Most Hyped High School Recruits

[NYWarrior]

Yeah, but when I look at this class I see a lot of reasons why USA basketball and the NBA sucked in the immediate post-Jordan era.  I see a lot of kids that were great athletes, but outside of a couple, not many good basketball players.

'All-time great classes' are better viewed in the rear view mirror than the windshield.  Still, the 1988 group stands apart from most and was notable for turning out great collegians as well as long-tenured, productive NBA players. That said, no class ever matches the hype...1988 is no exception.

Still, part of the reason this class stood out was the plethora of big men that flanked Mourning.  In the end -- Mourning, Kemp, Ellis, and Laettner were as good a collection of bigs as any class has ever produced (and those are just the top guys).  Laettner is in the Pantheon of all-time great college players. Kemp was very good and Mourning is a borderline Hall of Famer.  Chris Jackson was perhaps the greatest freshman in the history of college basketball at that point and went on to a reasonable pro career where he averaged 14ppg over a decade.  Don MacLean was the all-time leading scorer in the history of the PAC-10 & played for a decade in the NBA.  Owens, Peeler, Sealy, Day, Mayberry, Mills, Martin, Gugliotta, Horry, Walt Williams, Stith, etal.  The class was crazy deep with high-ceiling talent.

This link is useful in comparing the relative strength of classes ... just change the date in the URL to compare. It is amazing how poor most of the individual classes have been over time (and note these are just the McDonald's game participants, by no means the only way to measure)

http://statsheet.com/bhsb/mcdonalds_all_american_team/1988

[MuMark]

Ben Wilson?

[Ari Gold]

Sebastian Telfair
he was mentioned briefly in the piece, but he's the first really hyped HS kid I remember with the "Through The Fire" Documentary.
He never really measured up

[4everwarriors]

Marcus Liberty

[Lennys Tap]

Marcus Liberty

A couple buddies from work and I used to take a limo trip to a college basketball game each year. One year Milwaukee, one year Champaign, etc. We were in Champaign Liberty's freshman year and sat with him during the game (he was a prop 48 so ineligible to play). After the game, we gave him a lift back to his dorm. After quickly polishing off a cold one, he interrupted his own story of life as a frosh at Illinois, turned to me, smiled and said, "I don't wanta be ignorant, Tony, but could I get another one of those Michelobs?" Nice kid, never lived up to the hype.

[Pakuni]

Ben Wilson?

As good as he was, I don't think many outside the dedicated high school hoops fan really knew about Ben Wilson until he was murdered.

[Lennys Tap]

As good as he was, I don't think many outside the dedicated high school hoops fan really knew about Ben Wilson until he was murdered.

A friend of mine who did some scouting for DePaul thought Benjie was the best player to come out of Chicago in that era.

[Tulsa Warrior]

Lloyd Moore out Pittsburgh. He was a Street and Smith high school All American center. After a brief stay at Marquette he played some at Rutgers.  Lloyd could not control his weight and had a work ethic issue.  He ended up blowing out his knees because of theweight issue.  What could have been -- a Charles Barkley type 5 inches taller.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Appropriate timing

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?id=6609946

[Goose]

Lloyd Moore had ZERO chance of being anything other than Lloyd Moore. I prayed for us to get him but in reality he was destined to be what he was, a real fat guy with great hands.

[Dawson Rental]

Let us not forget Raymond Lewis.  A SI article on him had this quote:
"In Los Angeles he is a legend. You say Raymond, they say Lewis. You say Lewis, they say Raymond."—Bob Hopkins, assistant coach, New York Knicks.

PG recruit headed to Long Beach State during Tarkanian's stint there, until someone out bid Tark for his services.

Tarkanian saw Lewis as "the missing link" and told everyone that with him he could realize his dream: beating UCLA and winning an NCAA championship. At the time the coach also was recruiting Ernie Douse, then New York City's Player of the Year, and when Douse came out to California during the summer, Lewis badgered Tarkanian about setting up a one-on-one game between them. "But I wouldn't allow it," says Tarkanian. "I knew that Raymond would kill Douse, and I was afraid he'd get discouraged and go back home. Raymond would play all of our kids one-on-one and kill 'em, and half of them were All-Americas. He was in high school. Nobody knows him like I do, and I say he was the best high school player I ever saw."

" Lewis was blessed with such tremendous talent. He had body balance, great reflexes and coordination. A lot of players have those skills and never use them, but Raymond had them and developed them. He had a great quickness on the court, but it was his ability to shoot with a man right on top of him that made him so great. A lot of players can shoot, but Lewis had all the moves to get the shot off. He loved to take players one-on-one. His quickness made it impossible for one man to guard him. He loved it."—Jerry Tarkanian, UNLV coach.

Lewis would have gone to Long Beach, but Bob Miller, the L.A. State coach, had hired Caldwell Black to be his assistant coach. Also, Miller had enrolled Lewis in three summer-school classes. At one point Lewis wrote to Miller and said he did not want to go there. But at the same time he was telling Tarkanian, "It boiled down to the money and the car and the other things, stuff I never had before."

Bombed a group of LA Lakers for 52 points in a summer league game while still in high school.

1973, as a sophomore Lewis scored 53 points in an upset win (107-104) against number three- ranked 22-1 Long Beach State, in an electrifying double overtime thriller.

The youngest Player ever drafted and signed by the NBA during his era. The 18th overall pick in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1973.

Reportedly scored 60 points in the first half against the NBA's number 1 draft choice Doug Collins. In Sixers NBA camp.  (And then quit when Philly wouldn't renegotiate his contract.)

Scored 56 points in 1983 against NBA's defensive star Michael Cooper in summer pro league game in only three quarters of play.

2004, jersey Number 23 retired and Lewis is honored as the greatest player in Verbum Dei History.

[MUMac]

Albert King.  As Al said, he is the first one that Al had to schedule an appointment to visit.

[Mike the Red]

For us Oldtimers, Earl (The Goat) Manigault.

[4everwarriors]

Connie Hawkins