The first of three recruiting periods in July tipped off on Wednesday, and college basketball coaches all over the country made their way to the metro Atlanta area for the various events. Rivals.com opened the first recruiting period by taking in the opening night of the Elite 32 presented by On The Radar Hoops. Caver comes out on top in battle with Hudson Stackhouse Elite point guard Ahmad Caver and Southern Stampede point guard Ty Hudson squared off in what turned out be easily the most exciting individual matchup of the night. In a tightly contested game from start to finish, Caver's team came out on top as he played a terrific game, but Hudson showed out as well finishing with a game-high 29 points. Caver, originally a member of [...]

 After spending Thursday near the beach, Rivals.com moved down to Orange County for the Double Pump Best of the Summer at the American Sports Centers, just a stone's throw from the land of Mickey Mouse. Rising Canadian junior point guard Jermaine Haley intrigued while 2015 wing Matisse Thybulle continued his move onto the high-major radar and hulking big man Ted Kapita showed that his play from last weekend's LeBron James Skills Academy was no fluke. We aren't going to go calling him Michael Carter-Williams just yet. But, 6-foot-6 point guard Jermaine Haley from the class of 2016 is one intriguing prospect. Playing with Drive Elite at Best of the Summer, Haley was able to give college coaches and evaluators a pretty good window into who he is and can be as a [...]

The talent-laden Peach Jam event showcased more outstanding performances on Saturday. Isaiah Briscoe, Quinndary Weatherspoon and Alterique Gilbert all improved their stock in front of some of the nation's top coaches. The quarterfinal matchup between the Playaz and the Texas Titans featured several highly rated recruits, and the game did not disappoint. In a game that came down to the last minute of the game, the Playaz pulled out 66-59 win and advanced to the semifinals in large part due to the play of five-star guard Isaiah Briscoe. Although not one of his better shooting games from the perimeter, his physicality allowed to score around the rim just about whenever he wants. His size, strength, versatility and ability to raise the level of play of his teammates is very similar to [...]

Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) featured most of the biggest stars in high school hoops this summer, and the 2014 Nike Peach Jam capped the season in correspondingly high style. The New Jersey-based Playaz Basketball Club took home the title, but it was far from the only squad to feature highly anticipated Class of 2015 (and 2016) talent for college coaches to covet. One member of the former group who put on an especially impressive show was Isaiah Briscoe. The hero for the victorious Playaz just missed a triple-double in the title-game win over Team Penny, capping a weekend in which he showed just how much he's earned his considerable hype. Herein, a look at Briscoe’s brilliant tourney, along with the impressions left—for good and bad—by the rest of [...]

Let's say you're a first-year college football head coach. You're gonna need some players. Let's also say you aren't picky about the schemes your offensive and defensive coordinators run and are willing to run whatever fits the best players available to you. We could use data alone to figure this out by region, showing which kinds of players tend to rank highly in each state. But your school's recruiting turf isn't confined to your state's borders. Each team has to think about its region as a whole. So let's use this interactive recruiting map of every FBS signee since 2002 (the beginning of the recruiting rankings era), made by Corn Nation's Paul Dalen: Read more.

As recruiting rankings continue to grow more accurate, they're now to a point at which they can help tell us which teams are ready to compete for titles. Every BCS champion since recruiting rankings could be accurately tracked (2005, or four classes after Scout joined Rivals in rating players) has met a benchmark: it's recruited more blue-chips (four- and five-star players) than lesser-rated players over its four previous signing classes. Championships demand elite recruiting  And since those blue-chips are rare -- roughly 300 of them per year, with more than 10,000 scholarships to fill nationwide at the FBS level -- the teams that get blue-chips crush those who sign a lower-rated level of recruits. Coaching stability, attrition management, player development, scouting, support and a host of other factors have a lot [...]