02-08-2018, 09:30 PM
(02-08-2018, 05:14 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:The short versions is that while I acknowledge that it is harder to flip a recruit currently committed to another school, there are plenty of cases of recruits changing their commitment, especially those committed a full 18 months before enrollment. If we want a recruit, and they are willing to put in the work, nothing irreversible has happened, yet.
BC
Certainly true. However, I think notability bias is at play. The media loves a story, and having something and losing it suddenly to a rival is a pretty darn good story. So that probably causes fans to overestimate the prevalence of flips. Looking historically, Stanford typically gets some -- but not a lot -- of flips:
2018: 2 (Stratford, Bonner)
2017: 2 (Wedington, Adebo)
2016: 3 (Harrington, Eboh, Hamilton)
2015: 2 (Jackson, Edwards)
2014: 3 (Tucker, Gibbons, Burkett)
2013: 1 (Palma)
2012: 2 (Hoffpauir, Rector)
It's certainly difficult to argue that the flips haven't yielded good players, so I won't. But are they "top targets"? It depends on what you mean. If you think "top targets" are the absolute top of the board -- among the first players to be offered -- which is a strtict standard, then maybe only Hamilton and Tucker qualify.
If you think "top targets" is slightly more generic and refers to any really well-regarded recruit -- we'll say any four- or five-star consensus player -- then, of course, more players qualify. (About 40% by my estimate.)
It's not crazy to hope, as a fan, that the coaches can flip a commit who's a good recruit; it happens pretty frequently, though not reliably. It wouldn't be crazy to speculate that such flips would be more frequent in the current frenzied environment. It's just that you shouldn't count on it as a coach, and that the sounder, more predictable route is to land your targets early and keep them aboard.



