Every time players are ranked by Inside Lacrosse or selected to an all-star team the jealous parents go on the attack. They call the IL rankings a joke, they say that Under Armour is political and they try to knock the players and diminish the honor.
Every year it looks like 90% of the players who are ranked in the Top 40 and who are named UA All-Americans go to the Top 10 - 15 college programs. These programs appear to be the best every year. The same programs consistently outperform the other 100 or so programs. If the accolades are a joke and political why do college coaches from the best programs seem to identify the same players as being the best?
Same argument has been going on forever, everyone gets it wrong at every level - 35 kids on a roster and 17 see any meaningful playing time. I would bet the bench of any top 30 team is littered with HS All-Americans, UA All-Americans, School Girls players, All-County Players, etc., but they can't get on the field. Tom Brady drafted in the sixth round, Steph Curry 3-4 round, etc. BTW the list of Heisman Trophy winners who were NFL busts is enormous
They do not get it wrong very often at the top programs (that is why they are consistently the top programs). You can only start 12 so just because a player doesn't start or see much playing time does not mean that the coaches got it wrong. Also, not every recruit is equal, each school has a #1 and a # 5 and a #10 recruit. You can't compare All-county, school girls, US Lacrosse AA with Under Armour All-American. Pretty sure there are more than 500 US Lacrosse AA's every year and forget about how many all-county / school girl players there are. Under Armour names 44 players. Not many of the #1's or UA All-Americans riding the bench. If the #8 or #9 recruit who received little to no scholarship is not seeing much playing time how did the coaches get it wrong?
The top programs consistently bring in the top recruits and the top programs consistently do better than the programs that do not get the top recruits. I know there are many on this site who want to believe that the college coaches at the top programs get it wrong "all the time" and that the Inside Lacrosse Player Rankings and Under Armour All-America are meaningless and political but the results say otherwise. UA, IL and the coaches from the best college programs all identify the same players as being the top recruits. For the most part those players go to the top college programs and those programs always seem to be among the top 10 - 20.
If they always got it wrong and the lists and teams were a joke i think we would see more parity but we do not.
Reply
Quote
