SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Jr. Shooting Guards: Hoop Scoop Ranks
Top California Players--(Oct. 5, 1999)

Note: This is the second class in the series of rankings from the Hoop Scoop's complete California player rankings.  The "shooting guards" do exactly what you'd expect, they shoot the ball.   Sometimes referred to as "off-guards" or even combo "wing" players, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a shooting guard and what are sometimes referred to as "wings" and largely it will depend on what type of offense a team plays where a player finds himself.

Still, please understand that the designations of whether a player is really a shooting guard or not, for the list below, was not made by us, but by those who compiled the Hoop Scoop's lists. We'll say it again:  Each spring and fall we publish our own SoCalHoops lists of the "Best of the Best. . . ", in which we identify those players (grouped by position and graduating class), whom we believe are among the best college prospects coming out of SoCal; we also include other players, i.e., the "Next Best. . . " and the "Rest of the Best. . . " and so on.  The rankings which follow are not our rankings, but those of the Hoop Scoop, compiled by Clark Francis with assistance from Dinos Trigonis and Joel Francisco.

Our own lists differ from the one below in that we intetionally avoid using numerical rankings, because by and large, we cling (foolishly perhaps) to the belief that it's awfully difficult to distinguish between, for example, the "No. 2 player" and the "No. 10 player", and it might even be hard to tell No. 1 from No. 32;  other than an ego thing, we also believe that most college coaches probably don't care whether the guy they're recruiting is "ranked" No. 1 or No. 50 either.  In doing our own lists, we've found it more useful to simply note that there are groups of players who really stand out above the rest and who in our view are clearly D-I-capable players. 

Still, lots of people prefer the numerical rankings, including Bob Gibbons, Mike Sullivan, and Clark Francis nationally, Greg Swaim in the Midwest, PacWest Hoops here on the West Coast, and others.  Are we out of touch because we don't do the same?  Maybe. It's at least safe to say that by not listing players by numerical ranking, we're definitely in the minority among those who follow college recruiting.  

Which brings us to the point of this article:   We were intrigued the other day when Dinos Trigonis called us to alert us to the new lists which the HoopScoop was going to be publishing for California players. We found the lists when we visited the HoopScoop's subscription area (if you're not a subscriber, you'll have to pay to become a member, but the price is cheap and well worth it).  Clark Francis has told us we can use his data "any way you want," so we've taken him up on that and reworked his listings just a bit, organizing players by position and by region within SoCal. 

As to how Francis does his lists, it's clear that Clark can't actually get out to see everyone, and for sure, there are some names on the lists ( a few on the the senior list) who shouldn't be there because they've graduated (Dony Legans, who is at Navy is one that comes to mind).  Clark also can't personally evaluate all the players, so he enlisted the help of Dinos and Joel Franciso.     In defense of Clark though (not that he needs defending), he did get to the West Coast regularly this year, and in addition to making the usual pilgrimage to Vegas for the adidas Big Time Tournament and the Nike Summer National Championships, he was probably the only East Coast guy to come out for the Long Beach Fall Hoops Classic, so he's seen more of the California players on different occasions than probably anyone except those of us who focus primarily on California.  

The California player rankings that you'll find at the HoopScoop's subscription site are a continuous, single list broken down only by class (they do take up at least seven pages though) and they list each player in order of the HoopScoop's preference;  we've reorganized all the players, listing them by position instead, so that we can see who HoopScoop likes at each position. 

With the shooting guards though, we have not used the separate "NorCal" and "SoCal" rankings, because the Hoop Scoop didn't list any NorCal players at this position, which is really astounding, but they didn't.  Really.  Oh, and as for what we mean "NorCal" please understand that we've done as the CIF does, by placing Fresno in the Southern half of the State of California, even though any third grade geography student will tell you that Fresno is a whole lot closer to Northern California than it is to San Diego. . . . So for our purposes in the lists which will follow, Fresno is in "SoCal".   Hey, if you don't like it, talk to the CIF about it.   

Again, if you want to see the full, unexpurgated and unrefined list (which includes players in all the classes and all positions), you'll have to get a subscription to the HoopScoop.  The price is small and you'll get a ton of information daily, much of it the kind you can't get anywhere else. Like it or not, Clark has been writing about basketball recruiting for more than 20 years and it's what he does for a living, so he must be doing something right.

We've already featured the HoopScoop's rankings for the senior point guards,  senior shooting guards, senior wing forwards, senior power forwards, and senior centers; now it's time to get to the Hoop Scoop's junior rankings.   The other junior positions, junior point guards,  junior wing forwards,   junior power forwards and junior centers will also be posted up and linked to shortly.

The players that follow are the "wing" type guys, many of them excellent shooters out to three point range, guys who are mobile and can slash in to the basket, effective rebounders, in short, good out to the perimeter and inside.  The only thing we've changed from Hoop Scoop's designation is the "WF" label; we've switched it to the more familiar "SG/SF" or SF/SG", or even SF/PF, (indeed at least a couple of these guys, in our opinion belong on the power forward lists anyway, like Amaury),  depending on where we believe the player is best suited and where he usually plays. 

Junior Shooting Guards--HoopScoop/Fullcourt Press Rankings--All California Players

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