Photo: Modified New Yorker Magazine cover (March 29th, 1976) view of lacrosse in the United States
Either the DU coaching staff are miracle workers at molding middling talent into national contenders or national lacrosse prep rankings are wrong again.
A prominent lacrosse survey, Recruiting Rundown, shows the University of Denver landing the second ranked recruit, Ethan Walker, a left-handed Canadian playing at a Culver (Indiana) prep school (as reported by LetsGoDU as well). However, DU had no other recruits in the Top 50 and garnered only two more recruits, Kyle Smith (#59) and Sam Harnish (#71), from the Top 100 list. Only one Colorado prep player even made the top 100 – Cherry Hills Henry Adams came in #82 and is headed to Michigan.
The state of New York placed a whopping 17 players in the top 100 with 6 of those in the top 25. The state of Pennsylvania totaled 12 players with four of those in the top 10 followed by Maryland with 12 total recruits and 3 in the top 25. These three lacrosse hotbeds were followed by Connecticut with 11, New Jersey 9 and D.C. 6 with players in the Top 100. Georgia, Missouri, and Utah tied Colorado with one prospect each.
Big East rival Georgetown had a slightly bigger haul than DU with the 7th ranked prospect and another player in the top 50 along with #63 and #69. Interestingly, Notre Dame, like DU, only had one player cited in the Top 50.
Generally, with the exception of California with 7 ranked players in the Top 100, most prospects were from the Atlantic seaboard states. When it comes to elite 5-star recruits, Duke landed four with Virginia, Princeton, Penn State, and Johns Hopkins landing two each.
So how is DU responding to the powerhouse talent in the eastern states with this year’s recruiting class? DU added 12 players to this year’s team. The Pioneers added one player from New Jersey and two players from Connecticut. Denver also added three players from the Midwest – Indiana/Canada(1), Ohio(1), Tennessee(1) along with six preps from the West – Washington(1), Colorado(1), Oregon (1), California (1), Arizona (1) and Texas (1).
All this despite a recent USA Today article that showed the University of Denver as the second best place in the nation to play lacrosse, trailing only Syracuse.
I don’t put a lot of stock in those lax recruit rankings. DU has been a final four calibre team for years now, and the Pios are always stocked with many recruits that were often not on (or not high) on those lists. The Eastern lax establishment sees mostly east coast kids, hence the rankings are what they are – they also have a vested interest in keeping their own cupboards full of who they think are the best players, as well as scratching the backs of the the prep school feeder program coaches who supply those players to their camps and college programs.
In short, I trust Tierney and Brown to bring in Pioneers who are just as good as anyone else’s players.
Yep. Recruiting rankings of high school athletes in a heavily regionalized sport like lacrosse are worth exactly the amount of bandwidth they take up on the interwebs.
Which is to say precisely DICK….
I don’t put a lot of stock in those lax recruit rankings. DU has been a final four calibre team for years now, and the Pios are always stocked with many recruits that were often not on (or not high) on those lists. The Eastern lax establishment sees mostly east coast kids, hence the rankings are what they are – they also have a vested interest in keeping their own cupboards full of who they think are the best players, as well as scratching the backs of the the prep school feeder program coaches who supply those players to their camps and college programs.
In short, I trust Tierney and Brown to bring in Pioneers who are just as good as anyone else’s players.
Yep. Recruiting rankings of high school athletes in a heavily regionalized sport like lacrosse are worth exactly the amount of bandwidth they take up on the interwebs.
Which is to say precisely DICK….