones. The better players who "stay home" in those states could be staying home in multiple places. Competing with instate institutions.

Indiana with the U, Purdue, Notre Dame, and Butler.
Wisconsin with the U, and Marquette.
Michigan with the U and Michigan St.
Iowa and Iowa st.
Ohio with Oh State, Cincinnati, and Xavier.

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The interesting thing about Indiana is that the top recruits aren't really staying home anywhere, although that could change quickly if Archie Miller can get them back on track (starting with Langford).

As for Iowa, they've been clearly ahead of Iowa State within the state, despite the similar success (or even better for the Cyclones) of the two programs over the past several years.

And Ohio State's biggest thorn isn't the schools from Cincy, but rather the Wolverines and Sparty. The amount of talent heading north to Michigan should make the Buckeye nation weep.

Well done, Coolhand.

Thank you for the sanity. And the work.

JTG

Another fine example of what recruiting looks like . My sons did it by top 4 finishes in every conference to see the state, region and national reach and then international. This was done as a tool of understanding another piece of coaches ability to recruit from anywhere. It belongs to their firm as part of their database but over several generations it has been more apparent then ever that kids are not provincial. The best programs have kids from all over and in fact have few instate kids. Get the pieces and see if you can build them into a championship team. The people best at this win conference titles, make a final 4 or even win it all.

Nice work. Thanks for the effort and facts help clear the fog.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think all of this is a little overblown, because I don't think many people really feel like we should be getting all of our homegrown recruits. More that it's frustrating when guys leave here and succeed elsewhere. The main one that I don't like is when MN kids pick Wisconsin, and there are lots of reasons for that. Either way, I don't lose sleep over it -- kids are free to do what they want. I'll happily take the ones that want to be here.

I don't think there would be any conversation about it if not for a 40-70 conference record over the past six years. That worries me a lot more than losing out on homegrown recruits.

Either way, interesting stats there coolhand and thanks for taking the time to put this together.

Well done, Coolhand. And welcome back. I haven't seen many posts from you lately.

Anecdotally, I know people from Indiana and Purdue are similar to us in being frustrated about being unable to keep their best at home. It's understandable.

It is a different world than we grew up in, but it does say something that local loyalty has so little impact on players decisions. Lots of reasons to go away. I get that. But also lots of reasons to stay. It used to be that one of the foundations for being a great program was local talent, but that seems to be fading, too. Winning hopefully will create a culture of players wanting to represent their home state. I can't help but think the one and done environment reduces the probability of a player staying home. Instead of a three or four year vision, their vision is one year. If a coach can't sell the possibility of a national championship next season, it looks like a tough job to convince the top 20-30 guys to come.

I too was surprised that Michigan is producing so few high end players. It will be interesting to see if Ann Arbor and East Lansing will be able to keep it going when their coaching transitions happen.

Great information here. I knew that Indiana was a hotbed, but wow. That level of talent is pretty staggering

Thank you for your work, Coolhand, that's really helpful.

Are we saying that coaching in a "recruiting hotbed" no longer matters? With AAU teams traveling the country, most college games available on TV, the internet, social media, etc., I could see that being true. If so, we have no excuses, right?

Hates Monikers said:

Thank you for your work, Coolhand, that's really helpful.

Are we saying that coaching in a "recruiting hotbed" no longer matters? With AAU teams traveling the country, most college games available on TV, the internet, social media, etc., I could see that being true. If so, we have no excuses, right?

Click to expand...

It's still too cold here!

thanks cool hand, now get some work done.

Thank you for the great post CoolHand. Sometimes I forget that these young players didn’t grow up wanting to be the next John Thomas or I guess that is part of the problem. Like others have said this team, if it gets to be a contender with Pitino, will be built from the best players he can find. Once Pitino establishes a winning tradition here, then it will make it an easier sell for other local talent.