Dan Weiderer says that this year's class, overall, is weak, which may explain why Duke and UNC have recruited it pretty lightly. What Weiderer might have said, too, is that rankings are usually pretty meaningless. Everyone understood that Kevin Durant was going to be an impact player; not many realized he was heading for greatness. Same thing happened to Michael Jordan when he was recruited. Howard Garfinkel tells the story of seeing him play at his camp and running to the phones to call Street & Smith to tell them that an all-time great was on the way, but he was the great exception.
And by the same token, almost everyone missed Dennis Rodman and David Robinson when they were in high school. Paul Evans only recruited Robinson because his shoe size suggested he might have some growing to do.
In Duke's history, David Henderson was a guy who was seen as a marginal recruit, a make-up for the miss on Curtis Hunter. He ended up being a pretty good college player. And we're not sure anyone would have predicted J.J. Redick would have supplanted Johnny Dawkins as Duke's #1 all-time scorer.
Over in Raleigh, Todd Fuller was recruited for his academics at a time when State's credibility in that department was suffering. Who knew he would end up an NBA draft pick?
Anyway, everyone gets all wrapped up in recruiting rankings. Generally speaking, it's better to just watch the players