There's a new picture on the Internet of a cake from Belleville bakery with a scarlet O on it, surrounded by gray icing. Make of that what you will. ;-)
If we do get Liddell and don't add a 4th (seems unlikely we will), then I think we will squeak into the T15 classes in the final rankings, which is an impressive achievement for a 3-man class. A good comparable from last year: UNC had the 14th-ranked class with a T10 guy, a guy just inside the T30, and a guy in the 70s. Carton will stay in the T30 (he's the #2 PG), Gaffney might drop a bit but I think he will stay in the T50 as long as he doesn't have a total bum year at Brewster (his potential is tremendous), and I think Liddell is simply too productive to drop out of the T50, so I think that's a class that--based on precedent--would be hovering right on the edge of the T15 classes and should almost certainly end up a Top 3 B1G class unless several other B1G schools just really surge and hit it out of the park with multiple high-ranking commitments. On a pure quality (factoring out quantity) basis, it'll probably be the top B1G class... and I think it's exceptional the way it meets talent boost needs at PG and the forward spots. When you consider what a weak class this is for PGs (there are several 3-star PGs in the Top 10 for the position) and how much we needed to get a really good one, Carton was just an exceptional get for Holtmann. But getting the top in-state guy (and a T50 recruit himself) in Gaffney kind of paved the way for landing Carton as it assured him he would be joining talent in Columbus and he and Gaffney are buds. And getting Carton was pivotal in hopefully helping us get EJ. So it's dominoes, but the end result is that Holtmann and his staff are making things happen that will help ensure Ohio State is going to be a conference and national contender in the near future.
For me the best comparable from recent OSU history is the 2014 class. High-level lead guard (Russell; Carton), high-motor forward (Tate; EJ), and high-potential forward (KBD; Gaffney). David Bell was only here a couple years, didn't play much, and transferred--so I think you can really compare the two classes. But I hope we get Carton for more than one year (I'd be happy with 2 years from him, honestly) and I hope we don't have to wait four years for Gaffney to bloom (not KBD's fault--injury and sickness played a major role there, and who can be mad when his last season he's the conference PotY). I think, if we get EJ, he will be like Tate in that immediately he's going to be hard to keep off the court, the way he plays. But Liddell's already a better shooter than Tate and he's a couple inches taller and longer.
