The 2021 Prep Hoops Top 250 – A Prospect Preview
The 2021 National Rankings will be released by Prep Hoops next week introducing America to the first top 250 for the current sophomore class.
Our network of analysts from California to Washington DC, and Wisconsin to Texas will come together merging our state rankings into a comprehensive national list. The Prep Hoops rankings are unique in the way they are done as we incorporate the opinions of our hundreds of analysts into the initial top 250.
So what can you expect? To give you a quick preview today we will tackle this initial list from several vantage points.
Jaden Hardy
The 247 Composite
A few years back 247 Sports recognized that the nation has several different recruiting analysts creating rankings. In addition to their own rankings they put together something called the 247 Composite combining several different opinions into one. Here is the current 2021 Composite Top Ten.
- Patrick Baldwin Jr of Wisconsin (1)
- Terrence Clarke of Boston (2)
- Jonathan Kuminga of New York (3)
- Michael Foster of Milwaukee (4)
- Jaden Hardy of Nevada (5)
- Paolo Banchero of Seattle (6)
- Moussa Diabate of Florida (7)
- Moussa Cisse of New York (8)
- Aminu Mohammed of Washington DC (9)
- AJ Griffin Jr of New York (10)
We at Prep Hoops want to make it clear, that is not the top ten that we feel has earned their way to the top of the rankings at this point. That’s just one way of looking at (and several of those rankings that made up the composite are outdated). Another way to look at rankings is through the eyes of college coaches….
Chet Holmgren
The Top Offer Lists
In putting together this national ranking we devised a formula as another way to look at national top 250. This formula combines the analysts from high major basketball programs (the college coaches offering scholarships) and the amount of schools that have offered the players. We took that group and then weighed those offers from the many different levels of college programs. That score then gave us the following top ten, the current top offer lists in the 2021 class.
- Jaden Hardy of Nevada (1)
- Jonathan Kuminga of New York (2)
- Chet Holmgren of Minnesota (3)
- Patrick Baldwin Jr of Wisconsin (4)
- KJ Adams of Texas (5)
- Kennedy Chandler of Tennessee (6)
- Michael Foster of Milwaukee (7)
- Terrence Clarke of Boston (8)
- Harrison Ingram of Texas (9)
- JT Thor of Huntington Prep (10)
Obviously different factors go into offers as scholarships aren’t the determining factors in rankings, but they do help. Location, available exposure for a player, position of play, need, and interest from the prospect all play a factor in what an offer list can look like especially for a player moving from their sophomore to their junior year.
There are of course many highly ranked players that don’t have bursting offer lists but belong as highly ranked talents nonetheless. Here is a group of ten who will have a ranking that out-performs the reported offers:
- Paolo Banchero of Washington
- Moussa Cise of New York
- Aminu Mohammed of Missouri
- Nathan Bittle of Oregon
- Devin Askew of California
- Khristian Lander of Indiana
- Kendall Brown of Minnesota
- Zion Harmon of Kentucky
- Quincy Allen of Washington DC
There is another list of guys that are highly thought of that don’t even have an offer listed or reported anywhere. Guys like Johnathan Lawson of Tennessee, William Jeffress of Pennsylvania, Arthur Kaluma of Texas, and Josh Primmo of Huntington Prep in West Virginia.
The Ultimate Analysts
Khristian LanderWho are the ultimate analysts? At the moment we can look at this from three different ways: The Blue Bloods, The Nation’s Elite, and the people that are already looking at 2022 NBA Mock Drafts. Let’s start with the Blue Bloods. Who have the coaches of Duke, UNC, UK, and KU offered?
Patrick Baldwin Jr (2 offers)
Terrence Clarke (2)
Khristian Lander (1)
Frankie Collins (1)
Jaden Hardy (1)
JT Thor (1)
Michael Foster (1)
Chet Holmgren (1)
Jonathan Kuminga (1)
When we add in six more programs to give the current status of “current top ten programs” these are the prospects who have offers from that pool:
Patrick Baldwin Jr (3 offers)
Jaden Hardy (3)
Terrence Clarke (2)
Chet Holmgren (2)
Michael Foster (2)
Nathan Bittle (2)
Khristian Lander (1)
Frankie Collins (1)
JT Thor (1)
Jonathan Kuminga (1)
Camren Hayes (1)
Carter Whitt (1)
Trevor Keels (1)
Devin Askew (1)
Daron Holmes (1)
Trey Patterson (1)
Harrison Ingram (1)
And finally the current NBA Mock Drafts – yes there are some of them out there already – here is their collective top five
- Terrance Clarke (1)
- Jonathan Kuminga (2)
- Patrick Baldwin Jr (3)
- Jaden Hardy (4)
- Michael Foster (5)
So that’s a quick 2021 preview, look for the Prep Hoops rankings when they are announced some time next week.