Editor's note: Every week in "Starting 5," we'll roll out five stories, themes and nuggets from the basketball recruiting world to set the table with the stories that need to be told and give you a leg up on the watercooler conversations around the office.
This week we look at Maryland's big recruiting win, five big risers from this spring, what recruiting edge Billy Donovan could gain from coaching Team USA, a 2014 recruit who's dropped more than 60 pounds and where the top 10 prospects in the NBA draft were ranked in high school.
1. Maryland makes historical recruiting leap
This is no knock on former Maryland coach Gary Williams. In my opinion, he was one of the truly elite college coaches in terms of maximizing the talent of the players he had. If you played for Williams, chances are he would squeeze every ounce of talent out of your game by your senior year. The man loved making players better.
What he wasn't fond of was recruiting. There were certain travel team programs (ahem, D.C. Assault) that didn't favor him and he didn't acknowledge them. That's the way it was.
Times are different in College Park under Mark Turgeon.
