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clark francis player ratings


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just read on clark francis' "hoop scoop" website his player ratings for the now senior and junior classes.

i thought the rankings were very interesting as he has moved the likes of price and grimes up from where they were last year. he also shows very little respect for the likes of shaw and liddell (doesnt even spell tommie's name correctly) when you think about the fact that shaw and liddell have outplayed price and grimes time and time again. it makes you wonder what really drives these player ratings? does he rate them by who recruits them?

as to the junior class, i have to believe his low rating of kevin lisch is based soley on the fact kevin does not play aau basketball. there is no other explanation as i have not seen anyone outplay kevin except daniel ruffin last year in the championship of the collinsville tourney. of course kevin was playing the second hard game of the day, the althoff center got sick, and ruffin's peoria central team's early game was a laugher that daniel hardly had to put out an effort in. that said, ruffin is a rocket. i was actually surprised he wasnt recruited higher than he was.

anyway, thought it was interesting and makes for good discussion. here are the players that have been discussed at some time on this board over the last year in some manner.

seniors rank

justin cerasoli 17

kalen grimes 39

steve hill 61

xavier price 67

shaun pruitt 133

draleon burns 186

justin dentman 191

tommie liddell 198

dwayne polk 204

matt shaw 214

vince humphrey 293

curtis muse 313

monroe douglas 333

carlton reed 353

mick yelovich 430

juniors

tyler hansborough 10

brandon rush 12

wes matthews 31

jeremy pargo 39

kevin lisch 203

dody dunson 237

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yeah, the lisch ranking is just astounding. let's say he is right. kevin is the 203rd best junior in the country. isnt it amazing that he has outplayed ranked seniors price, dentman, and liddell every time they have met? i too love the fact he is under the radar somewhat, but that said, there are plenty of "enemies" that know of him already. soon the negative recruiting starts.

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>yeah, the lisch ranking is just astounding. let's say he is

>right. kevin is the 203rd best junior in the country. isnt

>it amazing that he has outplayed ranked seniors price,

>dentman, and liddell every time they have met? i too love

>the fact he is under the radar somewhat, but that said,

>there are plenty of "enemies" that know of him already.

>soon the negative recruiting starts.

I would agree Lisch should be ranked higher, but how often have

Liddell and Lisch have met.

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i dont think they met this summer at the family sportsplex. once tommie wasnt there and the other time kevin didnt play due to slight injury he had suffered the week before at a kansas camp.

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>"does he rate them by who recruits them?"

>

>That appears to be the case. He certainly had Ivan Renko, a

>player from Bob Knight's imagination, ranked very highly.

>

>It may selfish thinking but I hope that Kevin Lisch

>continues to be underrecruited and underranked. We know how

>good he is.

What you find when you investigate these purportedly unbiased recruiting website is that often times like big corporations they exchange and sometimes steal info from each other. The Illinois sites such as chicagohoops, cuttingedgehoops, highschoolelite.com, and ibca.org don't get an opportunity to see much of our fine talent in Southern Illinois. That's why you'll see a talent like a Kevin Lisch or a JB Jones undervalued despite leading a team of unknowns deep into the state playoffs. I also believe that our kids don't get notice by these analyst if either they don't face Chicago teams in season or compete on the AAU circuit. Tommie Liddell qualifies in both categories having averaged over 18ppg against Chicago Teams as well as competing on the AAU circuit. I think someone mentioned that Lisch doesn't play AAU, I don't think AAU ball would make Lisch any better

having heard so many positives about him, but I think his stock would

benefit from the exposure. In Illinois if your not from Northern Illinois it's almost as though you don't matter.

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they did not meet this summer, but they for sure played each other at least once each of the summer of 2002 and 2001 in the high school matches at the shootout. i say i think because i dont know if they played before that or not.

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jalensdad, what amazes me as much as lisch being underated is tommie and dentman being as low as they are. if you look at price being rated top 70, and then think about the fact he has never outplayed tommie, lisch, or dentman, what is the deal with that? either price is way overated, or liddell, dentman and lisch are tremendously underated. probably some of both.

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I hope no one takes this as a slight to Xavier Price because I do like

his game, but everytime a site mentions Price the analysis is always

foreworded with Price having won the IHSA slam dunk contest as a freshman. It's as though he hasn't done a thing since his freshman year.

So when I see this info I know the analysis is most likely inaccurate.

I don't think he should be elevated over Liddell or Lisch until he proves he can elevate the play of his teammates as JB Jones, Liddell,

or Lisch. Imagine the types of teams East St Louis, Belleville West, or

Althoff would put out if not for the play of their stars. If you move Price from O'fallon I sincerly doubt they would be much worser. Again please don't take this a slight to Price, I am a fan and I know we will see a tremendous improvement in his play this year. But if you look at

the size of that O'fallon team I couldn't understand why they didn't pound the ball inside. o'fallon was often caught waiting for Price to

do something. They won't have him this year so I expect them not to be

great, but I think they will surprise some teams this year.

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kellerman will get his secret wish, to let his son be the focus. that said, his son really did improve last year and by year end imo was o'fallon's legit other option.

i really only saw x take over once. i admit i have not seen everyone of his games, but i have probably seen at least 20 in three years. he has bigtime athleticism there is no doubt about that, but to be honest, i havent seen much improvement in his game in 3 years. i would not be surprised if jb jones or even arthur sargent outplayed him this season at west. i love sargent's potential.

jalensdad, sargent's father was a star at east st louis correct? football and basketball if i remember correctly, but i dont remember time frames or teamates. any help on that?

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I would have to look into that because frankly I don't recall

young Sargent from last year. What number did he wear. If his

father attended East Side I would have very little knowledge of

his exploits because I'm descended from the Lincoln Tiger family

tree. The team I remember from West is JB Jones, Darren Wilson,

Mcpeak, Dumaka Turner, and Joe Gross. For the life of me I can't

recall Sargent due to not having seen many JV games.

If you have seen Xavier play over 20 times I would have to say

your an expert. That's more than most people. What's the deal

with Kellerman? You are one of many who have expressed doubts

about his coaching abilities. I don't know much about him.

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while i am sure kellerman is a good coach, i question any coach that isnt able to utilize the skills of xaiver price to win games. especially considering the large enrollment o'fallon has to pick from. i actually coached against kevin in a grade school select league about 5 years ago, and granted he beat my team both time we played, considering the superior talent his team had, they did not dominate us like i thought they would. i cant put my finger on it as his kids played hard, but it seemed like possibly he goes out of his way to not use his "star" ability to close the door. opting instead to use leads as opportunities to look at a different player in a different role or give p.t. to a lesser player. now in a grade school select league, i actually kind of admire that. but at the high school level, maybe that promotes a less than "killer instinct"?

arthur supposedly didnt play much varsity last year because the rumor was he didnt always do things bill schmidt's way. however if you watched the jv west games you would have been saying, "what the hell is this kid doing on the jv?" i truly believe he is the most gifted player on the west team. i am not saying he is the best basketball player, but he is fun to watch. there is no way that they can hold him back another year. he will be a junior this year though, so who knows how schmidt will use him. my guess is that since billy has announced this is probably his last season as head coach, he will not pass up the chance to utilize his extreme talents this year.

since you know some of the east st louis folks though, please do ask around about his dad. like i said, my memory says arthur's dad was quite the athlete as a flyer.

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