We intend for the Best of New England rankings to be a go-to resource for folks looking for a snapshot of the region's top prospects.
Player rankings and watch lists are some of the cornerstone coverage of high school sports. People read and care about these. Our goal is two-fold: to give the stakeholders who follow our platform a valuable guide to the region, and to celebrate the star talent New England is currently producing.
Rankings are natural conversation-starters, and I enjoy discussing players and development. But I'm also aware of what they can mean to a teenager, both in the recruiting process and psychologically. I want to be transparent with readers about how I approach the ranking process. I'm confident in my ability to evaluate talent, but I'm also prone to my own biases and preferences. That's partially why this guide exists and why we discuss our rankings on the HoopWise Podcast.
Here are my answers to your expected common questions about how I approached building our Best of New England series.
Who is eligible?
Players who are either from New England or have attended a school based in New England for at least one year are eligible for these rankings. That means non-New Englanders who are attending most NEPSAC and prep schools qualify. It also means non-New Englanders at New York NEPSAC schools, for example, do not. With some top players in such cases, we may clarify this in rankings updates.
The one-year staying period is important. We want to have some time to get to know transfers from outside the region before giving them a ranking. It means postgraduate players will only appear in the final ranking of the senior class.
Why watch lists for underclassmen?
We are constantly in learning and discovery mode with underclassmen. They're grappling with so much unrealized athletic potential and have a long way to go with skill development.
Underclassmen also exist in a wide array of team contexts. How many freshmen and sophomores are playing major roles on their teams? And does low minutes equal a low ceiling? Of course not – but I also can't evaluate a player when they're not playing. I'd consider the underclassmen watch lists a sort of "I see what you are accomplishing, and I'm intrigued" type of accolade.
For example: I can confidently say that Fope Ayo would not have been on my watch list after her freshman year because she wasn't playing much at the time and was very much a raw talent. She's now our top-ranked 2026 prospect. Everyone's development arc is different.
What happens when players reclassify?
If a player reclassifies, we'll make a note of it in the rankings or watch lists. However, they won't be moved to their new class and re-ranked until our next batch update.
Do college offers factor in?
Kind of! These rankings are not ordered by which players are generating the most college interest. I'm not opposed to putting a player with Division 3 looks over someone with a Division 1 offer if I believe the former is on a better track for college impact. We've written about how verbal offers work and how they can be misleading.
Still, offers represent colleges' belief in a player's ability to succeed at that level. That matters and it helps me add another perspective. I'm not at every game or showcase, so if a player comes back from a grassroots weekend with four new verbal offers, that tells me they're playing in a way that resonates with the next level, and I should account for that.
What do I look for as an evaluator?
My goal is to take the perspective of a hypothetical college coach building their program. Who would I want on my team so I could compete at a high level? I've talked with multiple college coaches, listened to podcasts, read articles and watched games during my time in basketball to try to frame my view accurately.
Consistent production matters and competition level weighs in. Physical attributes matter. Leadership and good teammate traits truly matter, as college coaches have told me. Especially at younger levels, year-over-year growth is very important to see.
My personal philosophy: I look for innate advantage creators. "Advantage creator" is a term I initially learned a lot about from folks in the NBA Draft and scouting communities, but it can apply to any level of basketball. How are you creating an advantage on offense and putting the defense on its heels? This can be by beating a defender off the dribble, passing to an open teammate, overpowering an opponent on a mismatch or more. Or, if you're more of an off-ball player: How are you capitalizing on an advantage created for you? And defensively, how are you taking away opponents' perceived advantages?
That's the simplest way I can describe my approach to projecting talent. There's obviously more nuance involved too.
What does being ranked mean?
It means I think you have great potential in basketball! But I want to end this by noting that a Top 50 is a deliberately selective cutoff. It does not perfectly correlate to being a future Division 1 player.
In the 2025 and 2026 classes, roughly 35 girls basketball players from New England committed to Division 1 college programs. In theory, a Top 50 accounts for about 35 Div. 1 prospects and about 15 of my favorite Div. 2 and Div. 3 prospects.
We're really splitting hairs among those last 15. Approximately 120 more players in our 2026 commitments database went the Div. 2 or Div. 3 route (that's almost certainly undercounting it, too), and that can really be up to schools and players' preferences for best fit. Many future productive college basketball players will not make the cut in our rankings.
My message to the student-athletes: I want the Best of New England rankings to carry weight and be a proud achievement, but they are by no means a defining mark on your basketball careers or development ceilings.
