NCAA Basketball Recruiting: Ranking the last 10 No. 1 overall prospects
By Joey Loose
Each NCAA Basketball season brings a new group of highly-ranked recruits, though only one player can be the No. 1 prospect. Who were the best top-ranked recruits of the last decade?
The hard work for NCAA Basketball head coaches is certainly not over as March comes to an end. In order to compete on the highest stage, these coaches have a lot of work on the recruiting trail. We have seen and heard many things about top prospects in recent years, especially seeing them on a regular basis at schools like Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky. Obviously, even low-ranked or unheralded prospects develop into stars, but let’s limit the focus to the very best of the best.
Each season’s recruiting rankings give us a picture for what to expect in the upcoming season, but it’s no guarantee of success for these incoming freshmen. As previously mentioned, an unheralded recruit could burst onto the scene while top ranked studs could have bad seasons or deal with injury.
We’re going to take a closer look at the #1 ranked prospect for each of the last ten recruiting classes. The focus will be on their collegiate careers, the statistics they put up, and how their team fared with their presence. There will not be a focus on their post-collegiate playing careers, though there may be brief notes about their NBA status.
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There are great expectations each season for the top-ranked prospect, even if that player is rarely the top college basketball player for the following season. Next year, Memphis freshman James Wiseman will likely burst onto the national scene, but there’s also the chance that he doesn’t develop into an instant star. Talented center Evan Mobley is projected to be 2020’s best player, but the same holds true for him. Examples of both have been present in the last decade.
What we’re about to share is a ranking of how these last ten #1 prospects fared during their collegiate careers, ranked from worst to best. Obviously, these are incredibly talented players who all played in the NBA; so these aren’t exactly bad players. However, they can’t all be program-altering players winning accolades left and right.