"Is it fair to have private and public schools together?": Hoops fans react to ESPN Top 25 High School Basketball rankings

On Tuesday, ESPN's Sports Center Next unveiled its high school basketball top 25 rankings for the first week of the 2024-2025 season. Link Academy from Missouri grabbed the top spot.

The list featured an overall ranked school from every state, public and private. It had fans talking on Instagram.

"Is it fair to have private and public schools together? Private school gets public schools' best players all on one team,"one wrote.

"They should start letting kids play wherever they want. All these schools finding ways to transfer kids and get kids in the same teams for domination while others following the rules working with what they got at the school in their area," another wrote.

"I wonder how those rankings are based of," another wrote.

Meanwhile, others questioned why their school did not make it or why certain schools were ranked much lower.

"No Dynamic Prep? Lol, they beat Faith family," one wrote.

"This is way better but I think Prolific is 2 cause they whooped Columbus," another wrote.

"@prolificprepcrew beats the number one team in the country and moves up ONE spot. Come on," another wrote.

Fans react to ESPN's high school basketball rankings (Source: Instagram/sportscenternext)

Many were talking about Prolific Prep only being ranked fourth after beating Columbus a few weeks ago. The Florida school, led by the Boozer Twins, came into the season as the favorites to win it all but was beaten by Dynamic Prep, led by Darryn Peterson.

ESPN's top 5 high school basketball teams

The Link Academy Lions have one of the most talented rosters in the country and are led by Houston commit and five-star power forward Chris Cenac. The school also has six four-stars and two three-stars but has gotten off to a 1-1 start after losing to Utah Prep.

At No. 2 is Long Island Lutheran, which has not yet played regular season games and is led by Syracuse commit Kiyan Anthony. Meanwhile, ESPN has ranked defending national champions Montverde Academy at third. In fourth place is Prolific Prep, which may have beaten Columbus but has lost twice already, the most recent being against Wheeler on Wednesday, 64–62.

ESPN's fifth high school basketball pick is Columbus. Despite its loss against Prolific Prep, it is still a favorite to win a national title, especially with the Boozer Twins leading it.