Has it ever been a more challenging time to pursue a college basketball career?
Today's elite athletes face rules and regulations that seem to shift every year. The decisions made at the NCAA level, such as the 5-in-5 rule and many others, have a cascading effect on how prospects go about their recruiting processes. The battle for visibility, and ultimately scholarships, has never felt more intense.
Can things be easier for high school players?
That's what Steve Hewitt and I wanted to discuss. We brainstormed some way that the NCAA could change its regulations to make college basketball more accessible. These ideas vary in topic, scope and realism — but we're here to get the wheels spinning. Let's dive in.
Ethan: I'm coming out of the gates hot. It's time to abolish the recruiting live (or dead) period. College coaches should be allowed to evaluate 365 days a year.
I could write a whole story about this (and maybe I will). The concept of on-and-off Division 1 recruiting windows is well-intentioned. In theory, it keeps college coaches from having to constantly be on the recruiting trail and keeps prospects from having to face the attention all the time. But in reality, this framework of a recruiting calendar is the root cause of so many issues in youth basketball today.
If we remove the recruiting calendar, live period events suddenly lose most of their luster. College coaches don't have to maximize their opportunities to see as many players as possible at one tournament, in one city, in one spring or summer weekend. They can check up on interested players whenever they'd like.
Additionally, the demand for players to get to these live events would drop significantly. Why take a flight to X major showcase (and spend thousands of dollars) so that X local Division 1 college that's an hour from your house can scout you? Localizing basketball scouting will make life easier for everyone. A wide-open recruiting calendar makes that possible.
Steve: Man, what an opening take. I like it, I'm just not sure how realistic it is. The major grassroots shoe circuits, I would imagine, would fight that hard, because those live period weekends are their most profitable of the calendar. I also think college coaches appreciate the opportunity during live periods to see the best prospects in the country in head-to-head environments, which doesn't exist often in other parts of the year. But I think your proposal wouldn't necessarily eliminate that.
I'll jump off your point with a semi-related one: Can we make those live period events more centrally located? Again, this might not be realistic, because all these circuits are competing against each other and it's hard to expect them to work together. But with events scattered all over the country, it's hard for coaching staffs to see everything and they're most likely splitting up. If there's a way for college coaches to be in front of more recruits in a given weekend, that helps everyone.
Ethan: Yeah, if there wasn't significant money at stake among grassroots organizers, I'd love for this to happen. There is some circuit crossover at non-live period events we cover during the early spring. And on the girls side, the Atlantic City Showcase has managed to mingle at three of the four big-time circuit brands (Select Events, Under Armour, Adidas). But it's rare to see multiple college coaches at one school attend the same live event. Staffs get spread thin.
Onto rule change No. 2: Eliminate the initial contact date entirely.
Typically, college coaches can begin reaching out to prospects directly after June 15 following the athlete's sophomore year. These sorts of first-contact dates are significant markers in other sports. But in basketball, it's essentially a soft request. It's not uncommon for elite players to receive offers in middle school. College coaches can simply have an AAU or high school coach notify the athlete and tell them to call the program — since the reverse outreach is allowed — at any time.
The boundaries of this rule are outdated. College coaches who do follow the spirit of the rule compete at a disadvantage. Athletes know it's possible to get an offer before the June 15 date. So who is the policy serving?
Let's get rid of this rule and the gamesmanship that it creates so that the standards of recruiting are clear.
Steve: You all heard the man. Let's get rid of every restriction.
I'm going to go a different direction with my rule change: The unlimited transfers in college basketball need to end. First off, a lot of it is unhealthy for the game and college players, which has been discussed ad nauseum. I do think the players should have the opportunity to change their situations; there are a lot of factors that go into that. But it's gotten ridiculous, and it feels like it's just free agency every spring and many kids are just chasing paychecks. I think some guardrails need to be put in place; multi-year contracts or one free transfer, something like that.
That would at least somewhat relieve the logjam that's created every recruiting cycle. Every coach is seemingly telling high school recruits that they have to wait for the transfer portal to determine what their roster will look like and if they can bring them in. Well, if there are fewer players in the portal, that would theoretically force college coaches to be more active in high school recruiting.
I was talking about this with a prep coach recently, and he made a good point. College coaches can get burned out, especially around the time the portal opens. It might sound lazy, but they are often going for the experienced college player in the portal instead of doing the work and due diligence that's required to find the right high school player to fit into their program. But you can't really blame them given the landscape.
Ethan: I am very pro-athletes getting paid and getting paid what they deserve as entertainers and revenue generators for their schools. I think collective bargaining is the end result the NCAA is still too afraid of, and when that finally happens, we can have multi-year contracts and eventually some rules around transferring.
Because you're right. Not only is it a headache for college coaches and college sports fans, but it also means high school athletes have to wait until thousands of players get their next steps sorted out. It's logical that available college transfers are coaches' priorities; they're older and have actual college experience.
But so many recruits commit with a vision of a path to playing time based on the current roster — and then that roster can wildly change with the transfer portal. It's so hard to actually set yourself up for a best-fitting school as a freshman. When we get collective bargaining, and when we get multi-year contracts, that at least gives high schoolers some clarity about the program they could join.
Steve: One last thing from me. I initially viewed the new NCAA eligibility rule — the "5-for-5 rule" — a net positive for high school prospects. The clarity we got about the eligibility clock starting the academic year after a player's 19th birthday is a win for the value of postgraduates, and that's still true. The five-year limit should theoretically weed out a significant number of the older college basketball players that have made it harder for high school prospects to get recruited.
But Villanova coach Kevin Willard said something at Big East Media Day on Thursday that caught my eye.
“We’re not recruiting a high school kid this year, so that’s probably a big change,” he said. “(It’s) just because of the fifth-year rule. We have six guys that can come back for a fifth year. So, I’d much rather have one of my players come back than bring in a high school kid.”
That's not much different from what other college coaches have said. St. John's coach Rick Pitino said something similar last year. But I'm definitely keeping an eye on that rule and monitoring how it affects recruits.
