Lessons from Manhattan: Where Do Top Recruits Belong?

Late last night Kansas State pulled off a historical upset over previously undefeated Kansas. K State, who had lost 24 straight games to Kansas on their home floor prior to last night, finally broke that streak and improved to a perfect 5-0 in the Big 12.

Highly touted freshman Michael Beasley, who scored a game high 24 points and made all four of his 3-point attempts, was the biggest star of the game. There is no doubt that Beasley will make a very good NBA player, most likely sooner rather than later.

Birkel from ACC BasketBlog saw the game as well and made a very interesting observation. He says that future 5-star recruits should learn from Beasley’s example. For top recruits, “if you go somewhere where not much is expected and the overall competition in a conference is decent but not great, you can become a legend.”

It is an interesting and compelling argument, and although there is certainly some support for it, I’m not entirely convinced. Beasley is a pretty good example, and currently O.J. Mayo at USC might be another who could fall into this category, but would these guys be incapable of making a splash at an ACC school other than Duke or Carolina?

Assuming Boston College loses tonight there are seven three-loss teams in the ACC all essentially tied for third place behind Duke and Carolina. The way I see things, if Michael Beasley was on one of those seven teams then that team would likely be the best team in the conference.

If this season continues the way it has for Kansas State Beasley will be a hero in Manhattan, Kansas for many years to come, but I don’t see why he couldn’t do the exact same thing in Blacksburg, Virginia or Clemson, South Carolina.