Of the 27 guys rated as five stars on 24/7 sports 11 chose their home state school with four still undecided. so that is nearly half the guys who chose to stay home. Playing at home is a big draw but I think more important is the belief in the coach.
Let's take a closer look at those five-star players, and where they ended up.
I'm only seeing nine who chose their home state school (based on their high school), as opposed to 13 who went elsewhere. Five are still uncommitted, but of those five, only one is considered to have a 50% of remaining at home.
Of those nine that stayed home, one went to blue blood Duke, while three went to perennially strong teams Arizona, Texas and Florida. You could consider Indiana a legacy blue blood. That means
only three non-powerhouse schools kept five-star players at home (Memphis, Georgia and USC, which kept two Californians at home).
Stayed home
Memphis
Georgia
Arizona*
USC (2)
Indiana*
Duke*
Texas*
Florida*
Of the 13 five-stars that went out-of-state,
only two went to teams that weren't blue bloods or perennial powers (Washington and Tennessee).
Elsewhere
Duke (2)*
Washington
Kentucky (3)*
Arizona*
Florida*
Villanova (2)*
Tennessee
North Carolina*
West Virginia*
Looking at this, I see nothing that leads me to blame Pitino for the alleged lack of success recruiting in-state kids. (I use "alleged" because I'm quite happy to see Coffey, Oturu, Kelscher, Omersa and the elder Hurt in Gopher uniforms.)
I'll go further. I fully expect the Gophers to be knocking on the door of the perennial powerhouse club in the next 3-4 years. If the 2017-18 season hadn't been derailed by injuries, we'd already be halfway there.
I'm as disappointed as anyone we haven't had more kids stay home, but you have to acknowledge that keeping those guys is the exception, rather than the norm.
JTG