Mid-major Basketball: 5 biggest takeaways from 2019 recruiting classes

4. Lack of noise overall for mid-majors

As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, there weren’t any five-star prospects who opted to play for a mid-major program. No Bassey, no Brown, no Mitchell Robinson (who didn’t even play in college after committing to Western Kentucky) or even Brandon McCoy decided to make a surprising decision.

Timme from Gonzaga was the top mid-major recruit this time around at No. 41, with just eight overall in the top-100 (four committed to the powerhouse Bulldogs). There are several factors that could go along with these results, including the rising prevalence of transfers. Why try an uphill climb to land a top-100 prospect from high school when you can just wait a year or two later when they decide to transfer?

Another thing to consider is the lack of results from those former mid-major five-stars. McCoy went undrafted during his time with UNLV and Brown transferred this past offseason after limited playing time at Nevada combined with a coaching change. Bassey is returning for his sophomore season with the Hilltoppers but is he in any better position to get drafted in the 1st round of the 2020 NBA Draft?

You can’t blame the current crop of top-tier prospects for choosing the traditional powers to put themselves in a good position individually but outside of Gonzaga, there aren’t top-100 names to automatically watch out for. However, there always will be mid-major freshmen who come out of nowhere on the national scene. We’ll have to find the stars from the star schools ourselves this time around.