Recruiting effects

Besides the Malek Pope analysis, this really jumped out from Mark Ziegler's article on San Diego State recruiting. It begins:

San Diego State went 34-3 in men’s basketball in 2010-11, reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament and spent much of the season ranked in the top 10, and logic suggested top 10 recruiting classes wouldn’t be far behind.

Doesn’t work like that.

The top high school prospects from the class of 2011 had signed letters of intent the previous November, and recruits for 2012 were getting ready to make oral commitments. And the heavy lifting for the class of 2013 was already underway.

But members of the class of 2014 were high school freshmen back then, young and impressionable and beginning to formulate opinions about the ever-shifting landscape of college basketball, seeing Kawhi Leonard and Malcolm Thomas and D.J. Gay and San Diego State knock off one big-time program after another.

On Wednesday, the ripple hit the shore.

Let's see if Wichita State can parlay making the Final Four into a recruiting stepup but, as the article details, that probably won't happen with the Shocker class being signed right now.