I’m coming up with a blank here. Britton Johnsen was a McDonalds All-American. Seems like Brekott Chapman may have been as well.
Vranes was pretty highly touted in the day.
Andre Miller? Because of prop 42, I believe he gets overlooked as a high value recruit.
1 Like
Chris Burgess was very highly rated, but he was a transfer.
That was my era. I’d always get front row of the student section and watch Britton and Burgess. One night they were playing Pepperdine and my buddy and I were heckling the Pepperdine center all game just relentlessly. During a free throw brake Burgess looked up and gave us a chest pound of appreciation for the heckling.
Breckott Chapman was a 5-star and top 100 recruit (maybe top 50?). We were all thrilled he joined us, and thought he was a sign of great things to come. Didn’t turn out that way.
Danny Vranes was on a lot of high school All American teams (including Parade where I believe he was in the first 10 listed)
1 Like
In the ‘modern’ era (since at least 2005), our highest rated recruits per 247 are
- Brekkott Chapman
- Jayce Johnson
- Lawrence Borha
- Ian Martinez
- Branden Carlson
- Rylan Jones
- Both Gach
- Timmy Allen
1 Like
I remember people saying Jayce Johnson would be better than Poeltl.
Was Vranes’ Skyline teams possibly the best high school teams ever from Utah?
Wow, 4 of the 8 turned out to be busts. There’s a lesson there about recruit rankings.
3 Likes
We definitely define “bust” differently.
And, yes, the lesson is that recruiting rankings are not guarantees. They do a good job on average, but you need to stockpile highly regarded recruits in order to be sure that some of them work out.
On second thought, Jayce was not really a bust, but he fell far short of expectations. Who else am I wrong about?
Gach?
You mean the guy who dribbled the ball off his foot and killed the Utes’ chances to win in his last play ever in his final game as a Utah player?
Yeah. How is he a bust?
It’s just a question of definition. I would say only Brekkot was a bust.
And to think guys like Van Horn, Doleac, and Delon Wright weren’t very highly regarded coming in to the program.
1 Like
If I replaced “was a bust” with “turned out to be disappointing” would you agree? I am not knocking those guys, just noting that fans develop high expectations based on recruiting rankings and are often disappointed.
I’d put Chapman and Gach on this list. Chapman disappointed relative to the hype, and Gach relative to his potential. I don’t know about Jayce. Disappointing relative to his recruiting ranking, yes. From the first time I saw him play, though, I knew exactly what he was capable of doing, and he did that well enough.
It’s just too early to tell with Martinez. But, man, people were hyping him to no end, and he didn’t even get time off the bench. So signs are pointing to disappointing. We’ll see. PVD and Rawson are good reminders that it can take time for some players.
Lawrence Borha was one of my favorite Utes, very underrated player.
1 Like