Follow-up on Terrific 25 of 2014

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Glenn Nelson / ESPN.com Brooklyn's Sierra Calhoun, ranked No. 11 in the ESPNU HoopGurlz Terrific 25 for 2014, is evidence that the city game in New York has a heartbeat.

This is our first ranking of the 2014 class. It's also our earliest ranking of any class, so of course members of the ESPN HoopGurlz staff have various takes:

Brandon Clay: Our initial 2014 Terrific 25 features several kids who have taken the less-traveled approach to the grassroots scene. playing with teams in their area or primarily individual events as opposed to playing with well-established national programs. Jenna Burdette, Recee' Caldwell, Courtney Ekmark, Keyona Harris, Mychal Johnson, Lauren Moses and Mikayla Venson all have made their way onto the list this way. The evolution of events including the Nike Skills Academies, Elite Basketball Academy Camps and USA Basketball trials have opened the door for players to take a different approach to the exposure process. Caldwell started for the USA Basketball U16 team in between leading a San Antonio's Finest team where she was the leading scorer. Ekmark's shooting propelled the Arizona Warriors which also doubles as her high school team. Burdette and Johnson play on a West Virginia Thunder team that, thanks to their play. was competitive all summer. The same applies to Moses with Philly Triple Threat and Harris with the Miami Suns. Venson is the outlier in that she doesn't play on the national scene. In the meantime, this group has shown that the road to our rankings widen by the day.

Chris Hansen: The states we've come to count on to produce a wealth of elite prospects from year-to-year are at work again in 2014. But class-wide, this one could rival the 2011 class out West. That class, which was topped by No. 1 ranked Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (Connecticut), finished with 13 players from the Golden State in the Top 100, despite being considered a thin class nationally. In total, California had 25 four-star or better prospects, and of that crop, Pac-10 schools claimed 13 and mid-major programs out West claimed another eight. Though the loss of Mosqueda-Lewis stings a little, the programs in the western part of the country did a great job of keeping the impact players in region. As the 2014 class continues to take form, California, with 16, has the most players currently on the ESPNU HoopGurlz Watch List. Texas is next on the list with 12. For the new Pac-12 conference, which has been underrepresented in the NCAA tournament, at least by BCS standards, the rising sophomore class is a chance to re-establish the left coast's basketball pedigree. With high profile hires at several schools in the past four years, this class could be a defining moment.

Mark Lewis: The top tier of the most recent classes has offered up some incredible individual talent and prospects. What they haven't provided is a depth to that aptitude and promise. If you were to chart the 2011 and 2012 classes on a declining graph based in terms of capability and potential, there would be a dramatic falloff at an unusually early point, rather than a gradual taper. As a result, younger high-level performers, such as these impressive 2014s, have already benefited from the exposure and experience of playing on the same floor as the best interscholastic and club players. Additionally, age-based divisions of play have essentially disappeared among the top brackets at virtually every certified non-scholastic event with the exception of AAU -- which still offers class specific national championships. Simply put, the best are playing up. Every player in this group already has a year of varsity experience under their belt, and a large majority could be found competing and succeeding in the "showcase" division with, and against, the most talented teams during the two most recent NCAA evaluation periods. The cream is rising to the top much sooner, and their play is pretty sweet.

Keil Moore: Over the past couple of years a number of factors, including USA Basketball and a more spread-out summer circuit, have allowed us to get early looks at two members of 2014s special point-guard corps -- Gabby Green (Oakland, Calif./ St. Mary's College) and Jordin Canada (Los Angeles, Calif./ Winward). Green stands over 6-feet tall has the ability to play a number of positions, but the spot that we have seen her the most at has been the point. While blessed with size, she is a distributor in nature and when the ball is in her hands she has the ability to make the game easy for everyone around her. On the other side of things, JCanada is the embodiment of a gamer. The starting USA U16 point guard has the ability to fill up a stat sheet. Whether you want scoring, assists, or defense Canada can give it to you. In addition she has that extra something that allows her to make big plays when they are needed most. All in all these are two prospects who have made noise early in their high school careers, and their proximity in age, game and location will certainly allow others to build a link between the two.

Glenn Nelson: Expectedly, since they are the two biggest states, California and Texas are, year to year, the most generous and consistent contributors to prospect rankings. The rest tends to be cyclical -- examples being explosions in Georgia in the 2013 class and by Ohio in this one. One of the more curious outliers the past six years has been the underperformance of New York, the third-most populous state, which has trailed even New Jersey during that period. The trend is even more woeful when confined to the city. Basketball is stereotyped as an inner-city game, but that is far less true on the girls' side where suburban families have been able to spend money on trainers and facilities. Adding to the absence of New York City among the elite prospects is the highly politicized and fractured nature of its high-school and club scenes. So the presence of Brooklynites Sierra Calhoun (No. 11) and Bianca Cuevas (No. 20) should be greeted with equal parts triumph and relief. Both play with the electricity and swag of the city game and, while maybe not herald a long-term shift, at least signal that the Big Apple, in girls basketball, still has a heartbeat.

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Brandon Clay is a contributor and national recruiting analyst for ESPN HoopGurlz. He is also the publisher of the JumpOffPlus.com National Scouting Report and the owner of Peach State Basketball, Inc. Clay has been involved in the community since 2001 as a recruiting analyst, event operator and trainer. He can be reached at bclay@peachstatehoops.com or you can follow him on Twitter @peachstatehoops.

Mark Lewis is the national recruiting coordinator for ESPN HoopGurlz. Twice ranked as one of the top 25 assistant coaches in the game by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, he has more than 20 years of college coaching experience at Memphis State, Cincinnati, Arizona State, Western Kentucky and, most recently, Washington State. He can be reached at mark@hoopgurlz.com.

Keil Moore is a contributor and national recruiting analyst for ESPN HoopGurlz. He is also the Director of Scouting for the JumpOffPlus.com National Scouting Report - a division of Peach State Basketball, Inc. Moore has been involved in the community since 2007 as a recruiting analyst and trainer. He can be reached at kmoore@peachstatehoops.com.

Glenn Nelson is a senior writer at ESPN.com and the founder of HoopGurlz.com. A graduate of Seattle University and Columbia University, he formerly coached girls' club basketball, was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of an online sports network, authored a basketball book for kids, has had his photography displayed at the Smithsonian Institute, and was a longtime, national-award-winning newspaper columnist and writer. He can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.

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