I'm not sure if this will be of any interest to anyone but me, but after looking it up I thought I'd share, especially since we're not playing games right now.
For anyone who doesn't know, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) is the top high school sports conference in the area. The 11 team basketball league produces high major recruits every year. I wanted to see what it would look like if one college team could assemble a lot of that talent and become something of a WCAC all star team. Here's what it might look like:
First TeamG- Chris Lykes, 15.5 ppg @ Miami (Gonzaga)
G- Xavier Johnson, 15.1 ppg @ Pitt (O'Connell)
G- Aaron Thompson, 14 ppg @ Butler (Paul VI)
F- Justin Moore, 13.4 ppg @ Villanova (Dematha)
C- Nate Watson, 18.3 ppg @ Providence (O'Connell)
Second TeamG- Jeremy Roach, 11.1 ppg @ Duke (Paul VI)
G- Wynston Tabbs, 13.3 ppg @ BC (St. Mary's Ryken)
G- Prentiss Hubb, 13.7 ppg @ Notre Dame (Gonzaga)
F- Earl Timberlake, 10.2 ppg @ Miami (Dematha)
C- Hunter Dickinson, 16.8 ppg @ Michigan (Dematha)
Remaining ScholarshipsChuck Harris, 11 ppg @ Butler (Gonzaga)
Matt Lewis, 22.5 ppg @ JMU (O'Connell)
Myles Stute, 8.7 ppg @ Vanderbilt (Gonzaga)
This does not include several other players who I think we'd happily take into our program, like Terrence Williams (Michigan/Gonzaga), Anthony Harris (UNC/Paul VI), Casey Morsell (UVA/St. Johns), Myles Dread (Penn State/Gonzaga), DJ Harvey (Vanderbilt/Dematha), and others.
Obviously this list is stacked with talent, and as a reminder, this is not "best college players from the DMV" or even "best players from the DC area". These guys all played in the same high school
league. There's tons of talent in the area at other private schools outside of the WCAC, or public schools, or in Baltimore, etc. But even if you just focused on the WCAC--hell, even if you just focused on the 4 WCAC schools that produce the most high major recruits (Dematha, Gonzaga, Paul VI, O'Connell), you could amass a core of players that can be perennial contenders.
This is particularly frustrating to me because Georgetown is SUCH a logical college destination for these kids. They're coming from good Catholic schools in the area, and we are one of the elite Catholic schools in the world. Sure, some players want to go away, and to be clear, no one school would ever get them all. But many would surely like to play close to home and have their family at their games assuming they could play high major competition and get national tv exposure. And yet, the last player to graduate from a WCAC school and matriculate to Georgetown was Tre Campbell in 2014. The last player from a WCAC school to matriculate and stay 4 years was Mikael Hopkins in 2011. Roughly one player per decade. How are we doing so poorly at recruiting an elite Catholic basketball league right in our backyard?
I know that some may think it's a non-issue, since our recruiting in 2021 was good even without an emphasis on the area. But I'd counter that some problematic recruiting in previous years has led us to the current roster, with many suggesting that we're still at least another year away from the tournament. There are a lot of tweaks that I'd like to make to our program, but putting emphasis on recruiting the area--especially the WCAC--is near the top of the list. There's a network effect to it too--see Rodney Rice saying he likes Georgetown but wishing we'd recruit more area players, or Hunter Dickinson saying "Imagine if the two HM programs in the DMV actually recruited this area for basketball, they'd be top 5 in the country every year", or a number of our own alumni on Dawg Talk saying that they think we'd have better luck in the area if we just recruited more players in the area. When you prioritize recruiting the area, you'll start to land players from the area; and when you start to land players from the area, OTHER players from the area are more likely to join the party. Conversely, when the perception is that you don't really care much about recruiting the area (as Dickinson shows), then when you do recruit locals they tend to be lukewarm on you.
I recognize that even with a concerted effort, you wouldn't be able to keep everyone home, especially 5 star talents (ie. Jeremy Roach, Trevor Keels, etc.). But that's ok. The talent pool in the WCAC is so deep that even if you totally whiff on all the Top 50 kids coming through the league, there are still plenty of Chuck Harrises (ranked 167th in his class), Wynston Tabbs (288th in his class), or our own Terrell Allens (unranked in his class) to build a quality team out of.
I guess my ultimate point is that I think we've made mistakes in our recruiting strategy, and I hope we adjust moving forward. Hire an assistant that has strong connections to the WCAC in general or to one of the biggest schools and have him build the absolute strongest relationships possible with the schools that produce the most recruits (Dematha, Gonzaga, Paul VI, O'Connell). If he can build strong relationships with other schools in the area too, all the better. But even if he just lives in those 4 gyms and starts building relationships with players in those 4 programs from an early age, we'll be alright. Take in as many WCAC games as possible--as long as our team isn't playing or on the road to its next game, you can make it to tons of games throughout the season. Send a message to players, parents and coaches that recruiting the top players in the DC area is a top priority for Georgetown. Stop flying around trying to build relationships at Knoxville Catholic or Lake Minnehaha Academy or Orangeville Prep, and focus all of that attention on building relationships with the handful of programs in your backyard that crank out high major recruits year in and year out.
Hoping for a change in 2022 with guys like McDaniel, Ward, Rice et. al, but also hoping for some fresh blood on the coaching staff who can help us make these connections and change our reputation in local basketball circles.