Is Georgia basketball talent overrated

[RamblinRed]

So this is a question i've thought about for awhile:
Is GA basketball talent overrated?
The NCAA site has a great article on where Div 1 players come from. Someone went through the process last year of looking at every Div 1 basketball roster and seeing where every player came from.
Atlanta was ranked 5th in terms of cities producing the most Div 1 basketball players (note that this is the city of Atlanta, not the metro Atlanta area as the city was based on city name.).
GA was 4th nationally in terms of states producing Div 1 basketball players.

So on paper it looks like the talent is very deep in Georgia.

But I decided to look at something a little deeper - how many Final Four teams had significant presence of GA recruits.
Looking back at the last 10 Final Fours - that is 40 teams, over 300 rotational players, only 2 teams had more than 1 starter from the state of GA
2013 Wichita State (2)
2019 Auburn (4)

There has been only one other starter from the state of GA in the last 10 years - Davion Mitchell at Baylor in 2021. So only 3 teams had a starter from GA and only 7 players from GA have started in the last 10 years (out of a possible 200 starters).
Beyond the starters there have been only 7 other ga players to be a rotation player in the last 10 years. So 14 players out of more than 300 regulars were from the state of GA. So GA basketball players are not really making major contributions to the best teams in the country. The total for the last 10 years of Final Fours is 14 players and 8 teams. Only the Auburn team really had deep representation of players. Otherwise GA players have largely been missing from the Final Four.

What this suggests to me is that there is alot of athletic talent in the state of GA, given how many GA recruits play Div 1 basketball, but there may not be enough high level 'basketball talent'.
My thought is that if you are going to recruit GA players significantly then you better have a really good development program in place to improve their basketball skill level.

Also, based on the perceived level of talent in the state of Georgia, the colleges in GA are woefully underrepresented in the NCAA Tourney. In the last 25 Tournaments a total of 18 teams from the state of GA have made the NCAA Tourney - an avg of less than 1 per year.
GT - 6 - 01, 04, 05, 07, 10, 21
Ga St - 5 - 01, 15, 18, 19, 22
UGA - 5 - 01, 02, 08, 11, 15
Kenn St - 1 - 23
Mercer - 1 -14

Just some food for thought.

 

[kg01]

I think it's fair to say there's more depth there than high-end guys.

 

[LargeFO]

So this is a question i've thought about for awhile:
Is GA basketball talent overrated?
The NCAA site has a great article on where Div 1 players come from. Someone went through the process last year of looking at every Div 1 basketball roster and seeing where every player came from.
Atlanta was ranked 5th in terms of cities producing the most Div 1 basketball players (note that this is the city of Atlanta, not the metro Atlanta area as the city was based on city name.).
GA was 4th nationally in terms of states producing Div 1 basketball players.

So on paper it looks like the talent is very deep in Georgia.

But I decided to look at something a little deeper - how many Final Four teams had significant presence of GA recruits.
Looking back at the last 10 Final Fours - that is 40 teams, over 300 rotational players, only 2 teams had more than 1 starter from the state of GA
2013 Wichita State (2)
2019 Auburn (4)

There has been only one other starter from the state of GA in the last 10 years - Davion Mitchell at Baylor in 2021. So only 3 teams had a starter from GA and only 7 players from GA have started in the last 10 years (out of a possible 200 starters).
Beyond the starters there have been only 7 other ga players to be a rotation player in the last 10 years. So 14 players out of more than 300 regulars were from the state of GA. So GA basketball players are not really making major contributions to the best teams in the country. The total for the last 10 years of Final Fours is 14 players and 8 teams. Only the Auburn team really had deep representation of players. Otherwise GA players have largely been missing from the Final Four.

What this suggests to me is that there is alot of athletic talent in the state of GA, given how many GA recruits play Div 1 basketball, but there may not be enough high level 'basketball talent'.
My thought is that if you are going to recruit GA players significantly then you better have a really good development program in place to improve their basketball skill level.

Also, based on the perceived level of talent in the state of Georgia, the colleges in GA are woefully underrepresented in the NCAA Tourney. In the last 25 Tournaments a total of 18 teams from the state of GA have made the NCAA Tourney - an avg of less than 1 per year.
GT - 6 - 01, 04, 05, 07, 10, 21
Ga St - 5 - 01, 15, 18, 19, 22
UGA - 5 - 01, 02, 08, 11, 15
Kenn St - 1 - 23
Mercer - 1 -14

Just some food for thought.

I think your point is valid on the top-end guys, but do think we've done a poor job recruiting the area for years.

 

[LawTalkin Jacket]

I am not sure its fair to do the analysis on only Final Four teams. Granted, the tourney is a great way to determine the best four teams and a champion, but there are plenty of good teams that don't make final four (with high end players who go pro - Kentucky, Duke, etc). The analysis should include Ga players in NBA, right? What about Anthony Edwards - he didn't make the tourney at all. I suspect that the "GA was 4th nationally in terms of states producing Div 1 basketball players." is a pretty accurate statement if you look at D1 starters at all schools and players going to NBA.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

I agree that the Final Four is a poor metric to measure the quality of recruits coming from a state and that using number of NBA players may be a better metric.

 

[ChristoGT]

In a quick review of NBA players, GA ranks between 6 - 10 depending on the year. They based either on total number of NBA players or on a per-million rate. Some of the stats are "birthed in" and some are "played in", so would take more digging to fine tune.

 

[RamblinRed]

FWIW, CBS Sports did look at NBA players a couple of seasons ago. They looked at it by metro area.
Their listing was
#1 Los Angeles
#2 Chicago
#3 Philadelphia
#4 Dallas
#5 Seattle
#6 Houston
#7 New Jersey
#8 Washington DC
#9 Indianapolis
#10 New York City
#11 Atlanta
#12 Akron/Canton/Columbus
#13 Flint/Saginaw
#14 Toronto
#15 St. Louis
#16 Toronto

I'll add at the end of the day I don't care how many NBA players came from GA, I care about how they produce at a college level - which is what I watch.
Do they play on winning teams? Are they major contributors on teams getting to the NCAA Tourney? Right now it sort of feels like the answer is sort of mixed at best in terms of GA players in college.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

FWIW, CBS Sports did look at NBA players a couple of seasons ago. They looked at it by metro area.
Their listing was
#1 Los Angeles
#2 Chicago
#3 Philadelphia
#4 Dallas
#5 Seattle
#6 Houston
#7 New Jersey
#8 Washington DC
#9 Indianapolis
#10 New York City
#11 Atlanta
#12 Akron/Canton/Columbus
#13 Flint/Saginaw
#14 Toronto
#15 St. Louis
#16 Toronto

I'll add at the end of the day I don't care how many NBA players came from GA, I care about how they produce at a college level - which is what I watch.
Do they play on winning teams? Are they major contributors on teams getting to the NCAA Tourney? Right now it sort of feels like the answer is sort of mixed at best in terms of GA players in college.

Perhaps expand it to the Sweet 16 to get a better assessment of their impact on college basketball. I think Final Four is too small a pool to gather any meaningful analytical data

 

[pcmor]

I don't think Final Four or even Sweet 16 tells the story. If you're just measuring talent, pure talent, I'd look to see who is playing in the NBA.

The other thing I'd be looking at is the AAU programs. Are Georgia and particularly Atlanta AAU programs succeeding at the national level? That's a pretty good measure of talent. If they are, and then it looks like there are a lot of Atlanta players reaching the NBA, the issues might be in HS talent dispersing all over the country because the home programs can't convince them to stay home, and/or they are going to programs that aren't developing their talent.

Maybe I've missed this discussion somewhere here ... I almost never post ... but has anyone talked much about the NIL situation at Tech? I'm wondering how that impacts the basketball team's ability to bring in the top in-Georgia players.

 

[tsrich]

I don't think Final Four or even Sweet 16 tells the story. If you're just measuring talent, pure talent, I'd look to see who is playing in the NBA.

The other thing I'd be looking at is the AAU programs. Are Georgia and particularly Atlanta AAU programs succeeding at the national level? That's a pretty good measure of talent. If they are, and then it looks like there are a lot of Atlanta players reaching the NBA, the issues might be in HS talent dispersing all over the country because the home programs can't convince them to stay home, and/or they are going to programs that aren't developing their talent.

Maybe I've missed this discussion somewhere here ... I almost never post ... but has anyone talked much about the NIL situation at Tech? I'm wondering how that impacts the basketball team's ability to bring in the top in-Georgia players.

Been discussed quite a bit. There's essentially been 0 NIl until now which killed our recruiting and transfers. Supposably the new AD has drummed up some commitments for more money that should at least get us to the Wake Forest level.

 

[forensicbuzz]

So this is a question i've thought about for awhile:
Is GA basketball talent overrated?
The NCAA site has a great article on where Div 1 players come from. Someone went through the process last year of looking at every Div 1 basketball roster and seeing where every player came from.
Atlanta was ranked 5th in terms of cities producing the most Div 1 basketball players (note that this is the city of Atlanta, not the metro Atlanta area as the city was based on city name.).
GA was 4th nationally in terms of states producing Div 1 basketball players.

So on paper it looks like the talent is very deep in Georgia.

But I decided to look at something a little deeper - how many Final Four teams had significant presence of GA recruits.
Looking back at the last 10 Final Fours - that is 40 teams, over 300 rotational players, only 2 teams had more than 1 starter from the state of GA
2013 Wichita State (2)
2019 Auburn (4)

There has been only one other starter from the state of GA in the last 10 years - Davion Mitchell at Baylor in 2021. So only 3 teams had a starter from GA and only 7 players from GA have started in the last 10 years (out of a possible 200 starters).
Beyond the starters there have been only 7 other ga players to be a rotation player in the last 10 years. So 14 players out of more than 300 regulars were from the state of GA. So GA basketball players are not really making major contributions to the best teams in the country. The total for the last 10 years of Final Fours is 14 players and 8 teams. Only the Auburn team really had deep representation of players. Otherwise GA players have largely been missing from the Final Four.

What this suggests to me is that there is alot of athletic talent in the state of GA, given how many GA recruits play Div 1 basketball, but there may not be enough high level 'basketball talent'.
My thought is that if you are going to recruit GA players significantly then you better have a really good development program in place to improve their basketball skill level.

Also, based on the perceived level of talent in the state of Georgia, the colleges in GA are woefully underrepresented in the NCAA Tourney. In the last 25 Tournaments a total of 18 teams from the state of GA have made the NCAA Tourney - an avg of less than 1 per year.
GT - 6 - 01, 04, 05, 07, 10, 21
Ga St - 5 - 01, 15, 18, 19, 22
UGA - 5 - 01, 02, 08, 11, 15
Kenn St - 1 - 23
Mercer - 1 -14

Just some food for thought.

To reach the Final Four requires a great deal of luck as well as ability. Great teams get knocked out early or get tripped up and don't make it to the Final Four. I think it would be better to look at how many GA natives are starters on Top25 teams at the end of the season. That would be more telling than the Final Four in a tourney. However, since I'm not willing to do the work to determine that, I'm not throwing shade at what you've done.

 

[SteamWhistle]

I never understood why Atlanta is considered a basketball talent hub. There’s a really good AAU teams and few blue chip recruits a year, but to me Atlanta and the state of Georgia produces far more and better top end talent in Football.

 

[SteamWhistle]

I will add In Basketball I think the city of Atlanta is a better recruiting tool to sell then it is a talent hub for us.

 

[YlJacket]

There are more than "a few" blue chip prospects in the ATL/Ga area. Way more than enough to be a top third team in the ACC and perennial dancer. That is the first step in CDS's journey.

I take Red's analysis and wonder if the top end is overrated. But for the moment in time, Final 4 or Elite 8 is not the marker I am looking at. Let's start with the basics and I have no doubts there is enough talent in the local area to start the journey. If we need more/better talent to get deep into the tourney that is a high quality problem to have.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Someone who is not as lazy as I am needs to chart where Cremins recruited our best players. My memory is that he found them wherever he could, from Oklahoma to metro ATL to New York. Would love to see where all our starting fives under him were from. MIGHT be a clue about how we should recruit.

ATL has talent that we should put a fence around but doubt that would be enough.