Some of the best college basketball programs are Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky. Others may think the best teams are the ones with a lot of history such as Indiana, Syracuse, or possibly UCLA (University of California Los Angeles). One important way to keep a good team for many years is to recruit good players at positions you need. Although all college coaches know this, they commonly ask the question, “Where do the best of the best come from?” Sometimes they wonder if they’re from the west coast in California? Maybe Indiana, which people often call the “Hoosiers”. What about North Carolina, which is home to eighteen Division 1 colleges? Where do the most talented really come from? Where do the best go to college? Which schools produce the most NBA players?

     Ncaa.com has a graph showing the states with the most players on top 25 teams. California has the most with 37, and Indiana, Texas, and Illinois are the only other ones that have at least twenty, but North Carolina is just barely behind with nineteen. Only fourteen states have at least ten, and there are only forty states that actually have players on top 25 teams, which means ten states don’t have any at all.

     Some sports networks rank teams based on their recruiting classes. Others think that is impossible to rank every player in the US based on their high school performances because there is different competition in each state. I believe that theory is correct. According to espn.com, last year Duke had the best recruiting class out of 347 teams, but when the season was over, they finished 18th in the rankings. Villanova was the national champion this year, and they finished 24th overall in recruiting coming into this season. When Connecticut won the Championship a few years ago, they weren’t even in the top forty coming into that season.

     Rpiratings.com says that Kentucky University has the most current NBA players with twenty-one. There are 111 colleges with current players in the NBA, but eighty-eight of them have less than five. Although there are players with great success in college, they might struggle so much that they don’t last for more than two years in the pros.

     I think some of these questions have been answered now. Where do the most talented really come from? It seems like the majority come from California, Indiana, Texas, Illinois, and North Carolina. Where do the best go to college? Duke and Kentucky have the most consistent recruiting classes each year. What schools produce the most NBA players? Bigger schools such as Kansas and North Carolina. Although many can predict who will be the next best player, no one is for sure.