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2005 vs. 2006: Finally Who Has The Better Class |
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Written by Andre Whitehead
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Thursday, 15 June 2006 |
The debate rages on.
The state of Tennessee has enjoyed unparalleled success in the past couple of seasons. The Class of 2005 surprised the basketball world having the depth to score 31 DI signees. That was a record for the state having barely half that many the previous two years combined.
The vaunted Class of 2006 was thought to maybe not have the depth of the 2005 bunch but was much stronger at the top with 2 McDonalds All-Americans and at one time 5 players in the Top 100 of most reputable recruiting services. As of now the Class of 2006 is at 24 signees and holding.
So was the Class of 2006 actually a better class than 2005. How do you determine such a statement? I took the final RPI rankings for the 334 DI schools for the past two seasons and gave point values to where the prospective signees inked their scholarship papers and the average was calculated. The Class of 2006 with 24 DI signees had an average score of 150.2. The Class of 2005 came in at 141.2.
Does that score the victory for 2005, not so fast. I think most basketball people would agree year in and year out the top six conferences in the country are the Pac-10, SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 8 and Big East. With this rational the Class of 2005 put six players in the power conferences: Tyler Smith (Iowa), J.P. Prince (Arizona), Reginald and Richard Delk (Mississippi State), Xavier Webb (Ole Miss) and Calvin Williams (Colorado), he still counts even though he is leaving. The Class of 2006 had eight players fall into this power realm: Branden Wright (North Carolina), Thaddeus Young (Georgia Tech), Wayne Chism (Tennessee), Jarvis Varnado and Barry Stewart (Mississippi State), Brandon Powell (Florida), Johnnie West (West Virginia) and Jeremy Williams (Colorado).
On the national level the 2006 bunch will always be considered the benchmark for Tennessee classes. How does 2007 shape up? With strong summers and even stronger high school campaigns this class could eventually come up with 20 to 25 DI signees themselves. We will see. |
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