Noteworthy Experiment in Recruiting News

[Ironman8]

Cautionary tale on who and what to trust in modern recruiting news:

An Experiment in Modern Recruiting News
I am not Jonathon Paige.

There is no Jonathon Paige. There is no SummerHoopScoop. In fact, there never was. A little over two months ago the college basketball season ended and the long off-season of recruiting events and commitment speculation began. Messageboards and popular basketball news sources began to populate with recruiting interviews, videos, news stories, and rumors. The summer circuit circus began and college basketball fans dug in for the slow rolling waves of recruiting information to parse through. Of course, the real issue is-- who's information can be trusted? Sometimes it feels to fans like recruiting services and "experts" are just sorting through twitter feeds and regurgitating third-hand information.

However, a funny dynamic develops as a result. When a recruiting "source" brings good news to a fan base, it is instantly credible and plenty are willing to defend the source with recollections of previous information provided that proved correct. When a recruiting source brings bad news, it is open season. "Never heard of this guy"... "probably some opposing fan base's blogger" .... "I doubt he knows what he is talking about." In short, fans believe what they want to believe.

.. and it wasn't just casual fans interested in my information, my twitter account gained some interesting followers along the way. Recruits, assistant coaches, writers for real recruiting news sources, and college basketball reporters:

Throughout it all Jonathon Paige made sure not to predict any commitments before reliable sources had already reported them.... until the end when it came time to finish the experiment with a boom. The last test was to see if anybody would actually believe a fictional twitter account's breaking news that a top tier recruit was choosing a top tier program. Enter the University of North Carolina (the school with a recruit perceived to be closest to a commitment at the time):

First Jonathon Paige tweeted that Kaleb Tarczewski desired to choose UNC while his parents were leaning towards Kansas. This led to a flurry of retweets and messageboard threads (My personal favorite was - "WHO THE FRICK IS JONATHON PAIGE?"... this guy was obviously very invested).

Then, Jonathon Paige officially called Kaleb Tarczewski to North Carolina... WHILE TARCZEWSKI WAS ON ANOTHER SCHOOL'S CAMPUS!!! Would anybody even entertain the possibility of this being true for even a second.... of course. We believe what we want to believe when it comes to high school recruiting.

SummerHoopScoop: An Experiment in Modern Recruiting News

 

[BGIF]

About 15 years ago, there was a hot recruit, big, fast, incredible stats, too good to be true. A local reporter commented on him in an article all but one of the existing recruiting services (primarily newsletters and dial up) at the time scurried for the scoop. One "recruiter" even posted an interview with quotes. After the initial flurry there was pregnant pause. Nobody could find any more info on the kid then was in the reporter's piece.

Finally the reporter admitted he made up the name and stats to see how many of the experts would "bite". Most of them did but I think only one of them issued an apology for not checking sources. The rest ignored inquires on the name. The reporter's point was that many services simply issued circular reports. They charged for uncorrobrated information they saw somewhere else.

Now we have extensive internet coverage yet some "experts" still reguritate something they read on another site.

Same ol, same ol.


The name Arthur MacGuffy (not RB Sam MacGuffie at Rice by way of UM) is rattling around in a dormant brain cell but he could have been the cable repair guy last week. I searched google but didn't find the story. It was legendary in the mid 90's when people were spending hundreds of dollars a month on Lemming's (and others) call lines for recruiting "scoops".

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

I read this earlier today... freakin' brilliant. All those guys that quoted him must feel like such jackasses.