Interesting Insight into Recruit Behavior

[Xavgrad08]

Here is an article from Sports Illustrated about top 100 recruit behavior. According to the article, almost 40% of top 100 prospects since 2007 have attended multiple high schools. Those 40% are twice as likely to de-commit from their verbal.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/luke_winn/08/01/commitment.trends/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a2

[MADXSTER]

Excellent article.

I liked this...


Matt Gatens of Iowa City, Iowa, the No. 89th-ranked recruit in the Class of 2008, committed to the Hawkeyes in June 2005, after his freshman year of high school. The coach he committed to, Steve Alford, left for New Mexico in March 2007, but Gatens stuck with Iowa through its hiring of Butler's Todd Lickliter, and enrolled at the school. After three straight sub-.500 and multiple waves of player departures, Lickliter was fired from Iowa in 2010. That was after Gatens' sophomore year, and he declined to transfer, remaining with the Hawkeyes after they hired Siena's Fran McCaffery.

Now a senior who's Iowa's top returning scorer, Gatens spent his entire childhood in Iowa City, with two parents who were athletes at Iowa. He spent four years at the same high school in Iowa City, and never felt upset enough to leave in college. "I'd be lying if I said it was always easy, but the main thing I realized was I wasn't committed to a coach or a system, I was committed to a program," he said. "There's been something rewarding about this. From guys I've kept in touch with, the grass isn't always greener; for me it was best to be loyal, and be part of building things back."

Gatens was the lone recruit in the entire database to commit to a school under one coach, hold that commitment despite a coaching change, and not transfer upon the occasion of another coaching change. In an age where nomads run the floor and mercenaries stalk the sidelines, it should not come as a surprise that the ultimate outlier is someone who simply refused to leave home.