I think there is a great deal more misinformation out there in the realm of women's sports than in men's due to the support system, or lack thereof. If you remember the earlier days of football recruiting, it looked like every class that Texas had would win the national title four years in a row. Texas would sign every top lineman in the state, and there simply weren't any top linemen outside of Texas. Of course, all of the ratings came from Max Emfinger or Bobby Burton, both of whom leaned strongly to Texas. If Texas signed a kid, he was the #1 recruit.
With time, the sources of information about football and basketball recruiting became more plentiful. Now, it may not be all that accurate, but you can get a lot better feel for it than you could forty years ago. A lot slips through the cracks, but it is more informative than it was.
I think women's sports tend to be in the formative era. There are a few "scouts" who are the basis for everything that we know. These experts and the fact that a lot of people think they can evaluate talent by watching a Class 2A basketball game actually clouds the system. It would be a lot more useful if you knew who Geno was recruiting and why since he wins every year. But, the two largest rating "services," HoopGurlz and Prospect Nation are largely on the basis of very little information by very few scouts.
When you look at a list of prospects and find that fully forty percent of the top prospects of 2018 live in the state of Ohio, it makes you wonder what they are feeding people in Ohio. When you see that an area which has produced very few basketball players of note suddenly has a fourth or half of the top fifty prospects, you wonder what they are drinking.
One of the problems is that girls tend to be different from boys during recruiting. Boys tend to let everyone know when they get a letter or call from a coach. Girls tend to keep a lot of that rather quiet. Since most coaches are somewhat silent (as required), there isn't a lot of dependable information. A lot of it is "a friend says she is being recruited by X and Y." Meanwhile, another "friend" has a different list. Meanwhile, the girl and the coach tend to be rather quiet. In fact, it is interesting who does open up about recruiting, other than to make a commitment.
I tend to use the information as a place to get some information. But, I learn a lot more by watching a prospect myself. When you watch the top point guard in the country being destroyed by a guard that you have never heard of,, you know why we recruited DRob. That's how Sherri spotted DRob, by watching another point guard. I recently watched the top point guard from Texas, a highly-regarded national recruit, get completely destroyed by a kid that wasn't on anyone's list from Michigan.The top point guard of 2015 went to Louisville. But, I watched her be completely exposed by a Spanish point guard, Salvadores, in U-18 ball. Salvadores got enough attention to get an offer from Duke, signing today. Every year,, Texas gets a class that is the equal of any in the Big Twelve. Yet, they were 9-9, a distant third.Bill fennelly hardly ever gets anyone, nor does OSU. But, they were tied with Texas at 9-9. You have to look beyond the information that is available now. Maybe in a few years it will mean something. Right now, most is questionable.
