Introducing 2014 Prospect Bryant McIntosh

One of the wildcard recruits in the 2014 class is Bryant McIntosh.  Some of the players that Michigan is pursuing in 2014 have received great ratings across the board, such as Kevon Looney, Devin Booker, and Keita Bates-Diop.  However, McIntosh has received very inconsistent findings by the major scouting services.  Some say he's a point guard, some say he's a shooting guard.  Some say he's a 4* recruit, while others say he's only a 2* player.  These things tend to settle down as the recruiting services get more time to review the player and he matures, but this massive flux is quite interesting.


I have often been confused at the massive differences between recruiting services, but it seems even more evident in McIntosh's case.  ESPN, who is widely considered (and rightfully so) as the best at picking out basketball talent, has only positive things to say about McIntosh.  They've rated him extremely high and said that he's "tough" and plays with "swagger".  He is also labeled as a good shooter and as having a great feel for the game.  The only thing that currently plagues him, as it plagues most sophomores, is that he's relatively small.  He's not tiny by any means, but the main issue is strength.  Right now, I don't think he's even close to being big enough and having enough strength to make it through a full Big Ten schedule.  Of course, he will probably be a good bit bigger when he actually plays college basketball, but that is the one thing that might have given him such low rankings on some other scouting services.


Here are the basic listings for McIntosh:

	ESPN	Rivals	Scout	247Sports
Height	6’4”	6’2”	6’2”	6’2”
Weight	180 lbs	155 lbs	160 lbs	180 lbs
Position	SG	PG	SG	PG
Rating	4*	NR	2*	NR
Position Rank	#9	NR	NR	NR
National Rank	#49	NR	NR	NR

If you're one that believes in ratings, McIntosh is either one of the elite players in the country, or he's an average recruit at best.  I tend to try and look at the recruit's rankings in combination with their offer list, especially when one factor is relatively unclear.  He hasn't gotten many offers yet, but he has attracted attention from schools including Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Indiana St, Xavier, and Nebraska.  That's a solid group of programs and I think there's little doubt that he'll be getting some great offers in the near future.  I think he's a great player, but ESPN might be boosting him up a little bit too much right now.  If I had to guess, he will end up a little bit lower than what ESPN has him at right now, but these ratings can fluctuate pretty intensely, so you never know where he'll end up by time the 2014 class is done.

Despite these odd ratings, I think Michigan is in pretty good shape.  Michigan's coaches have been following him for a while now and from what I understand, his visits to Michigan went very well.  UMHoops only has him listed as having "medium" interest in Michigan, but I think a lot of that has to do with his timetable.  I don't think he'll decide very soon, even if Michigan offers him.  No source on this, but even though I think Michigan is in good shape, there are definitely other schools involved in the race.

McIntosh is an Indiana native, which means schools like Indiana, Purdue, and Indiana State should be able to make some noise in his recruitment, or at least I would expect so.  Unlike another 2014 prospect, Kevon Looney, he hasn't said that a hometown school wouldn't matter.  Looney said that location made almost no difference in his recruitment, but McIntosh hasn't really indicated this, which makes me think that programs like Indiana and Purdue can really make a run at landing his commitment.

Of course, much of this discussion is irrelevant at this point.  Although I believe McIntosh will be receiving a Michigan offer in the near future, Michigan has only offered two recruits so far and he is not among them.  Even though his ratings are a bit uneven, I think he is a great athlete and could really develop to be a solid college athlete.  Once he gets some offers and his ratings settle, I think we'll get more of a feel for where he will be heading in the future.

Here's his highlight video: