Marquette a top NBA factory?

Folks at Duke and Kentucky would initially laugh at the question.

If you combine the projected draft picks tomorrow night with the end-of-season rosters, Jimmy Butler would make Marquette one of 23 programs with five or more NBA players – but nowhere near Duke’s 16 or Kentucky’s 15.

In fact, Kentucky’s five first round draft picks last year almost matched Marquette’s seven 1st round picks EVER (Kentucky has 30 first rounders all-time).

fac•to•ry/ˈfakt(ə)rē/Noun
1. A building or buildings where goods are manufactured or assembled.
2. A basketball program such as UConn, UCLA, Wake Forest, LSU or Marquette that transforms non-top 50 recruits into NBA players.

NBA Hotel Stops vs. NBA Factories
However, in most cases the NBA players who go to these elite schools were top 50 players out of high school who would have gone to the NBA no matter where they did their “hotel stop” in college for a year or two. When looking at the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, which calculated the combined ranking of the top 100 high school players every year since 1998, we see that Duke has only developed 2 non-top 50 players into NBA players – they had 14 come get to campus as Top 50 players and leave for the NBA.

Kentucky has also developed two non-top 50 players into NBA players, passing along 13 top 50 players to the pros. UNC has developed 1, sending 10 top 50 players to the pros. I’m not criticizing these blue chip programs at all – but wouldn’t it be more accurate to simply describe them as on another level at recruiting rather than being NBA factories, which discover or develop non-prospects and convert them into NBA players?

Jimmy Butler would make FIVE Marquette non-top 50 recruits in the NBA, and the third (along with Dwyane Wade and Lazar Hayward) who was not even a top 100 recruit. Wesley Matthews was #61 in his class and Steve Novak #57 according to RSCI.

Only UConn has produced more NBA players out of non-top 50 players (6), and only LSU has produced more NBA players out of non-top 100 players (4).

I believe this is crucial to the future of the program, because it will be difficult to ever truly go toe-to-toe with Duke, Kentucky, UNC and Kansas for most five-stars and even high four stars. But if we can steal an occasional one (Junior was #47 and Blue was #48 in RSCI) and become a player were other four stars and unheralded diamonds in the rough want to come because they view Marquette as TRANSFORMING or DISCOVERING NBA players, then MU could be truly loaded for years to come.

Since the disappointing draft two years ago, we have now had Wesley Matthews come out of nowhere to become the highest paid second year player in the NBA after not being drafted, Lazar Hayward come out of nowhere to be drafted in the first round, and now Jimmy Butler come out of nowhere to race up the draft boards and hopefully hear his name called before too late tomorrow night.

There are probably a lot of potential stars in high school right now who know they aren’t going to get the attention of Jonathan Wall, but might well believe they are good enough to work as hard as Wes, Lazar and Jimmy at Marquette to have a shot at the NBA.

Good luck tomorrow Jimmy!

Below is the table of the recruiting rank of the 23 schools with five or more NBA players/anticipated draftees listed in order of how many non-top 100 players they now have in the league, then how many non-top 50. The list of the actual players is below the table.

College	Non top 50 in NBA	Non-top 100 in NBA	Total NBA players
Connecticut	6	2	12
UCLA	5	3	16
Wake Forest	5	3	8
Marquette	5	3	5
Arizona	5	1	12
LSU	4	4	7
Syracuse	4	3	8
Kansas	4	0	14
Oklahoma State	3	3	5
Georgetown	3	2	5
Texas	3	1	13
Georgia Tech	3	1	9
Maryland	3	1	5
Florida	3	0	9
Duke	2	2	16
Memphis	2	2	7
Southern California	2	1	5
Kentucky	2	0	15
North Carolina	1	1	11
Washington	1	1	6
Purdue	1	1	5
Stanford	1	1	5
Ohio State	1	0	8

Team, RSCI Rank, Player (for 23 schools with 5+ NBA players/draftees); Arizona, 7, Chase Budinger, 7, Jerryd Bayless, 25, Mustafa Shakur, 27, Andre Iguodala, 33, Richard Jefferson, 71, Luke Walton, 87, Channing Frye, 99, Gilbert Arenas, 100, Derrick Williams, NR, Jordan Hill, pre-RSCI (1998), Jason Terry, pre-RSCI (1998), Mike Bibby; Connecticut, 5, Rudy Gay, 15, Kemba Walker, 18, Charlie Villanueva, 24, AJ Price, 41, Ben Gordon, 53, Jeff Adrien, 60, Caron Butler, 64, Hasheem Thabeet, 99, Emeka Okafor, NR, Hilton Armstrong, NR, Richard Hamilton, pre-RSCI (1998), Ray Allen ; Duke, 1, Josh McRoberts, 2, Luol Deng, 2, Kyrie Irving, 5, Kyle Singler, 7, Chris Duhon, 8, Carlos Boozer, 8, Shelden Williams, 10, Gerald Henderson, 11, JJ Redick, 16, Corey Maggette, 19, Nolan Smith, 26, Mike Dunleavy, 38, Elton Brand, NR, Dahntay Jones, NR, Grant Hill, pre-RSCI (1998), Shane Battier ; Florida, 10, David Lee, 13, Mike Miller, 25, Corey Brewer, 38, Matt Bonner, 46, Chandler Parsons, 47, Al Horford, 60, Marreese Speights, 72, Joakim Noah, 72, Udonis Haslem ; Georgetown, 6, Greg Monroe, 26, DaJuan Summers, 97, Patric Ewing Jr., NR, Jeff Green, NR, Roy Hibbert; Georgia Tech, 1, Derrick Favors, 5, Chris Bosh, 6, Thaddeus Young, 18, Gani Lawal, 22, Iman Shumpert, 46, Jarrett Jack, 53, Will Bynum, 91, Anthony Morrow, NR, Mario West ; Kansas, 6, Julian Wright, 6, Xavier Henry, 6, Josh Selby, 8, Mario Chalmers, 11, Darrell Arthur, 21, Cole Aldrich, 21, Drew Gooden, 22, Nick Collison, 23, Brandon Rush, 62, Kirk Hinrich, 65, Marcus Morris, 68, Darnell Jackson, 93, Markieff Morris, pre-RSCI (1998), Paul Pierce ; Kentucky, 2, John Wall, 2, Keith Bogans, 3, DeMarcus Cousins, 4, Brandon Knight, 7, Enes Kanter, 9, Patrick Patterson, 12, Tayshaun Prince, 19, Daniel Orton, 21, Rajon Rondo, 34, DeAndre Liggins, 46, Chuck Hayes, 52, Eric Bledsoe, 57, Jodie Meeks, pre-RSCI (1998), Jamaal Magloire, pre-RSCI (1998), Nazr Mohammed ; LSU, 11, Glen Davis, 12, Brandon Bass, 14, Anthony Randolph, NR, Chris Johnson, NR, Garrett Temple, NR, Marcus Thornton, NR, Tyrus Thomas ; Marquette, 57, Steve Novak, 61, Wesley Matthews, NR, Dwyane Wade, NR, Lazar Hayward, NR, Jimmy Butler ; Maryland, 23, Chris Wilcox, 55, Steve Blake, 93, Greivis Vasquez, NR, Jordan Williams, pre-RSCI (1998), Joe Smith ; Memphis, 3, Tyreke Evans, 5, Derrick Rose, 15, Elliot Williams, 27, Shawne Williams, 41, Chris Douglas-Roberts, NR, Earl Barron, NR, Joey Dorsey ; North Carolina, 3, Brandan Wright, 3, Raymond Felton, 4, Tyler Hansbrough, 5, Ty Lawson, 7, Marvin Williams, 8, Wayne Ellington, 9, Ed Davis, 15, Danny Green, NR, Brendan Haywood, pre-RSCI (1998), Antawn Jamison, pre-RSCI (1998), Vince Carter ; Ohio State, 1, Greg Oden, 8, Byron Mullens, 12, Kosta Koufos, 13, Daequan Cook, 21, Mike Conley, 31, David Lighty, 54, Evan Turner, pre-RSCI (1998), Michael Redd ; Oklahoma State, 33, James Anderson, NR, John Lucas III,NR, Joey Graham, NR, Stephen Graham, NR, Tony Allen ; Purdue, 23, E'twaun Moore, 47, JaJuan Johnson, NR, Carl Landry, pre-RSCI (1998), Brad Miller, pre-RSCI (1998), Brian Cardinal ; Southern Cal, 1, OJ Mayo, 5, DeMar DeRozan, 46, Taj Gibson, 89, Nick Young, NR, Brian Scalabrine ; Stanford, 9, Brook Lopez, 18, Josh Childress, 19, Robin Lopez, NR, Landry Fields, pre-RSCI (1998), Jason Collins ; Syracuse, 2, Carmelo Anthony, 8, Donté Greene, 20, Jonny Flynn, 56, Rick Jackson, NR, Andy Rautins, NR, Hakim Warrick, NR, Wesley Johnson, pre-RSCI (1998), Etan Thomas ; Texas, 2, Kevin Durant, 4, Avery Bradley, 9, Tristan Thompson, 12, LaMarcus Aldridge, 13, Cory Joseph, 15, Damion James, 17, TJ Ford, 19, Daniel Gibson 22, Jordan Hamilton, 29, DJ Augustin, 57, Maurice Evans, 82, Dexter Pittman, NR, Royal Ivey ; UCLA, 2, Jrue Holiday, 2, Kevin Love, 4, Dan Gadzuric, 10, Jason Kapono, 19, Trevor Ariza, 20, Jordan Farmar, 20, Malcolm Lee, 26, Arron Afflalo, 32, Tyler Honeycutt, 54, Matt Barnes, 98, Darren Collison, NR, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, NR, Russell Westbrook, NR, Ryan Hollins, pre-RSCI (1998), Baron Davis, pre-RSCI (1998), Earl Watson ; Wake Forest, 6, Chris Paul, 7, Al-Farouq Aminu, 43, James Johnson, 58, Darius Songaila, 58, Jeff Teague, NR, Ishmael Smith, NR, Josh Howard, pre-RSCI (1998), Tim Duncan; Washington, 4, Spencer Hawes, 17, Jon Brockman, 27, Quincy Pondexter, 45, Brandon Roy, 50, Matthew Bryan-Amaning, NR, Nate Robinson.