"You can recruit there."
It's a statement made frequently during college basketball's annual coaching carousel, and relates to the attractiveness of any number of head-coaching vacancies. But what does it mean?
With the pursuit of top high school prospects set to resume next month, and with the transfer portal adding a new dimension to roster construction, we decided to take a conference-by-conference look at the recruiting landscape within the top leagues. Which schools have the biggest (legal) recruiting advantages? Who does more with less? Which programs have the biggest inherent recruiting challenges, and what are they?
To answer those questions, ESPN spoke with a wide variety of anonymous coaches across college basketball's top six leagues, as well as the nationally relevant programs beyond those conferences. Over the next seven weeks, we'll rank the programs in order of which have the best sales pitches, with our survey of coaches helping to place those teams into tiers. We begin our sales pitch study with the ACC, home to some of the game's most recognizable programs ... and others that are forced to compete for players in the shadow of the bluebloods.