The local media has really beat a dead horse with the “why don’t local players stay home” story line, and it’s time for us to move us past it. Re-hashing it gets us nowhere, and the only way it changes is if the Illini morph into a program on the level of Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Michigan State, UCLA, North Carolina etc. The Illini are not a blue blood program, so for them to miss out on McDonald’s All-Americans is not something extraordinary. The blue bloods recruit nationally so they take the top 1% of talent from everyone’s base.
Just like Hollywood takes the top 1% most attractive women from everyone’s base to work in show business.
It’s just the way the world works, and to think Chicago is exceptional is to be very short-sighted and provincial.
Northwestern Coach Chris Collins was asked about this in the preseason (because again the local media is fixated on this, and can’t seem to move beyond it)
“The talent in this city is as good as it gets in the country, so not only do you have the five local schools, but you have the best of the best coming in here and trying to recruit, so it’s incredibly difficult to recruit our state and our area, but I think all of us in this room, all the coaches in this city have made it a priority to build from within and get some local talent to stay home,” said Collins.
Here are some facts and figures to consider, some truths to put this cliche to bed for good (hopefully).
-The top 10 rated guys leave, but plenty of top 50 and top 100 guys are staying in Illinois to play. Look no further than this link, which articulates all the local talent on the Illini. The Simeon pipeline has re-opened.
-The guys at the top of the McDonald’s All-American classes are usually “one-and-done” to the NBA and that strategy doesn’t win championships Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid didn’t survive the 1st weekend of the Tourney last year. (Although to be fair Embiid wasn’t even rated that astronomically high as a recruit to begin with) The 2012 Kentucky Wildcats are regarded as the only 1-and-done team to win a national title but even that has a very mythological component to it.
#1 overall pick Anthony Davis (from Charter Perspectives high school here in Chicago) was 5th on that teams in field goals attempted. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (another one and done) went 2nd overall and he was 4th on that team in shots taken. In other words, Coach Cal won that title with some one-and-done talent on his roster. However, they were not the focal point and core of the team. Even though how it’s perceived.
-This year marks the tenth anniversary of the 2004-05 Illinois Fighting Illini; the most successful local team in modern history. Yes, four of their five starters were from Illinois but they only had one McDonald’s All-American (Dee Brown). They accomplished 37 wins with team over talent. Their best player (Deron Williams) was from Texas. The point is you don’t have to be hyper-local to succeed.
There’s a great big world out there and you can get players from anywhere.
Communications technology has changed. Sports broadcasting has changed. Although some of these kids might have still grown up as fans of the local team, it’s a very easy for a superior program to have national reach and national influence.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2