2006 Winners

1) North Carolina (429 pts)

#3 Brandan Wright

#5 Tywon Lawson

#8 Wayne Ellington

#39 Alex Stepheson

#43 Dion Thompson

#79 William Graves

Off the charts! The highest total class score in RSCI’s history. Three top 10’s and 5 top 50’s will do that for you. The Heels will be looking to add another national championship soon with this class.

2) Ohio State (338 pts)

#1 Greg Oden

#13 Daequan Cook

#21 Mike Conley

#31 David Lighty

The Buckeyes landed a group that would be more than enough for a top ranking in almost any other year. Oden is the cream of the 2006 crop and he will be getting an outstanding supporting cast.

3) Duke (321 pts)

#10 Gerald Henderson

#20 Lance Thomas

#25 Brian Zoubek

#28 Jon Scheyer

Duke follows up last year’s 2nd ranked class with another of similar talent. The late addition of Lance Thomas gave this group 4 top 30 caliber players and more than enough to load up the roster with young talent for 2006-07.

4) Connecticut (302 pts)

#18 Stanley Robinson

#30 Curtis Kelly

#36 Jerome Dyson

#55 Doug Wiggins

#64 Hasheem Thabeet

Will Harris

Jonathan Mandeldove

Strong stuff for a team that needs help replacing a bunch of key players. The needs are big and so is this class.

5) Texas (276 pts)

#2 Kevin Durrant

#15 Damion James

#29 D.J. Augustin

#82 Dexter Pittman

Matt Hill

Justin Mason

Harrison Smith

Rick Barnes combines both quality (the nation’s best player not named “Greg Oden”) and quantity (7 top 100 or better caliber players) with this group.

6) Louisville (263 pts)

#17 Derrick Caracter

#24 Earl Clark

#45 Jerry Smith

#55 Edgar Sosa

Joey Chichester

Four top 50ish players should help the Cardinals recover nicely from a down year in the 2005-06 season.

7) Washington (222 pts)

#4 Spencer Hawes

#27 Quincy Pondexter

#71 Phil Nelson

#80 Adrian Oliver

The Huskies are building something special and this latest round of reinforcements just continues that trend. Hawes should impact from day 1.

8) Tennessee (217 pts)

#22 Duke Crews

#33 Raymar Smith

#54 Wayne Chism

#78 Marques Johnson

Bruce Pearl has Vol fans looking forward to hoops season like never before and this group of talented rising freshman is a big part of the reason.

9) Georgia Tech (184 pts)

#6 Thaddeus Young

#12 Javaris Crittendon

Tech brings two future stars to add to a group with a solid nucleus of talent. Things look very promising in Atlanta...

10) Kansas (177 pts)

#11 Darrell Arthur

#14 Sherron Collins

The late addition of Arthur gives this duo a dynamite 1-2 punch.

Honorable Mention:

  • Stanford (174 pts)

  • Georgetown (160 pts)

  • Michigan State (155 pts)

  • Kentucky (137 pts)

  • Syracuse (135 pts)

  • USC (116 pts)