About six weeks before National Signing Day, the most touted college basketball recruits in the class of 2015 are flying off the board at a startling rate. Exactly two-thirds of Scout’s top 100 prospects have already given a verbal commitment, with Matt McQuaid (Michigan State), Jalen Coleman-Lands (Illinois) and Bryant Crawford (Wake Forest) becoming the latest recruits to give verbals this week.
Why top college basketball recruits sign late
The higher the ranking, the more power a player has.
Roberto Serra/Iguana Press
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
While the board is beginning to take shape even earlier than it typically does, there’s one thing you’ll notice perusing any composite recruiting list: most of the players at the very top of the rankings are still undecided. It doesn’t seem like that’s going to change anytime soon.
Nevada center Stephen Zimmerman, ranked No. 14 in our composite rankings, became the latest top prospect this week to hint that he’s likely to sign in the spring and bypass a letter of intent completely. Zimmerman has already scheduled all five of his official visits. He’ll see North Carolina on Oct. 3, Kansas on Oct. 10, Kentucky on Oct. 17, UCLA on Oct. 24 and Arizona on Nov. 7. He’s recently had in-home visits from all of those schools plus UNLV and Indiana.
So, why is he going to wait so long to commit?
It’s simple: recruits at the top of the board hold all the power. The difference of 20 spots in a recruiting ranking might seem ultimately negligible once players advance to the next level, but it gives them an incredible amount of leverage during the process.
Kentucky wasn’t going to wait for Charles Matthews (its lone 2015 commitment) to make up his mind. Matthews, ranked No. 56 by Rivals, knew that if he didn’t take John Calipari’s offer, it might not be there two, three or 10 months from now. Zimmerman and others, by virtue of being more highly touted, are able to flip that script completely.
Zimmerman is just one of a number of top-rated recruits choosing to wait until the spring to sign. Consensus No. 2 player Jaylen Brown is doing it, as is No. 5 Cheick Diallo, No. 10 Isaiah Briscoe, No. 12 Caleb Swanigan, No. 15 Carlton Bragg and No. 25 Thomas Bryant. Top-six prospects Malik Newman and Ivan Rabb could, too.
For players at the top of the board, there are just too many variables that can change by choosing to commit early. Take Zimmerman, for example. Why would he commit to Kentucky now without seeing what happens to the roster after this season? Kentucky has a loaded frontcourt with Dakari Johnson, Karl Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marcus Lee, Trey Lyles and Alex Poythress. A year from now, there’s no telling how many of those players will be back in school, will choose to go to the NBA or will choose to transfer.
Kentucky is the common thread among many of the players choosing to sign late. The Wildcats are after Brown, Briscoe, Diallo, Swanigan, Bragg and Newman hard. Particularly for frontcourt players, there’s no point in committing to John Calipari now before knowing if you’ll get playing time.
Kentucky isn’t the only team working under these guiding principles. Kansas is heavily in the mix for Brown, but he might want to wait and see if freshman wing Kelly Oubre and sophomore shooting guard Wayne Selden go pro. Bragg and Zimmerman are thinking about Arizona, but they would like to know if center Kaleb Tarczewski and power forward Brandon Ashley are coming back. Recruiting is all about how the dominoes fall, and by being a top-ranked player, you earn the right to wait and see what else falls in front of you.
This is another reason why you can’t put too much stock in recruiting rankings just yet. It’s nice that Illinois and Auburn fans can get excited about what’s currently being deemed top-10 recruiting classes, but there’s a long way to go before that’s official. Granted, Illinois and Auburn have each already pulled nice players in this class, and a slide down the rankings shouldn’t temper enthusiasm too much. Just remember: the No. 5 recruiting class on Sept. 25 isn’t the same as the No. 5 recruiting class on June 1.
For Zimmerman and others, the decision of where to play college basketball isn’t bound by any concrete deadline. Just as Andrew Wiggins once kept a nation captive past the McDonald’s All-American Game, this year’s group of top players are likely to do the same thing. National Signing Day might be approaching, but there’s still plenty of time remaining before we learn where the top players in the class of 2015 ultimately end up.
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