I hate it when I have to do all this work. Our records show 28 high school players were drafted out of Georgia high schools last year. I think this is accurate, but it’s always possible I’ve somehow missed one or two.
Anyway the research shows 15 of 28 were ranked by number.
11 of the remaining 13 draft picks from Georgia high schools were ranked within the state of Georgia.
Only 2 of the 28 from Georgia were not ranked at all. 26 of the 28 were identified.
While not perfect, we would love to be better, but we would settle for that accuracy in every state. Surely no one thinks the rankings can be much more accurate!
Then there’s this to consider…
Players from Georgia who were ranked highly but went undrafted include Michael Demperio who is attending U of Texas, Brandon May who is attending U of Alabama, Ben Paulson who is mentioned above, Dean Weaver who is at U of Georgia, Mark Fleury who is at U of North Carolina, Matt Smith is at U of Mississippi, Andrew Robinson is at Georgia Tech, Mike Meschke is at U of Alabama, Justin Earls is at U of Georgia, David Cunningham is at Auburn, Matt Cerione is at U of Georgia, Joey Lewis is at U of Georgia, Jeff Lorick is at U of Virginia, Evan Parrish is at U of Georgia, Rich Poythress is at U of Georgia, Kevin Bishop is at U of Kentucky, James Wiley is at U of Mississippi, Brendan Hall Cal State Fullerton, Robbie O’Bryan is at U of Georgia, Andrew Manning is at Auburn, Jon Michael Redding, Jace Whitmer, Kyle Heckathorn, and several others. Many of those above would definitely have been drafted if they were signable in a later round. Several would have been picked on the first day of last year’s draft, some perhaps in the first few rounds!
We have no problem admitting we completely missed those 2 draft picks, but don’t we have to wait a few years to see just how accurate the rankings actually were?
By the way, if it is so easy and everybody knows who the kids are that will be drafted in the first 5 rounds, please help us out. We’ve been doing this for years and sure don’t think it’s very easy. Major League clubs couldn’t tell you who will go in the top 5 rounds other than their own picks. There are players drafted in the first 5 rounds that some clubs don’t have turned in at all.
By the way, we at PG only rank high school players. The draft blogs and other draft lists are simply educated opinions of the writers. While there is a lot of good info in the draft predictions and articles it is based on research and opinions of the writers.
The rankings we’ve done for years have nothing to do with predicting the draft. Our rankings are simply based on who we think are the best players, whether they are signable or not. We still ranked players like Dellin Betances, Jordan Walden and others very high even though we had information they weren’t going to be drafted real early. We still saw them as first round talents, just like Matt Weiters when he came out of high school. We had Scott Kazmir ranked number one, but he even had a high school teammate drafted before him. Others can decide if the ranking or the draft slot was right.
To answer the questions here…
Are PG rankings accurate? Fairly accurate, but far from perfect.
Are PG rankings important? Yes, very important for many who are ranked highly. We know this for a fact from experience and conversations we have with people in recruiting and scouting.
Are PG rankings important for every player? No it didn’t matter where Delmon Young or Justin Upton were ranked. However, both were ranked #1 before the draft.
Are PG rankings fair? We take lots of pride in our rankings. It’s our honest opinion. We can afford to be wrong… we can not afford to be wrong on purpose.
Do you have to attend certain PG events to be ranked? It is not mandatory to attend any particular event to be ranked. However once we think someone is one of the best players we will try to get that player to one of our events. The more we see a prospect the more likely we are to rank him accurately.
Does anyone complain about the rankings? Yes, more than you could ever imagine.
One final point… You do not build credibility by being inaccurate very often. You lose all credibility by being dishonest. It only takes one dishonest moment for college coaches to avoid you.
Both honesty and accuracy are very important to us and in that order.