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Message: [QUOTE="UcMiami, post: 2211103, member: 199"] Thanks for posting this - I find it interesting that we get a lot of comments about the length of the piece (including the OP) which is in fact part of the issue I see in the transfer question. This is a very complex issue and an article that tries to be more than a surface response needs a volume of words to begin to address it. That people comment on that fact is revealing - we are more comfortable with sound bites and short definitive articles, and that translates to the evaluation processes for coaches and recruits. We can now Google our research, but in doing so, we often lose out the depth and breadth of discovery that a slower and more painstaking research process delivered. On to the substance - I thought the first point about the recruiting process was important - most recruiting in the 90s was local - very few programs recruited 'nationally' and even if they did, the national recruits on a team made up a small percentage of the team - everyone else was 'local' or at least 'regional' which allowed for more frequent unofficial visits and a better understanding of the choices for both recruits and coaches. The number of teams (including Uconn) who are recruiting nationally and the balance on teams between national recruits and locals has changed dramatically. Fewer off court common experiences/more cultural differences may lead to less unity. I also think the national recruiting process leads to more disruption in the evolution of individuals within the team over 4 years - more displacement in the pecking order on a team as highly talented 'outsiders' arrive and leapfrog players already on the team. The percentage of transfers is not that big an issue - it remains at under 10% and the increase over the course of the graphs is 2% - if the scale on the graph was 0-100, the increase would be hardly noticeable. What stands out more to me anecdotally is that court time seems to be less of a factor in recent years and the high profile transfer rate might actually represent the majority of the overall increase - starters/major contributors transferring seems to be increasing. [/QUOTE]

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