Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Underrated New England Prep Stars

I am ashamed that the RFH Collective has not produced a New England Prep article yet. I frequently visit New England Recruiting Report and Friarbasketball.net and am a NE Prep basketball product myself (St. Mark's 06). What I decided to do as my first of many NE Prep articles was to focus on two of the most underrated players in the country, Nik Stauskas and Georges Niang.

Nik Stauskas: Class of 2012 - Committed to Michigan

Flashy Canadian Nik Stauskas will bring his flair to Michigan next year.



Some would argue that a Big-10 commit could not possibly be underrated. However, the fact that Stauskas is only ranked 16th in New England (NERR) and 106th in the nation (Rivals) is grossly off base and needs to change. Many people see Stauskas as a pure shooter, but although he is money from deep, this Canadian can do much more than hoist tre-balls. He has great hops and finishes above the rim in traffic routinely. Stauskas also has an uncanny ability to use crafty dribbling as a way get to the rim against players who might have a slightly quicker step. Not only does Stauskas posses great tools but he is also a gamers gamer. Playing on an absolutely stacked Saint Mark's squad (5-7 D1 players), Nik was routinely the best offensive player. Considering his success playing alongside two national top-20 players (Alex Murphy and Kaleb Tarczewski), the fact that Stauskas is outside the nations top-100 is a tragic miscarriage of justice.
Player Comparison: Jalen Rose (when playing off the ball)


Georges Niang: Class of 2012 - Undeclared

Georges Niang is the type of winner that will hopefully end up in the Friar black & white.
As an avid Providence College fan, there is nobody that I want to recruit more than Niang. Although this Tilton product has seen his recruitment pick up recently, the 6'7 Niang has been under the radar for quite some time. Some say that he is too small and too unathletic to play at the highest level but The Collective says these people are morons. Anyone that saw him play at Tilton saw Niang absolutely tear up the NEPSAC AA. Georges was a double-double machine and was without-a-doubt the best player on a Tilton team that included Nerlens Noel and Wayne Selden. Niang is an expert at carving out space in the post and has the ability to finish extremely well with both hands. In addition to his productive post game, Niang can also step out to the three point line and consistently knock downs threes. In the Collective's opinion, Niang would be great in a Princeton offense where he could use his range and great passing to control games. If you want to see Niang at his best take a look at these clips from some of his AAU games.

Player Comparison: Ryan Gomes

4 comments:

Gil Haylon said...

When's the wildly overrated prospect article coming about Alex Murphy?

John Hendrie said...

I put Noballs hero Courtney Sims in my top 5 ISL player of all-time list. Tied for fifth.

ballastv said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sherwyn cooper said...

I agree with this article whole heartedly. Georges is the most efficient player in new england with every post move in the book and nick stauskas was the best player on that saint marks team all year (Team Leading scorer)