Ever since I discovered the site in 1999, RSCI has been my go-to recruit ranking site.  The idea is simplistically brilliant – take all of the college basketball recruit rankings, combine them together, assign each a point total, and get a fairly precise ranking of the top 100 high school seniors.  The mysterious Jeff C. (guy credited with running the site) is a personal hero.

Except he only updates two or three times per year.  And I get impatient.  So after seeing Scout update their rankings for the 2011 class yesterday, I decided to go all Pedro Cerrano and do it myself.  I simply used his system to find each player’s point total, and then compared that point total to the 2009 pre-summer RSCI rankings to see where these players might be ranked when the first list comes out.  I’m using Scout, Rivals, Prepstars, Hoopmasters, and ESPN, all services used by RSCI.

OK, the point totals for each of our 2011 verbal commitments:

Mychael Henry: #20 on Rivals, #62 Scout, #40 ESPN, #47 Prepstars, #49 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 287
Likely ranking: #39

Tracy Abrams: #46 on Rivals, #81 Scout, Unranked ESPN (headscratch), #37 Prepstars, #37 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 204
Likely ranking: #49

Nnanna Egwu: #75 on Rivals, #76 Scout, Unranked ESPN, #97 Prepstars, #83 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 74
Likely ranking: #95

Not half bad.  After only three RSCI recruits in the first five Weber recruiting classes (Shaun Pruitt, Brian Carlwell, Demetri McCamey), it looks like we’ll have three in the 2011 class (which follows three in the 2010 class and two in the 2009 class).  So things are definitely looking up.

How far up?  That partly depends on how the rest of the 2011 class shakes out, as we have 3 more available scholarships (My take:  we give out one more in 2011 and bank the other two for the 2012 class – if we give out all six this fall, we won’t have any scholarships available at all for 2012).  Let’s use the same formula and look at the rest of the 2011 class from Illinois:

Anthony Davis: #8 on Rivals, #5 Scout, #12 ESPN, #11 Prepstars, #7 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 462
Likely ranking: #7

Wayne Blackshear: #14 on Rivals, #11 Scout, #18 ESPN, #23 Prepstars, #10 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 429
Likely ranking: #11

Mike Shaw: #68 on Rivals, #64 Scout, #59 ESPN, #31 Prepstars, #43 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 240
Likely ranking: #45

Sam Thompson: #30 on Rivals, #36 Scout, #35 ESPN, #40 Prepstars, #35 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 329
Likely ranking: #28

Ryan Boatright: #64 on Rivals, #82 Scout, #55 ESPN, #53 Prepstars, #81 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 170
Likely ranking: #61

Chasson Randle: #63 on Rivals, #45 Scout, #38 ESPN, #72 Prepstars, #46 on Hoopmasters
RSCI Point total: 241
Likely ranking: #44

That, friends, is a loaded 2011 class in Illinois.  The 2010 RSCI had 3 players from Illinois (and we got all three).  The 2009 RSCI had three players from Illinois – DJ, BP3, and Chris Colvin (#97, went to Iowa State).  The 2011 class thus far has NINE top-100 players.  What is this, 1998?

So with a loaded class, how do we stack up?

Anthony Davis #7
Wayne Blackshear #11
Sam Thompson #28
Mychael Henry #39
Chasson Randle #44
Mike Shaw #45
Tracy Abrams #49
Ryan Boatright #61
Nnanna Egwu #95

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?  Bad?  There might be three McDonalds All Americans from Illinois in the 2011 class, and we might not get any of them.  Combine that with missing on Brad Beal, and the ’11 class has a what-could-have-been feel.

The good news?  Here’s the RSCI players on last year’s team:

DJ Richardson #35
Brandon Paul #49
Demetri McCamey #71

Here’s the RSCI players on the 2011/12 team:

Jereme Richmond #18
DJ Richardson #35
Meyers Leonard #36
Mychael Henry #39
Tracy Abrams #49
Brandon Paul #49
Crandall Head #59
Nnanna Egwu #95

And we might not be done.