Kris Wilkes is a top 15 prospect in the Class of 2017, a 6-foot-7 wing from Indiana that has been pursued by some of the top programs in the country.
On Monday, Wilkes announced that he has a top 11: North Carolina, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Butler, Ohio State, Illinois, UCLA, Washington, UConn and Xavier.
Thanks to @TiptonEdits_ for the edit 🃏 ... pic.twitter.com/mBBgvtB0jI
— kad (@kadw31) July 31, 2016
Frankly, I think it’s somewhat tacky when players announce that they’re “cutting” their list and leaving this many schools on it. Wilkes didn’t even cut it, he just listed a top 11. I saw one player mention that he was cutting his list to 14 schools.
They get five official visits. It’s August before the start of their senior year in high school. The idea that a player is actively considering that many programs is, at best, super-inefficient and, at worst, a blatant attempt at getting attention.
But there’s another side of it, too.
Maybe Wilkes -- who I’m just using as an example -- has three schools that really stand out in his mind, his top three, but he’s not convinced that any of the three are the right fit. So he wants to use all five of his official visits, but he doesn’t know what his top five is. In that case, the other eight schools on his list are the ones he’s still considering using his last two visits on.
That makes a little more sense.
The other side of it is that this will, theoretically, reduce the amount of calls, texts, tweets, DMs, FaceBook messages and all of the above the player gets. For example, last week, Brandon Randolph cut his list to 10 schools, but he tweeted that 29 schools had been recruiting him. His tweet means he no longer has to deal with 19 head coaches and 57 assistant coaches hitting him up.
Randolph is a top 50 player. Wilkes is a borderline top ten prospect.
Maybe this was just an effort to limit how much data he uses this month.