ESPN continues to move the goal posts for 2025 Recruiting class rankings

[LineSkiCat14]

ESPN in their latest rankings dropped Kentucky 4 spots.. but they cant seem to decide on if transfers are included or aren't.

Uconn who moved up 1 spot ahead of us, did so because of transfers Demary and Smith (their own admission). Which is confusing because this is RECRUITING rankings. But no matter. I bet they will include our transfers in just a minute..

Nope. No mention of Jayden Quintance.. or Lowe.. or Kam. They do a write up of how we lost Lewis and that hurt us, even though they mention Jelavic and Hawthorne, who likely make that loss a wash.

Not the biggest deal, but its funny how time and time again, ESPN seems to wiggle and squirm they way into finding a reason to under value us. (Take a look at which player just missed the cut off of being labeled a 5-star, by the way).

Final 2025 men's recruiting class rankings: 4 new teams, plus risers and fallers

Nate Ament's commitment catapulted Tennessee into our final top 25, along with three other programs.

www.espn.com

Its also worth noting that if you look at kentucky vs uconn recruiting straight up for 2025.. they're 2 top recruits just narrowly are ranked ahead of ours.. but we also have a top100 4-star as well. So based on recruiting alone, uconn should still be behind us (unless im missing someone). Im taking three 4-stars and a top European prospect, over their 4-man class.. just because it has one 5-star.

 

[Son_Of_Saul]

ESPN has never been consistent with their rankings.

Pope's doing it the right way. Lock in a top 5 group of incoming group of high school players, bring back a 2nd team all-SEC stud, and then go out and sign the top portal class in the nation.

If our NIL budget stays in the $15-22 million range, we will continue to dominate both high school and portal recruiting.

 

[bucsrule8872]

Yup.

ESPN has never been the model of consistency.

 

[bucsrule8872]

Also, Cal is gone, so we no longer hang banners for recruiting classes. LOL!

 

[sk73]

Imagine what the Louisville fans are saying. I think UL will be a tough game. I may have overlooked a team or two but, it does seem like UConn is the only team that is mentioned, including their transfers. Like them or hate them, UConn will be good. I like our group.

 

[sk73]

Also, Cal is gone, so we no longer hang banners for recruiting classes. LOL!

I have never seen that type of banner.

 

[bucsrule8872]

I have never seen that type of banner.

Figuratively speaking, not literally speaking.

 

[Wildcats4ever2007]

ESPN has never been consistent with their rankings.

Pope's doing it the right way. Lock in a top 5 group of incoming group of high school players, bring back a 2nd team all-SEC stud, and then go out and sign the top portal class in the nation.

If our NIL budget stays in the $15-22 million range, we will continue to dominate both high school and portal recruiting.

Is $15-22 mil really sustainable? At some point the money gonna run dry

 

[bbnkat02]

We will jump two spots upon Oweh's hopeful return.

 

[Runt#1969]

 

[yoshukai]

I have never seen that type of banner.

They are all at Cals house.

 

[JwUKFan11]

Looked at the top 6 in your link and didn’t see any mention of transfers counting toward the recruiting class rank.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Looked at the top 6 in your link and didn’t see any mention of transfers counting toward the recruiting class rank.

They mention it at the bottom for Uconn, specifcally to the fact that they have two transfers coming in, which likely caused the decommit (They never mentioned this with Lewis though..)

Now, I guess we can't be sure what their actual formula is here, maybe those two transfers aren't included.. but we know that for at least some of these, they are mentioning the team's transfers.. and why do that if they aren't included?

And even if they aren't.. that still leaves the part about this ranking still not adding up. Kentucky drops 4 spots because we swapped a 30th ranked guy for the 80th ranked guy and a top euro recruit? Jelavic played a game this year against a team that had Rasheed Sulaimon, Yogi Ferrel, Fletcher Mcgee, and Juwan Morgan.. Some of those guys were college basketball all-team type players in their league.. which to me says that Jelavic was playing substantially better competition than what they are playing here in AAU.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

They probably dropped us a spot because Jelavic was rocking the backwoods Cleetus haircut this summer.

 

[bthaunert]

ESPN in their latest rankings dropped Kentucky 4 spots.. but they cant seem to decide on if transfers are included or aren't.

Uconn who moved up 1 spot ahead of us, did so because of transfers Demary and Smith (their own admission). Which is confusing because this is RECRUITING rankings. But no matter. I bet they will include our transfers in just a minute..

Nope. No mention of Jayden Quintance.. or Lowe.. or Kam. They do a write up of how we lost Lewis and that hurt us, even though they mention Jelavic and Hawthorne, who likely make that loss a wash.

Not the biggest deal, but its funny how time and time again, ESPN seems to wiggle and squirm they way into finding a reason to under value us. (Take a look at which player just missed the cut off of being labeled a 5-star, by the way).

Final 2025 men's recruiting class rankings: 4 new teams, plus risers and fallers

Nate Ament's commitment catapulted Tennessee into our final top 25, along with three other programs.

www.espn.com

Its also worth noting that if you look at kentucky vs uconn recruiting straight up for 2025.. they're 2 top recruits just narrowly are ranked ahead of ours.. but we also have a top100 4-star as well. So based on recruiting alone, uconn should still be behind us (unless im missing someone). Im taking three 4-stars and a top European prospect, over their 4-man class.. just because it has one 5-star.

I don’t see anywhere in the rankings that transfers are included. Everytime a transfer is mentioned, it looks like it’s in the context of high school players decommitting due to transfer portal signings, but they don’t count transfers, hence why all transfers aren’t listed.

247 has UConn 4th (up 2 from the last rankings) and UK 11th (down 1 from the last rankings). On3 has UConn 14th and UK 7th. ESPN has UConn 5th and UK 6th.

So, basically it’s a total crapshoot when looking at rankings.

More importantly, we are ranked 4th by 247 when you combine hs and transfers together.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

I don’t see anywhere in the rankings that transfers are included. Everytime a transfer is mentioned, it looks like it’s in the context of high school players decommitting due to transfer portal signings, but they don’t count transfers, hence why all transfers aren’t listed.

247 has UConn 4th (up 2 from the last rankings) and UK 11th (down 1 from the last rankings). On3 has UConn 14th and UK 7th. ESPN has UConn 5th and UK 6th.

So, basically it’s a total crapshoot when looking at rankings.

More importantly, we are ranked 4th by 247 when you combine hs and transfers together.

But even if that's the case, it seems odd that ESPN would drop us specifically because of losing Acaden Lewis, but not drop Uconn because of losing Darius Adams. They're even practically rated the same with one being 30th and the other being 32nd.

 

[bthaunert]

But even if that's the case, it seems odd that ESPN would drop us specifically because of losing Acaden Lewis, but not drop Uconn because of losing Darius Adams. They're even practically rated the same with one being 30th and the other being 32nd.

It’s probably more about who replaced Lewis and that we have 3 recruits that are in the ESPN rankings and they have 4. They do not rank European guys I do not believe. So, UK has 3 recruits (and the 3rd went from the 31st ranked player to the 82nd ranked player) and UConn has 4. In these rankings, sometimes quantity can beat out quality.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

It’s probably more about who replaced Lewis and that we have 3 recruits that are in the ESPN rankings and they have 4. They do not rank European guys I do not believe. So, UK has 3 recruits (and the 3rd went from the 31st ranked player to the 82nd ranked player) and UConn has 4. In these rankings, sometimes quantity can beat out quality.

I guess thats probably it then.

Jelavic might not be ranked but he still counts in our class on their site. Maybe the "non ranked" drops our composite score, BUT our 3rd recruit is 80th. Uconns others two recruits aren't in the top100 (but we dont know what their overall rank is).

 

[TomTraubertsBlues]

Let Duke keep getting the #1 class. They ain't winning with them.

 

[TomTraubertsBlues]

I looked at 247's class rankings going back as far they have them (2003). There has been ONE team to be #1 or #2 and win that season's championship. 3 guesses who that was, and the first 2 don't count. Class rankings mean squadouche.

 

[Tubbyfan78]

I think OP need some reading comprehension classes. This clearly only counts incoming freshman. It mentions UConn had a guy decommit because of transfers but in no way says those transfers count. I think these freshman rankings are pretty accurate.

 

[wildcat111]

ESPN in their latest rankings dropped Kentucky 4 spots.. but they cant seem to decide on if transfers are included or aren't.

Uconn who moved up 1 spot ahead of us, did so because of transfers Demary and Smith (their own admission). Which is confusing because this is RECRUITING rankings. But no matter. I bet they will include our transfers in just a minute..

Nope. No mention of Jayden Quintance.. or Lowe.. or Kam. They do a write up of how we lost Lewis and that hurt us, even though they mention Jelavic and Hawthorne, who likely make that loss a wash.

Not the biggest deal, but its funny how time and time again, ESPN seems to wiggle and squirm they way into finding a reason to under value us. (Take a look at which player just missed the cut off of being labeled a 5-star, by the way).

Final 2025 men's recruiting class rankings: 4 new teams, plus risers and fallers

Nate Ament's commitment catapulted Tennessee into our final top 25, along with three other programs.

www.espn.com

Its also worth noting that if you look at kentucky vs uconn recruiting straight up for 2025.. they're 2 top recruits just narrowly are ranked ahead of ours.. but we also have a top100 4-star as well. So based on recruiting alone, uconn should still be behind us (unless im missing someone). Im taking three 4-stars and a top European prospect, over their 4-man class.. just because it has one 5-star.

Forger the Recruiting /Ranking BS and focus on something important....OH I don't maybe PERFORMANCE. Recruiting/Ranking alone has never won a championship.