I've been going to AAU national tournaments for years and it's laughable how ignored the MN players are generally treated by Rivals and the others. If I only got a $ for every time a MN kid scoffed after beating up on a supposedly-ranked kid from somewhere around the country. Part of that is probably due to the lack of strong local Rivals/Scout writers to push these kids into the national consciousness, part of it is due to the tendency of the local clubs and individuals to "eat their young" instead of supporting everyone in MN deserving of national ranking. Getting that big-time ranking is more often a function of the hype that the local coach can convince the lazy national ranker to believe over the phone, rather than individual evaluation It's easy to spot a White or Aldrich, but there are many, many others over the last few years that deserved ranking and didn't get it. (i.e. Noah Dahlman, Trent Lockett, Troy Bell). Numerous college scouts come to MN for precisely that reason, they aren't stupid, they know they can effectively use their time recruiting overlooked, underrecruited parts of the country. It's no secret that many teams in the NSIC, stocked by local and regional kids, could be playing "D-I" at many of the relatively weak mid-major conferences around the country and competing for the titles. The Gophs won't be able to get an immediate impact player from MN every year, but they can provide them with some high-IQ, high-fundamental, high-character, high-hustle kids on a yearly basis. I think that's a good balance in conjunction with a national recruiting reach for the studs to do the heavy lifting.
