HSH Top 50: Austin Rivers still No. 1, Quincy Miller drops out
Words. Austin Burton
(Austin Rivers)
When the No. 2 high school basketball player in the country suddenly falls out of the Top 50 in the middle of his senior season, clearly something has gone wrong. In the case of Quincy Miller (Westchester, NC), it was a torn ACL in his left knee suffered on Dec. 10. The injury ended what would have certainly been an All-American campaign and potentially a national Player of the Year run before it really began.
Miller’s season-ending injury dropped him out of the new High School Hoop National Top 50 Ranking, updated following the 2010-11 holiday tournament stretch of the schedule, where a lot of players were tested against national competition in high-profile matchups.
Austin Rivers (Winter Park, FL) still holds the No. 1 spot, while Michael Gilchrist (St. Patrick, NJ) assumes Miller’s vacated No. 2 and fellow Kentucky signee Marquis Teague (Pike, IN) moves to No. 3 on the list. Myck Kabongo (Findlay Prep, NV) jumps two spots to No. 4, while Brad Beal (Chaminade College Prep, MO) rounds out the top five.
The second half of top 10 is noticeably younger — sophomore sensation Julius Randle (Prestonwood, TX) ranks 10th, while juniors Shabazz Muhammad (Bishop Gorman, NV) is 6th and Rodney Purvis (Upper Room Christian, NC) is 9th. Both Muhammad and Purvis moved up two spots from the last Top 50 update.
Randle made one of the biggest leaps overall in the time since the previous Top 50 ranking — compiled after the summer AAU season — moving from 35th to 10th. Tony Parker (Miller Grove, GA) vaulted from 49th to 12th while his similarly overlooked team is now challenging for a national championship, and Khem Birch (Winchendon, MA) went from 37th to 14th.
Two new additions are Trevor Lacey (Butler, AL), who was unranked going into the season but debuts at No. 20 following a scoring binge that would make Kobe Bryant envious, and Shannon Scott (Milton, GA) went from unranked to 40th.
Judging by the numbers, Kentucky is still killing the recruiting game. The Wildcats have snagged four of the top 40 players in the country, and three of the top 10: Gilchrist, Teague and Anthony Davis (Perspectives Charter, IL) rank 2nd, 3rd and 8th, while Kyle Wiltjer (Jesuit, OR) ranks 39th. Duke has three players in the top 25 in Rivers, Quinn Cook (Oak Hill, VA) and Michael Gbinije (Benedictine, VA), while rival North Carolina has two in the top 25 in James McAdoo (Norfolk Christian, VA) and P.J. Hairston (Hargrave Military, VA).
CHECK OUT THE COMPLETE HSH NATIONAL TOP 50 RANKING
That Austin Rivers-Michael Gilchrist match-up tomorrow could be the separating factor that makes these two guys either consensus #1 or #2.