A Sea Of Red

Basketball Times, a publication covering collegiate basketball for over 25 years, ranked Liberty’s 2008 recruiting class at No. 48 in its most recent issue.

In his first recruiting class at Liberty, head men’s basketball coach Ritchie McKay and staff in November signed Seth Curry, Brolin Floyd, Sammy Jackson, Mike Lewis, Carter McMasters and Austin Smith to national letters of intent for the 2008-09 academic year.

Basketball Times ranked its Top 50, and Liberty joined No. 26 Xavier, No. 31 Rhode Island, No. 36 Fresno State, No. 36 New Mexico, No. 36 St. Louis, No. 41 Dayton, No. 50 Hofstra and No. 50 Gonzaga as the only schools that are not a part of a BCS conference.

“I never had a Top 50 recruiting class at Oregon State or New Mexico,” said McKay. “What Liberty University offers a student-athlete is really reflected in the caliber of the individual and the caliber of the player we were able to sign.”

http://www.libertyflames.com/index.cfm? ... 42&TeamID=

Impressive! Thanks for sharing that, Super.

I liked McKay's Quote.

Great! I'm not surprised, definitely a great class and can't wait to see them on campus and on the court!

BCS Conference? Why the football reference in a basketball article. Morons.

Fumblerooskies wrote:BCS Conference? Why the football reference in a basketball article. Morons.

BCS Conference is the new politically correct way to say "Major" conference

one thing i have always loved about coach is that he has always had great players come into his program. they are great basketball players and great men. congrats on the top 50 class. go flames.

Top-50 is really an accomplishment when you think of all the teams in Men's D1 basketball.

Congrats Coach!

Great things are going to happen to this program with the great class he has brought in. Curry and Mcmasters are big time recruits.

Class rankings often take the ratings of your players and add them. So the more players you get in a class, the higher ranked your class will be. And as you know, half of our team is coming in as frosh next year. I think we have a great class and am very anxious for next year, but this ranking doesn't excite me too much.

LUconn wrote:Class rankings often take the ratings of your players and add them. So the more players you get in a class, the higher ranked your class will be. And as you know, half of our team is coming in as frosh next year. I think we have a great class and am very anxious for next year, but this ranking doesn't excite me too much.

+1 on that breakdown.

I think that one of Hanky's classes was rated that high or maybe higher when the class was anounced but the top 3 recruits never came to LU for various reasons. He signed 7 that year. No guarantee that these guys will actually come or have the grades to get in.

Stevev wrote:I think that one of Hanky's classes was rated that high or maybe higher when the class was anounced but the top 3 recruits never came to LU for various reasons. He signed 7 that year. No guarantee that these guys will actually come or have the grades to get in.

It may have actually been 2 of Hanky's classes, he was famous for getting huge commitments who never spent one day enrolled at school.

Impressive. I love that this coach is saying that they type of school we are is bringing in the big guns. Others in the past have used our uniqueness as an excuse.

I think it is awesome that a school from a I-AA conference can make a top-50 splash.

If memory serves me best, Hanky's last class was ranked Top-40 by both Scout & Rivals ... 36th is sticking out in my head. But as has been noted, those rankings were not indicative of what we saw on campus.

36th sounds about right with Chip Richmond and Antonio Burks primarily responcible for the high ranking but they did not come to LU. Rankings are meaningless if they do not come.

Sly Fox wrote:If memory serves me best, Hanky's last class was ranked Top-40 by both Scout & Rivals ... 36th is sticking out in my head. But as has been noted, those rankings were not indicative of what we saw on campus.

That's because he only got 85% of his defense installed.

I think it was just 2 or 3 years ago, we had a similar article that our class was in the top something or other, but when we looked at the criteria, they were basically just adding up stars. So our class of 6 people had a total of 8 stars was equal to Big Name U's class who signed 2 4 star recruits. These class rankings are always pretty baseless.

Luconn=pessimist

me---> <---you




I'm not trying to downplay our incoming class. Just the ranking meathods.

LUconn wrote:I think it was just 2 or 3 years ago, we had a similar article that our class was in the top something or other, but when we looked at the criteria, they were basically just adding up stars. So our class of 6 people had a total of 8 stars was equal to Big Name U's class who signed 2 4 star recruits. These class rankings are always pretty baseless.

Yeah, HPU was in the top 50 a few years ago when they had a ton of incoming freshmen. They do the multiplication thing. It's good for press nonetheless though.

Fumblerooskies wrote:I think it is awesome that a school from a I-AA conference can make a top-50 splash.

cute

Cater and Austin are both ranked about 80ish by ESPN, and the Curry kid could be a huge splash depending on who you ask.

I think this will be a huge recruiting class, if everyone lives up to their expectations.

I came back to say this, cuz I really think it is more than just hype or just sheer numbers.

If all these guys end up on campus, no reason we should doubt that, can we say this is our best recruiting class ever?