PSU Lands a 5-Star Recruit…In Basketball.
Or so the New York Daily News would have us believe…Talor Battle’s superstar half-brother Taran Buie was recently named an “elite 5-star player” according to some New York basketball guru named Tom Konchalski. For the past 45 years now, Konchalski has been rating the top 200 rising high school seniors and prep school prospects on the Eastern seaboard and out of these 200 players only a handful are given the prestigious 5-star label. So yeah, this is “kind of a big deal.”
While Konchalski obviously doesn’t have the national appeal of a Scout or Rivals recruiting service, his rankings may be a tad more legit since the Eastern seaboard is the only place he focuses on year-round, which means he probably gets a closer glimpse at these players than any of the national recruiting services do. Plus, he’s been working at his craft for almost half a century now which gives him far more credibility than famous douchebags recruitniks such as Tom Lemming.
Regardless whether you believe Konchalski or not, this is yet another sign that Penn State basketball’s fortunes are continuing to turn around, as what was once a “revolving transfer door” of a program is now welcoming in the East Coast’s finest. For the 50 or so of us fans who have followed the program for the past several years and have seen far too much of the former, this is quite a refreshing sight to see the latter becoming more prevalent.
Konchalski is one of the most widely respected hoop scouts in the country. You’ll be hard pressed to find a player, coach, reporter or fellow scout say a bad word about the guy. That’s not to say he’s never wrong — there’s as much art to science in that gig — but his opinion is as valid as anyone’s. And having seen Buie play, I’m thinking ol’ Tom might be right…
Ryan, I had never even heard of Konchalski before I wrote this article so I’ll take your word on what you’ve written. It’s good to hear that he’s a very well-respected guy within his profession, unlike certain other recruitniks that won’t be named.