Saint Mary’s. Rhode Island. Wichita State. Gonzaga. What do these four teams have in common? The easy answer is that they are all mid-majors, but look closer and you will notice another key similarity.
We are talking about schools located in obscure parts of the country with a small enrollment and who routinely scrape the bottom of the recruiting barrel. You could even argue teams like Xavier and Butler could still be classified as a mid-major given they recently transferred to a Power 5 conference.
Even mid-major king Gonzaga usually gets 3-star recruits, with the exception of the 2016 class which featured four 247 Sports four-star players led by projected lottery pick Zach Collins.