2022 McDonalds All-American Basketball Game rosters announced - 7 SEC Signees included

247 Individual Rankings - SEC McDonalds AA Game
#5 - Nick Smith (Arkansas) (#1 CG)
#6 - Cason Wallace (Kentucky) (#2 CG)
#9 - Chris Livingston (Kentucky) (#2 SF)
#12 - Brandon Miller (Alabama) (#3 SF)
#18 - Julian Phillips (LSU) (#3 PF)
#20 - Jordan Walsh (Arkansas) (#6 SF)
#21 - Jaden Bradley (Alabama) (#3 PG)


Top 50 Players Not Invited
#26 - Skyy Clark (Kentucky) (#5 PG)
#33 - Malik Reneau (Florida) (#5 PF)
#36 - Rylan Griffen (Alabama) (#2 SG)
#38 - Chance Westry (Auburn) (#10 SF)
#50 - Aidan Shaw (Missouri) (#14 SF)

Arkansas could add Black as well

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Cal has lost his touch.

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The transfer portal makes CBB recruiting rankings a lot more irrelevant.

Auburn’s current team was built from the portal: Walker Kessler, KD Johnson, Zep Jasper, and Wendell Green.

4 of our top 5 players in minutes.

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The transfer portal makes CBB recruiting rankings a lot more irrelevant.

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HS recruiting is still pretty important, particularly if you are talking about the one and done guys (and even two year type guys to some extent). Obviously the one and done guys will never be available in the transfer portal.

But the transfer portal certainly gives you more options now for changing your roster quickly and filling holes immediately.

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From the standpoint of building a great team it makes a big impact that doesn’t show up in rankings. For example, Bruce will go out and handpick whoever he wants again to fill the gaps.

Calapari will do it too like he did with the transfer from Davidson who torched Auburn Saturday.

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Sure - but Kentucky and Auburn also have at least 1 elite, Top 10 pick level player that sets the entire tone for the rest of the team.

We've seen Kentucky without TyTy a couple times now, and they are not the same (still solid, but not nearly as high a ceiling). Auburn without Jabari Smith would be a very different team (not to mention Kessler, who while a transfer was a pretty unique transfer who was a legitimate 5-star player).

Portal is super important, but it's a gap filler most of the time. Matters a lot, but a whole lot easier to fill in around when you already have 1-2 elite, NBA level players. Guys like Wendell Green and KD Johnson are perfect role player fits who can act a little nuts and spark a team when they are paired with 2 top 15 picks like Kessler and Jabari. Their value goes way down if they are 2 of the main usage guys.

The teams that go deep in March are typically full of upper classmen. Not many CBB teams make it far relying on several Freshman players. If you look at the National Championship teams over the last 15 years very few had elite NBA lottery players featured on the team.

Duke couldn't make it to the final four when they had Zion, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish.

Kentucky signs multiple five stars every year and only has one National Championship under Calapari and hasn't been to a final four since 2015.

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2 - Kentucky
2 - Alabama
2 - Arkansas

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Big 3

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I agree with you on upperclassmen - almost all of those teams had great upperclassmen. You can't just have a team full of elite freshmen and win a title. As you said, even Cal's only title was a team that had both great freshmen (Teague, AD, MKG) and very good 2nd year and upperclassmen (Miller, Jones, Lamb).

I'd disagree about NBA lottery picks. Those teams almost all had at least one of those, they were just 2nd or 3rd year guys.

2021 Baylor : #9 pick Davion Mitchell
2019 Virginia : #4 pick DeAndre Hunter
2018 Villanova : #10 pick Mikal Bridges
2017 UNC : #15 pick Justin Jackson
2016 Villanova : #16 pick Donte DiVincenzo
2015 Duke : #3 pick Jahlil Okafor, #10 pick Justise Winslow

Those teams almost all had at least 1-2 other guys on them that were 1st round picks.

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I'm talking about freshmen one and done 5 stars that jump to the NBA lottery. Most of those guys you listed are upperclassmen I believe. Heck Davion Mitchell was on Auburn's 2018 team. Also the lottery is only picks 1-14.

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2 - Kentucky
2 - Alabama
2 - Arkansas
1 - LSU

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Big4

Sky Clark not eligible due to number of games played. Recovering from ACL tear