College Coaches Confidential: Transfer portal, recruiting, and NIL (On3)

[huskymedic]

Decent read: College Coaches Confidential: Transfer portal, recruiting, and NIL

-> The transfer portal has caused many coaches to evaluate their philosophies in player development. Do you recruit players out of high school and wait for them to develop? Or do you go into the portal and recruit over players currently on the roster? <-

-> Recruiting in the transfer portal is becoming a two-way street. While there is a lot more information out there on the players, it is also a lot more crowded of a space. “I like recruiting the portal. It’s a more sure thing. There is a lot more data, more stats, more film on players,” an A10 coach told On3. “But the problem with the portal is that everyone is recruiting it, so there are no sleepers there.” <-

-> “The portal kid has been through the recruiting process,” a coach in the ACC said. “They are a little more mature at this point in their basketball lives. They don’t want all the fluff. Instead, they just want to know about fit, opportunity, and developemnt. And, of course, NIL.”

Even with how short the process of recruiting in the portal can be, there is a lot of background information that goes into the recruitment. “Who are the guys that are good enough and can help you win but won’t break the bank with your NIL,” a former coach in the Big Ten said. “You have to figure out your NIL situation and have a good grasp of what you have, what you can do, and what each player wants. And you have to have all that information quickly.” <-

 

[Mister P]

This is a good read.

Adding to the point of the coaches recruiting high school players vs portal players.

You can understand why programs look to sign 3-4 HS recruits to join the returning players and then signing a few more portal players. As coaches stated , portal players are known commodities and “ we don’t recruit high school kids as hard as we used to “

Think about how the transfer portal affects a high school player who may not be a superstar or even an above average player. In the past, a player whose talent was just good enough to receive a scholarship and join a team as piece was offered the scholarship by the team to fill out its allowable scholarship offers. Now, with the portal transfer rule in place, that “average” kid does not get the offer because coaches want someone who is proven and mature. That HS player either can’t afford to go to college at all , drops down a level or two or something else. A kid may lose out on an education all together.

I was talking to a neighbor Friday night. I mentioned in a thread some months ago that this individual held 2 VERY high level positions in NCAA athletics and has a wealth of knowledge and information.
He told me that a D1 coach recently told him that there were more than 50 less D1 basketball scholarships given out to HS seniors in our state last year and the reason was because of schools opting for portal players instead.
That reduction impacts a lot of kids/families lives in just one state.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Sounds right. Big schools will rarely invest in that 3-star kid any more. Let him go to a smaller school and develop there and then grab him in the portal.

I've said before where athletic departments will start setting up feeder systems for State U. Send a kid to Central or Eastern Ct for a year or two and if they develop they get a scholly to UConn. They already do stuff like this for academics.

 

[Chin Diesel]

This is a good read.

Adding to the point of the coaches recruiting high school players vs portal players.

You can understand why programs look to sign 3-4 HS recruits to join the returning players and then signing a few more portal players. As coaches stated , portal players are known commodities and “ we don’t recruit high school kids as hard as we used to “

Think about how the transfer portal affects a high school player who may not be a superstar or even an above average player. In the past, a player whose talent was just good enough to receive a scholarship and join a team as piece was offered the scholarship by the team to fill out its allowable scholarship offers. Now, with the portal transfer rule in place, that “average” kid does not get the offer because coaches want someone who is proven and mature. That HS player either can’t afford to go to college at all , drops down a level or two or something else. A kid may lose out on an education all together.

I was talking to a neighbor Friday night. I mentioned in a thread some months ago that this individual held 2 VERY high level positions in NCAA athletics and has a wealth of knowledge and information.
He told me that a D1 coach recently told him that there were more than 50 less D1 basketball scholarships given out to HS seniors in our state last year and the reason was because of schools opting for portal players instead.
That reduction impacts a lot of kids/families lives in just one state.

Total scholarship allotment doesn’t change. If a low major kis hits the portal and gets a big offer, a scholarship opens up at the low end.

If a JUCO or D2/D3 kid who had to fight his way to a big offer means a marginal HS prospect has to go through a tougher path rather than gettingba scholly and riding the bench, I'm okay with that.

 

[NowInStorrs]

I guess it should be no surprise but we sure went from "players should be able to make money off of signatures and jersey sales" to "I'm going to need X amount of dollars or I'm not interested in your school" pretty quickly.

 

[Kathy]

I guess it should be no surprise but we sure went from "players should be able to make money off of signatures and jersey sales" to "I'm going to need X amount of dollars or I'm not interested in your school" pretty quickly.

It was inevitable.

 

[Rico444]

I guess it should be no surprise but we sure went from "players should be able to make money off of signatures and jersey sales" to "I'm going to need X amount of dollars or I'm not interested in your school" pretty quickly.

Good. They're the ones generating the majority of the revenue, they deserve a bigger piece of the pie.

 

[SubbaBub]

Free market door swings both ways. You want players paid, schools immediately look for value beyond the paper transaction scholarships. You want freedom of movement, schools immediately take advantage of the larger recruiting pool.

The old system where HS had the easier access to talent is now replaced by every player in the country with remaining eligibility is now available to recruit.

The next phase will be players opening bailing on schools in the first semester to be eligible for the next year's NCAA. It's already happening in the shadows. Those players you think should be in the rotation but aren't? That's them.

 

[Palatine]

Coach Penders has been using the lower divisions in the state as a feeder system for some time.

 

[HooperScooper]

Good. They're the ones generating the majority of the revenue, they deserve a bigger piece of the pie.

I don't think most people are arguing against that. People aren't complaining that Paige Bueckers is making a million dollars a year in endorsement revenue. But it's the bigger picture of allowing schools to recruit based on guaranteeing them NIL money that is the issue. This goes against the basic tenet of NCAA competition. Yes I know there were always schools that were offering financial inducements in recruiting that was against NCAA rules. But this new system as it exists is out in the open and has opened up a huge can of worms.

Put it this way, do you think Nijel Pack at Miami has "earned" the $800,000 2 year deal (plus a car) with LifeWallet he was supposedly guaranteed by a Miami booster to transfer there? Or do you think the booster who owns LifeWallet just used NIL as a reason to offer him that kind of money to come to Miami? If you believe the former then I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.

 

[navery12]

Put it this way, do you think Nijel Pack at Miami has "earned" the $800,000 2 year deal (plus a car) with LifeWallet he was supposedly guaranteed by a Miami booster to transfer there? Or do you think the booster who owns LifeWallet just used NIL as a reason to offer him that kind of money to come to Miami? If you believe the former then I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.

100% yes, he has. Even if you were skeptical before, I think it should have become very obvious it was deserved when he led Miami to a Final Four last year

That's the thing about the free market. All these people complain about guys getting paid above market value and that they don't deserve it, and yet schools across the country continue to pay it. So that's the new market

 

[CL82]

I guess it should be no surprise but we sure went from "players should be able to make money off of signatures and jersey sales" to "I'm going to need X amount of dollars or I'm not interested in your school" pretty quickly.

And yet, not unpredictably.

 

[CL82]

100% yes, he has. Even if you were skeptical before, I think it should have become very obvious it was deserved when he led Miami to a Final Four last year

That's the thing about the free market. All these people complain about guys getting paid above market value and that they don't deserve it, and yet schools across the country continue to pay it. So that's the new market

Somewhat agree, except that the market is supposed to be defined by brand value and not on the court value.

In the end though, when you adopt a system that lends itself to facilitate pay for play, you can't complain that it ends up doing just that.

 

[Rico444]

I don't think most people are arguing against that. People aren't complaining that Paige Bueckers is making a million dollars a year in endorsement revenue. But it's the bigger picture of allowing schools to recruit based on guaranteeing them NIL money that is the issue. This goes against the basic tenet of NCAA competition. Yes I know there were always schools that were offering financial inducements in recruiting that was against NCAA rules. But this new system as it exists is out in the open and has opened up a huge can of worms.

Put it this way, do you think Nijel Pack at Miami has "earned" the $800,000 2 year deal (plus a car) with LifeWallet he was supposedly guaranteed by a Miami booster to transfer there? Or do you think the booster who owns LifeWallet just used NIL as a reason to offer him that kind of money to come to Miami? If you believe the former then I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.

I get that is happening, I just don't care. Don't you think John Ruiz thinks he got his money's worth considering Pack lead Miami to a Final Four? Players are being compensated for the value they provide to their schools. I don't see an issue with that.

 

[The Yakk]

I was talking to a neighbor Friday night. I mentioned in a thread some months ago that this individual held 2 VERY high level positions in NCAA athletics and has a wealth of knowledge and information.
He told me that a D1 coach recently told him that there were more than 50 less D1 basketball scholarships given out to HS seniors in our state last year and the reason was because of schools opting for portal players instead.
That reduction impacts a lot of kids/families lives in just one state.

I don't see how this could be true. Think it through. After all the portal transfers, there remain the same number of roster spots for high schoolers. But those spots move from the schools who pick up transfers to the schools that lose transfers.

Your high level friend's coach's friend is probably correct that there were fewer scholarships for high schoolers, but he has the reasons wrong. It is the extra Covid years and grad years that put the squeeze on high schoolers, not the portal.

But your point about high schoolers getting recruited to lower levels is probably correct.

 

[auror]

I don't see how this could be true. Think it through. After all the portal transfers, there remain the same number of roster spots for high schoolers. But those spots move from the schools who pick up transfers to the schools that lose transfers.

Your high level friend's coach's friend is probably correct that there were fewer scholarships for high schoolers, but he has the reasons wrong. It is the extra Covid years and grad years that put the squeeze on high schoolers, not the portal.

But your point about high schoolers getting recruited to lower levels is probably correct.

We're going to see a lot more high 3* players (125-250 rank) going to midmajors and low-end high majors instead of filling out the high majors benches, because those spots are often going to be filled by veteran/grad transfers.