[2006alum]

It is a heck of a lot easier in MBB where 8 good players is all you need than Football where you need to find 85 players to fill out a roster and 50 of them who play regularly. Last year there were 3 Ivy League teams that had a better RPI than us. It isn't that hard to find a handful of good players especially when most guys you are recruiting are 4 year guys and many other teams turn over more of the roster every year with one and dones.

I'm not totally sold on that. NFL requires that draftees be at least three years out of high school - where else can they possibly go to improve their skills but college ball? And three years is close to a Stanford degree if you took AP classes (which you did if you got admitted to Stanford) and are strategic with your courseload/summers.

Unless someone more closely connected with admissions can inform this discussion with solid intel, my understanding has generally been that most top basketball recruits do not bother with taking the kinds of classes, and getting the kinds of test scores, that necessary for Stanford, in part because AAU basketball travel takes up large chunks of the school year, and the top recruits only envision spending 1-2 years in college. Whereas for football recruits, they will be attending for three years, and the academic year looks largely the same as it does for their non-varsity school peers in terms of away-from-home travel. With football, we've lured recruits away from offers at places like Alabama, Notre Dame, and U$C; tell me how many MBB recruits we have lured away from offers at Arizona, UCLA, Duke, Michigan State, and the likes. I can't think of one in recent memory...?

Also, the NFL chews and spits out players at a much higher rate than does the NBA, so many NFL players need a long-term plan B.

[2006alum]

It is a heck of a lot easier in MBB where 8 good players is all you need than Football where you need to find 85 players to fill out a roster and 50 of them who play regularly. Last year there were 3 Ivy League teams that had a better RPI than us. It isn't that hard to find a handful of good players especially when most guys you are recruiting are 4 year guys and many other teams turn over more of the roster every year with one and dones.

I'm not totally sold on that. NFL requires that draftees be at least three years out of high school - where else can they possibly go to improve their skills but college ball? And three years is close to a Stanford degree if you took AP classes (which you did if you got admitted to Stanford) and are strategic with your courseload/summers.

Unless someone more closely connected with admissions can inform this discussion with solid intel, my understanding has generally been that most top basketball recruits do not bother with taking the kinds of classes, and getting the kinds of test scores, that necessary for Stanford, in part because AAU basketball travel takes up large chunks of the school year, and the top recruits only envision spending 1-2 years in college. Whereas for football recruits, they will be attending for three years, and the academic year looks largely the same as it does for their non-varsity school peers in terms of away-from-home travel. With football, we've lured recruits away from offers at places like Alabama, Notre Dame, and U$C; tell me how many MBB recruits we have lured away from offers at Arizona, UCLA, Duke, Michigan State, and the likes. I can't think of one in recent memory...?

Also, the NFL chews and spits out players at a much higher rate than does the NBA, so many NFL players need a long-term plan B.