Prior to tonight’s game, I’d been able to catch up with many of the players in this match up during the Blue Chip Basketball Academy Fall League, although West Forsyth had divided up their players into two squads for that league. Coming into the game, both the Titans, which can be bet on by going to platforms such as 벳위즈, and the visiting Glenn Bobcats have struggled, although the season is still young. Less than a week prior, West had eked out a close win on Glenn’s home floor, and this time West Forsyth was missing 3 key perimeter players in Cooper LaRue, Darion Slade and Josiah Jenkins. West Head Coach Rusty LaRue expected that with his depleted perimeter game, Glenn’s Monty Gray would employ a lot of zone, and he was correct.
Both teams exchanged leads throughout the game, with Glenn HS taking advantage of lax transition defense and athletic quicks from Josh Daniels and Crishawn Lindsey; West battled back with a one-two punch of KJ Henry on the inside and Darriel Brown on the outside. Neither team could establish control, although West finished the 3rd up 4 with a breakaway dunk from Maverick LaRue. West finally was able to seize a bit of a lead late in the 4th and managed a 4-5 point lead to hold on for the win. Big takeaways on the team level were the major performance from West’s Darriel Brown, yet abysmal team shooting for the Titans from the free throw line. Glenn’s transition defense and disruptive backcourt defense created multiple turnovers which they were able to capitalize on. Below are some of my scouting notes from the game.
Jackson Striplin (SF/PF, 6’7″, ’17) Glenn HS – plays facing the basket and has very good timing on shot blocks. Showed a nice pull up mid range game but also rushed a couple of shots and cocks his shot back a bit much. Slender but has agility and a good frame. Definitely a player who should be continuing to work but should be on area college radars.
Darriel Brown (PG, 6′, ’16) West Forsyth HS – A stellar night for the senior. Has college level quicks and is deadly going to his left hand. Was the big scorer of the night with 37 points, and scored his 1,000th career point during the game. Had several notable big plays, from taking a key charge to grabbing some steals to help keep his team’s lead, but the big number was his shooting from deep: 6 shots from outside the arc to blister the Bobcat zone.
KJ Henry (F, 6’6″, ’18) West Forsyth HS – one of the best forwards in the region, Henry has agile feet and is a very good passer from the post. Isn’t a pure post player but has great hands and touch. Has a physical build and always under control, he still needs to improve finishing through contact, but is definitely one of the more gifted prospects in the area. A reliable scorer with the ball.
Toby Brown (G, 6′, ’17) Glenn HS – big time bounce and timing from the guard position; literally took a couple of rebounds right off the rim and has a strong build. Moves well without the ball.
Maverick LaRue (G/F, 6’5″, ’18) West Forsyth HS – Larue has been known as a sharpshooter with lithe ability in traffic for some time. Tonight his shot was inconsistent but he plays through contact well from the wing and is a pure wing. Plays either the SG or SF spot and at 6’5″ has an ability to get his shot off over smaller high school guards. Did seem to hesitate a bit with his shot; would want him to recognize those smaller guard mismatches and release quickly when the opportunity is there.
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Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase, NetCast Sports Network and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
It’s no secret that cable television is in trouble and things aren’t improving; millions of subscribers are bailing on the traditional, bundled cable television model in favor of streaming services. There’s little doubt as to why this is happening; bundled cable providers like Comcast and TimeWarner are behemoth corporations with infamously bad customer service. Their rates are continuing to rise at an exponential rate despite overall viewership and viewer satisfaction plummeting. Cable TV’s prices have grown at four times the rate of inflation, with cable subscribers getting an average of 189 channels but only watching 17 of them. Yikes.
The 17 channels-per-household number has been the same since at least 2008, when the average number of total channels was about 129. Which means exactly what it sounds like: over the past 8-10 years, Cable TV has added a whole lot of channels that most people don’t watch. So cable companies keep ratcheting up their prices at a pace that exceeds gasoline and gold (literally), their customers are getting basically the same product. If this sounds like business suicide, it is – but there’s a caveat to this, and it’s the lynch pin that makes the whole model work. Sports programming.
Most cable subscribers don’t know this, but each cable channel has a different wholesale cost – HGTV, CNN, ESPN, Al Jazeera – all charge a base per-month-per-subscriber rate. The argument that has raged for years is that consumers want to be able to buy their cable channels a-la-carte, but that option isn’t available, and it might not even work out to be cheaper in many cases. The power of cable television to networks is twofold: the monthly subscriber fees combined with the advertising revenue from the broadcasts themselves. This model has suffered as many broadcast networks have seen their advertising dollars sink as more people opt for on-demand programming or just stream other content in general, allowing them to avoid advertising, but that isn’t true for live sports.
Live sports still maintains high demand and viewer engagement; unlike a cop drama that isn’t unfolding in real time with real-life consequences, live sports has built-in viewer engagement, especially for close contests with consequences. Channel surfing during commercials is a way of life for us now, but most people aren’t going to change the channel during a commercial when their team needs a first down to stay in the playoff hunt and there’s 1 second left on the game clock. Major league sports, such as the NFL and NBA, have long ago left the days of only having some of their games broadcast. Now every single game is available to watch, somewhere. The structure of the games is actually modified based on the television broadcast, and it goes beyond media timeouts. For example, NFL games have a broadcast crew member who steps on the field during a commercial so that the referees are aware that the network feed isn’t back on the air yet. While you are at home watching a Buffalo Wild Wings or Budweiser ad pitch, the referee at the stadium is watching the broadcast rep to see when he can signal for play to get back underway. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, but it points to where the largest source of revenue for major sports comes from. Sports leagues claim that they get more revenue from ticket sales than broadcast revenue, but their actions speak otherwise. Losing teams who have trouble even getting a half-capacity crowd to their games are likely to be leaning the most heavily on the network deals, despite what they may say. TV broadcast deals are pretty much an arbitrage brokerage agreement. A broadcast network figures out how much it can sell advertising for during games, and pays the league less than that amount for the rights. The problem is, there are only so many viewers for games, and only so much decent content. Showing college football games at 10 am on a Tuesday really isn’t a viable option for several reasons, so ESPN fills this time with ‘SportsCenter’ type content.
This would all be fine, except in order to secure the broadcast rights for the most sought-after games, ESPN and other networks have had to pay higher and higher figures in an explosion of broadcast deals. A point of fact that is lost on many casual sports fans is that many lesser games aren’t profitable to broadcast (at least not with the current cable TV model and overhead), and benefits the teams more than the network. For example, broadcasting a Division III basketball game will give the competing programs some great exposure, but there’s a good chance the viewership will not be nearly high enough to justify the broadcast for a major network. So the competition for ‘high demand’ events is fierce and smaller cable networks cannot compete in any meaningful way.
This high-impact viewer engagement, combined with the steady rise of viewership for top sporting events, has created a golden goose for both sports broadcasters and cable television providers, but they don’t share the same benefits and they are not in complete collusion about profiting from it.
Cable providers love the fact that viewers can’t really get live sports – at least not the live sports they want – consistently from anywhere except cable TV. This includes online streaming, because viewers who can legally and easily stream games like the NBA playoffs are able to do so through ESPN, not a third party, and those viewers are already paying for that service. This means that viewers who want sports will buy the whole cable package…which is convenient for cable companies, because sports viewers may not have wanted to buy anything but sports and they have to pay for the rest of the channels as well. However, the real kicker is the viewers who don’t watch sports. They are subsidizing the sports fans because they get hit with the same package deal. Neither group of viewers wins…but the cable company sure does. I suppose it could be argued that viewers are getting a lower price overall with bundling, but it is a specious argument: those viewers would probably be willing to pay more per channel, for less channels, if their overall bill was much lower. The closest solution cable companies have offered for this is not a solution at all- adding another ‘package’ to your existing package for more localized sports, such as the Pac-10 or Big East. This has actually made it more difficult for new sports networks to get footing, even when backed by major players like NBC. Universal Sports Network was shuttered earlier this year after it struggled to climb off of the lower-tier sports cable packages. The fees for sports channels dwarfs the non-sports channels, but we’ll get into that in just a few minutes. For viewers who don’t want sports at all, there are no viable options other that just accepting fewer overall channels and dropping cable for Hulu, NetFlix and HBO Go (which they are doing, in droves).
The successful sports broadcasters – like ESPN – are the ones who benefit the most from bundling; millions of cable TV subscribers, combined with content that locks in many of those subscribers creates a scenario where the cable sports networks can ramp up their monthly per-subscriber fees. And, to no surprise, they have. The demand for the last bastion of engaged ad viewers has created a bidding war between ESPN, TNT and the other sports networks. In order to pay for those big deals, ESPN and the other networks have demanded bigger subscriber fees from the cable networks. Those fees get passed right down to the viewers. Let’s put this in perspective to explain how wide the gap is between sports programming and other cable programming fees.
In recent reports, ESPN charges between $6.04 and $6.50 per subscriber to cable companies; by comparison, HGTV only costs a mere $.17 cents per month. While it may seem we’re talking dollars and pennies here, it must be pointed out that those $6+ fees are not just coming from sports fans, but every single subscriber. Without the cable bundling packages, ESPN would have to charge significantly more per month to cover their broadcast deals and operating costs. Financial analyst Leo Hindery recently stated that sports programming packages could continue to balloon to the $40 per month range. Another key Wall Street analyst estimates that ESPN would have to charge $36 alone just to pay for the current costs. That’s not even remotely viable in a world where NetFlix costs $10 a month and NBA League Pass is about $200 per year.
It isn’t mere speculation about the potential of subscribers defecting en masse from cable companies, hitting ESPN right in their revenue projections. It was recently reported that 7 million subscribers have dropped in the past two years. At $6 per subscriber, that’s $420 million gone annually from the company that makes up 25% of Disney’s overall business. When this came to light, Disney’s stock took a major hit.
From a company that built its fortune in splash hires and press buzz, they immediately made some sweeping changes that would be deemed as “PR Kryptonite”, including wide scale layoffs and jettisoning some of their highly paid on-air talent. Despite all of the normal press release bingo that comes along with these changes, the real story is that ESPN is cutting expenses – hard. This, while at the same time claiming all is well in the world, and growth is going to continue unabated. Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that the company is “very bullish about ESPN” despite all of the behind-the-scenes scrambling to slash costs. It is likely that Disney and ESPN will show improved profitability in the 3rd or 4th quarters because of this, and this is entirely intended to bolster the stock price and soothe investor concerns. However, cutting costs in the short term is not the long term solution. The reality is that the deals for sports programming may be outpacing the market in a way that will create havoc in a few years; the massive deals that seem to have no ceiling may very well be finding their peak.
What would this mean for sports fans? Well, probably more options, but it would mean paying more attention to which networks or streaming services are carrying the games you want. There’s also the reality that the entire major league sports industry – from franchise fees to collective bargaining agreements – was built on the idea that sports would continue to see ever-increasing broadcast deals. If those deals suddenly are replaced by much smaller fiscal agreements, you’ll see much lower salaries for the players, lower ticket fees, and more broadcast partners all around. I don’t want to speculate too much, but such an event may well open the door for more than one pro league in the various major sports. However, that’s a topic for another day.
For now, it’s important to understand that cable sports – and the sports entertainment industry as it exists today – may be due for a radical shake up in the near future. ESPN continues to ink bigger and bigger deals, the most recent for $1.4 billion being about 3 times the size of their previous deal. So considering the fact that they lost a half-billion in annual revenue while at the same time adding another full billion in expenses means they might need for Disney to have more than pretend fairy-dust to make it all work. All of this explains why you’ve suddenly seen ESPN and other networks so eager to jump into ad deals with DraftKings and FanDuel, which are technically gambling and they wanted no part of prior to this year.
So that’s a truncated explanation with quite a bit left out for later. Coming this week, I’ll have more information on something else – a minor sports league that actually has a viable business model. I know, you guys are familiar with me ripping apart the financials of leagues like the Amerileague or the ABA, so you’ll want to drop in for this one.
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Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase, NetCast Sports Network and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
Location: Gore Arena, Campbell University Teams: Word of God (Raleigh, NC), Cape Fear Christian Academy (Erwin, NC)
Tonight’s game between CFCA and Word of God was really a tale of two halves (I know, I know, high school ball has periods, not halves), with Cape Fear’s zone and fast break causing havok and building a big lead over Word of God early on, but Word of God finding their shooting touch and blistering the nets after halftime to secure the win.
Cape Fear’s backcourt duo of Michael Melvin and Quentin Jackson, Jr. repeatedly broke the press and capitalized in transition, with guard Zach Boggs hitting several deep shots from the corner to help pile on, finishing the first period with a 10 point lead. However, Word of God chipped away at the lead in the second period, tying the game, and in the second half, they moved the ball much better, added better motion from the wings and cutters and started hitting their deep shot. Word of God was able to take control of the game early in the third period and never looked back. Below are some of my scouting notes from the game.
Word of God
Brandon Hoffman (C, 6’9″, 2017) – A developing big who showed good hands under the basket, catching close range drop off passes from the guards and getting two handed dunks as putbacks. Nimble feet and has some length, upside. Needs strength to bang for rebounds more effectively and allowed his post defender to front him far too much. However, definitely a college prospect and a mobile big man.
Jaylen Fornes (SG, 6’3″, 2016) A strong guard who moves very well off of the ball and finds gaps in the defense for half court sets. Plays with some understated swagger. I’ve seen Fornes multiple times and he seems to pick up his contribution as the game progresses, which leads me to think that he first takes time to figure out the other team’s patterns before he starts attacking. Fornes is committed to UNC Wilmington, who had two coaches in attendance tonight.
Jalen Harris (PG, 6’1″, 2016) I’ve been a fan of Harris for several years now and although he still has a slender frame, he has elite quickness and a deft handle. His crossover with the ball is one of, if not the best, in high school right now. He does have an ability to hit the mid range shot and floater, and can use his deadly first step to create space between himself and a defender for the shot. He will need to add strength at the college level, but I believe that will happen. My biggest concerns with Harris continue to be whether or not he is assertive enough when he needs to be.
Blake Harris (PG, 6’3″, 2017) Harris is a good passing guard with a nice floater he can use in traffic. I think he still shows the ball a bit too much with his dribble, but he does patiently pick though the defense in the half court, something I’ve seen him do on multiple occasions, and doesn’t make bad decisions with the ball. Plays well off the ball.
Rawle Alkins (SG/SF, 6’5″, 2016) First time I’ve gotten a chance to catch Alkins. Has good strength for the wing and versatility; showed an ability to weave into traffic and finish with contact.
Cape Fear
Michael Melvin (PG, 6′, 2016) Deft handle and excellent elusiveness with the ball; can beat the press or double team often with the dribble. Has an excellent scoop shot finish that he uses over taller players. He’s an extremely hard player to stay in front of as a defender. I’ve seen Melvin quite a bit and always have always been a fan of his sure handed ability to face pressure; the biggest concern I’ve seen with him is his ability to pass around/over taller defenders. He’s definitely a college prospect but it’s something he’ll have to account for at higher levels.
Quentin Jackson Jr. (SG, 6’4″, 2016) Athletic guard with a high octane motor and some good explosiveness. Offensively, he’s strongest when slashing or in transition; he does need to work a bit on shot selection and passing decisions. I like his timing (had a couple of excellent blocks) but I know his college coaches will expect more defensive consistency overall. Committed to Charlotte.
Ivor Baric (SF, 6’9″, 2016) Croation-born Baric has good hands and plays hard; a decent rebounder and has a nice release from the elbow. Got into foul trouble in the first half even with a couple of nice blocked shots.
Noah Cummings (C, 6’11”, 2016) Soft touch around the rim and good hands, Cummings is a pure post player but conditioning will be an issue. Does a good job of defending in the post without fouling; has a body frame that could pack on muscle and be a banger, but is much more of a half court-set player.
There’s dirty money to be made in recruiting, and it’s about to get a whole lot dirtier.
It’s not made the way people think; most players in the world of college basketball and football recruiting are just trying to land college scholarships. We’re talking about the rare players worth money – potential pro players. These are the types of players who are offered money to play on certain AAU teams; whose parents are given jobs and houses by high profile universities; who are considered a ‘financial asset’ by the very profitable NCAA, NBA, NFL, shoe companies and major universities. They sell jerseys, they pack stadiums and they print money for the corporations that control those sports – at least, until they blow out a knee, or become too old, or, frankly, don’t put up the numbers on the court or field that were expected and no longer generate revenue. To learn more about currency trading, see here the new post about how can you trade fx with VT Markets in France. Kiana Danial’s Invest Diva review may offer further insights and recommendations for those looking to enhance their trading knowledge and skills.”
So, yes, players get paid sometimes. This can happen in a myriad of ways, but usually it boils down to someone at a college or shoe company handing over cash to a third party agent, who then moves the money to players, parents and coaches. In the NCAA recruiting world, people refer to these agents as ‘runners’, but what they would be called in most places would be a ‘bagman’. There are some differences. Let’s talk about them now!
This could get complicated, so I’ll do my best to simplify it. Then we’re going to talk about how this whole system could be about to get wiped out and replaced by the digital age.
First, a ‘bagman’ is someone hired to move money (almost always ‘dirty money’) between two parties. Most people think of the mafia when you mention a bagman, but the reality is there are people who operate in this capacity in lots of places. For example, a major U.S. corporation might want to do business in a certain country (like, I dunno, let’s say…Mexico…or Brazil…or Russia…actually the list is pretty long). The U.S. company doesn’t want to just write a check to a bunch of police chiefs in a another country, so they give cash to a ‘bagman’ who makes sure the right people get money in an untraceable way. This type of thing happens a lot, and it’s where the U.S. Treasury and IRS spend the majority of their time – trying to figure out who is moving cash around unseen. Big companies don’t generally just hand over a paper bag full of cash to some dude who vanishes to stuff a bunch of envelopes. Normally, there is an offshore intermediary (think Switzerland or the Cayman Islands) where there are companies who will launder the money and distribute it anonymously, and eventually it lands in the hands of the people who are on the take.
Now, let’s go back to college recruiting: Some major college wants a highly-sought-after recruit to come and play for them, and they are willing to pay to do it. Now, major universities have donors who will not only put up the money for recruits, but also know how to move money around. These donors, or at least a few of them, know all about moving money through the Caymans and getting it squeaky clean. However, at the grassroots level, cash is king. The parents or coaches of a player don’t care how they get paid; they just want the money in hand, and they don’t want the NCAA to know about it. Sometimes this is a cash envelope handed over during a secret meeting in a gym somewhere. Sometimes it’s new job for a parent with a ridiculously fat signing bonus. Not much of this is illegal (there are some exceptions), but it’s all against NCAA rules. The trick for colleges, agents and shoe companies is getting around all of this without being detected, and that usually boils down to a bagman, or a ‘runner’. The NCAA isn’t the Treasury dept; they don’t (and probably can’t) do sophisticated forensics to try and track all of the money moving around and athletic dept at any given time. They do minor things, like tracking the debit cards of assistant coaches, but if a major booster of the athletics program can move money around and make payments to a bagman without the University’s direct involvement, it becomes nearly impossible for the NCAA to enforce.
Consider this: in order to stop this type of fraud, the NCAA would have to prove that the university coaching staff had contacted a booster of their program and specifically requested a payment to a specific parent or player; Then, that the booster had laundered cash in their own accounts, taken the laundered cash and given it to a third party (bagman) who then gave the money to the parent. To do all of this, the NCAA would not only have to prove the meeting took place between the coaches and the booster, but that the meeting was specifically about a payment. They would have to prove that the booster took funds and moved them around just for the purpose of making that payment. Then, finally, they would have to track those funds to the runner and finally to the person who was actually getting the money. Does this exact thing happen? Absolutely. But tracking this type of money transaction isn’t easy even for the Treasury, so the NCAA doing this is not realistic at all. For all of the fans who believe that such-and-such university is obviously paying players, but the NCAA is just looking the other way, this is the blunt truth. Even if the NCAA is being told about the payments (which is happening, they get tips every day), they aren’t able to track down or prove anything. The NCAA is not a law enforcement agency. When you look at how the NCAA levies down infractions and violations, you will see that they are all in the petty, academic arena: grades being changed, or players not qualifying, or some Division II player getting a free sandwich at a burger joint. This is the arena that the NCAA can investigate. Tracking down laundered payments is not such an easy task.
The breakdown point in these transactions is how many people are involved, and whether or not they can keep their mouth shut. There are known bagmen in NCAA recruiting circles who the NCAA cannot touch, because the bagman is under no legal pressure to talk to the NCAA about anything. However, those runners’ days may be numbered, but not in the way that the NCAA would want.
So, let’s talk about bitcoin360ai. You probably have heard about BitCoin at some point in the past couple of years. If you haven’t, you can read about it at https://www.bitcoinmoney.net/. I don’t want to get into how BitCoin is ‘mined’ or verified (if you really want me to talk about all of that, you can let me know on Twitter). I’m also not going to talk about the basic valuation of BitCoin versus gold or anything like that. There’s plenty of other discussion about that in other places, and that’s not what we’re focused on today. The best way to stay up-to-date on bitcoin news today is by reading DC Forecasts and maintaining a strategic balance between various thematic areas in the cryptocurrency world. Most readers are eager to know the current price of their bitcoin investments or potential purchases. Other readers want to understand the current developments in bitcoin mining, so news about the latest GPUs and other hardware matters the most to them. Bitcoin has recently suffered several attempts to hack its blockchain infrastructure. Therefore, bitcoin investors also want to read what the industry is doing, according to the leading digital currency news portal, to safeguard the trillions of dollars invested in this cryptocurrency.
Let’s just keep things as simple as possible. BitCoin is a digital currency, and it’s not the only one. There’s also others such as LiteCoin and Ripple. But BitCoin is definitely the most known and most widely adopted. You can use BitCoin or VERIDIUM membership tokens to buy things on major retailers like OverStock and TigerDirect. However, the real appeal of currencies like BitCoin and LiteCoin is that they allow you to make payments to anyone in the world anonymously. All you need to send money to another person is their BitCoin address, which is nothing more than a string of letters and numbers, and boom, money moves from person to person without any tracking. The tracking and verification is all done in the open, but the accounts are anonymous, and anyone can create as many anonymous addresses as they want.
Now, how does this impact recruiting? It means that the need for physical, on-the-ground ‘bagmen’ is almost eliminated, and it means shoe companies, agents and universities can make anonymous payments to anyone in the world within a few minutes.
So in our earlier example, let’s take our fictional big-money booster. He or she can set up a BitCoin fund which is intended to just ‘invest in BitCoin’. However, just like gold, BitCoin fluctuates in price. So, to compare the two, let’s say our booster friend dumped $100,000 into gold, but then he price of gold plummeted by 50%, and he sold his gold, effectively losing $50,000. That can happen in BitCoin, too. However, because BitCoin is not tracked, nobody really knows if our booster friend is actually losing money in his BitCoin account, or just letting it sit there. Meanwhile, he could be pushing payments to other accounts (either his own or owned by others) and they could be cashing out. All of this is happening without any monitoring by any government, and BitCoin does not have a centralized governing body. If you look on many venture capital portfolios today, you will see that a vast number of them have ‘BitCoin’ portfolios. Many of these are legitimate; however, the truth is nobody knows if the money going into those BTC portfolios is even there anymore, or if it left as an anonymous payout at some point. For large companies, there is some reporting that has to take place, but there is no law in place that states any BitCoin transactions have to be reported, and the reality is that is the intent of these crypto currencies.
One of the more common ways that recruits are ‘bought’ is with unofficial visits. Let’s say a star recruit flies across country to visit a major college; the college is not allowed to cover the expenses of unofficial visits. However, if someone, like an AAU coach or parent, pays for the recruit’s visit, they may arrive at the University and be handed an envelope full of cash which more than covers the cost of the trip. This is why some major recruits can afford to fly all over the country all around the year. Despite this being a somewhat common practice, there’s the whole ‘how did this money end up in this envelope’ thing we talked through above, and how it came to be in a form of untracked cash, and how someone has to then hand that money over to the person in question.
Now imagine if that cash payment were an anonymous BitCoin or LiteCoin payment. Payments could be made before the flight was taken; payments could be made without the need for the recruit to even make a trip for an ‘unofficial visit. Payments could be made on a regular basis no matter where the player is (playing with USA Basketball in China? No problem! Playing travel ball five states away? Let me send you some cash for a dinner out!) and this isn’t limited to boosters. Shoe companies could make payments to entire rosters of players without anyone knowing it was happening – even the player’s coach could be completely in the dark. A major shoe company could be paying different players a regular salary without any of them even knowing that anyone else on the team was being paid, or what they were being paid.
Not only that, but a player with a mobile phone could be getting regular payments from a company or person without anyone – not his parents, not his coaches nor his teammates – knowing a thing about it. This is a sticky situation.
According to the recent reports on FOAM, a voice in the cryptocurrency world, this actually goes way beyond the NCAA – let’s consider for a moment that pro sports teams could circumvent the salary cap with anonymous payments, especially if they made those payments to an agent first. But with BitCoin or any of the other digital currencies, suddenly anyone can move money around like an offshore holding company.
So what would be the need of a ‘bagman’ in this new digital currency world? There isn’t.
There’s still some issue with how deals are negotiated. It’s unlikely that most universities or boosters are technologically savvy enough to use anonymous browsers and similar technologies. Most deals are probably going to start with a face-to-face meeting, and then a runner who actually makes the terms of the deals known. But once the deal is in place, the money is going to move much faster and more anonymously than ever. If the NCAA had trouble keeping payments out of recruiting before, they are pretty much doomed at this point.
Naturally, the concept of digital currencies and anonymous payments encompasses much more than a few payments from colleges to parents or even shoe companies to players, but it does highlight how much things will be changing very quickly with these new options. Yes, it’s true that individuals and companies could be (and likely are) circumventing political campaign finance laws with BitCoin right now, or paying employees under the table to avoid taxes and other fees. So this isn’t just some little niche problem. But it’s a problem that has much potential impact on the grassroots recruiting world.
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Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase, NetCast Sports Network and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
Names and places have been changed to protect anyone who thinks this might hit too close to home…but these examples are based on true events from the past few years. These are, obviously, not the real names of these coaches, players or schools.
Seated at a minuscule desk forced into a weary office, Steve McKite is searching through scattered piles of dog-eared papers and small notes. McKite was just hired as an assistant basketball coach at Eastbury College, a Division I basketball program, which is his latest stop after his last gig ended as the head coach of a Division II program in the midwest. He had a good thing going in Division II, but coaching changes are inevitable; despite two winning seasons in a row, the new Athletic Director decided the school wanted to go in a ‘different direction’, and McKite, along with his staff, was let go.
Eastbury’s head coach, Lonnie Maxwell, is in his second year on the job; last year was rough, winning only 3 games in front of empty gyms. Maxwell and McKite played together in college and when Steve was fired from his head coaching position, Maxwell asked him to come to Eastbury and try and help him turn things around. Being an assistant coach means more recruiting; Eastbury not only was beaten on the floor last season by teams with better athletes, most of their starting five graduated as well. They need players, and they need them as soon as they can get them. But they need the right players – hopefully good kids who are overlooked.
So McKite’s first job is to hit the recruiting trail and see if he can find some players who are talented enough to help Eastbury win, and then see if he can convince those players to come and play for him – or rather, for Coach Maxwell.
The facilities at Eastbury are less than desirable. The college campus is located in a small, pretty town, but the gym looks more like a high school gym than a Division I college program. Faded paint of the team mascot adorns the entryways and exposed pipes run the length of the hallway leading to the locker rooms. McKite’s office feels like a janitor’s utility closet and he’s pretty sure it was exactly that at some point, because sitting directly underneath the fraying splinters of his desk is a rusty drain.
In order to get players to come to Eastbury he’s going to have to find kids who are unassuming and aren’t expecting the glitz they see on television during March Madness. Fortunately, he already dealt with a loads of that while coaching Division II. Unfortunately, he knows if he had been a bit more successful he might still have that job. He hasn’t finished unpacking yet, with scattered awards and a few boxes sitting on top of what was already in the office when he arrived two weeks ago.
McKite’s left hand finds what he is looking for – a roster list from an AAU tournament he attended a couple of days prior during a jaunt across this unfamiliar recruiting area. He had crisscrossed five states trying to catch as many quality AAU tournaments as possible in a region he has never scouted before. Next to a few players’ names are small notes or marks – indications of players that looked like they might be worth pursuing. On this list he’s got twelve names of players he wants to contact – three of whom he’s already pretty convinced are better than any player Eastbury had last season.
He picks up the phone and starts down with the first on the list.
After a few rings, the automated operator voice jumps in: “You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
Oh, well, cross that name off for now, he thinks. The reality is that many players’ contact details are wrong on AAU rosters. Even though he’s not writing off the player, the reality is he’ll probably have recruits lined up before he ever would be able to track the kid down.
On to the next name.
This time a woman answers the phone on the second ring.
“Hi, I’m coach Steve McKite, calling from Eastbury College. I’m trying to reach a player named Jeremy Hoyle?”
“Oh, that’s my nephew,” the woman replies, then after short pause, “uh…who did you say you were again?”
“Steve McKite. I’m an assistant coach with the basketball program at Eastbury College. I’d like to talk to Jeremy a little bit about his college recruitment, if I could…or I could talk to a parent if I need to.”
“Hold on.”
McKite waits in silence and looks back at his list of names. Hoyle is a 6’5″ small forward who played really well in two games he saw; versatile and athletic, with college size as a wing. It’s likely he already has colleges talking to him, but McKite has to start somewhere.
“He’s not here.”
“Okay, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you know when he might be back? Or does he have a mobile phone?” McKite asks, hopefully. A mobile phone would make the player easier to reach – via text, which is a lot more consistent way to contact teenagers at the moment.
“Yes, but I don’t know his number.”
McKite leaves his number with Jeremy’s aunt and hangs up. Pretty much oh-for-two at this point, he thinks. Ten more players to try on the list. He picks up his phone again and starts punching in the next set of digits.
On the fifth player, he finally reaches the person he wants directly. Marquise Davids, a shooting guard who also was playing a lot of point guard when McKite saw him, answers the phone immediately.
“Hi, I’m coach Steve McKite, calling from Eastbury College. I’m trying to reach a player named Marquise Davids?”
“Yes sir, that’s me, coach. I’m Marquise.”
“Marquise, I caught a couple of your AAU games last weekend. I wanted to reach out and ask you about your college recruiting. I know you don’t know me but I’m going to just come out and ask you – are you being recruited by any other colleges?”
“Yes sir, I did speak to a coach from State a couple of weeks ago. But that’s the only coach. He called me and talked to me a little bit. But nobody has offered me or anything like that.”
They talked for a few more minutes; Davids has a 4.2 GPA and plays for a public school about six hours away. When McKite tells him, “I can’t offer you today but we are interested and want to keep up with your recruiting. Would you be interested, if it worked out, to play for us at Eastbury?”
“I’ll play wherever I can, coach. Wherever is the best place for me, I’ll be there.”
McKite thanks Davids and hangs up. He likes the kid – he’s smart, he’s polite and he sounds mature. But he’s not the first option that Eastbury wants at guard right now. However, the conversation has McKite thinking – a player that grounded and mature might be someone to pay more attention to.
Back to the phone and the next name.
It takes three more calls before McKite talks to a player he really wants – a 6’8″ post player named Luka Felix; McKite is expecting a heavy accent, but is surprised to hear an American voice on the other end.
McKite introduces himself and asks if Felix has other colleges recruiting him.
“Yeah, a few coaches have talked to me, ” he says, “my coach says North Ambrose and Eastern offered me last week…I don’t really know all of the schools.”
“How are your grades?” McKite asks after a few more questions.
“Um, I think they are OK. You would have to check with coach on it.” McKite has heard this before. He gets the coach’s name and number and asks Felix if he would consider playing at Eastbury if they were to offer.
“Where is it?” asks Felix, “Is it D1?”
McKite laughs and says “Yes, it’s D1, man, c’mon, you need to know these things if you are going to be a hooper!”
Next phone call is to Felix’s coach, at a school called Full Court Elite Academy, which sounds less like a school and more like a gym with an administrative office. The school’s website doesn’t even list an athletic program.
Felix’s coach is a man named Darius Hager, who tells McKite that several schools have offered Felix already.
“What’s the possibility we could get involved with his recruitment?” McKite asks.
“Well, I don’t know if Felix wants to play for Eastbury, coach, he’s not sure if he wants to play in your conference. But I might be able to talk to him about it. I can probably help swing him your way.”
“That would be a big help, coach, we do need a big man. I’d like to come by and watch some workouts sometime.”
“Yeah, we can do that. Our gym is pretty tiny, I’ve been working on getting some renovations in here. It really needs some upgrades.”
McKite knows what he’s hearing – the coach wants money. The problem is that if Eastbury had money to pay for players, they would have money to upgrade their own gym. He’s not sure if the coach actually knows what he’s doing or if he’s trying to make money off of a lower end Division I big man. McKite asks about grades.
“His grades are good. We have him qualified, we are good to go. Just let me know when you can come down and we can talk about it.”
McKite agrees on a date to come by the school and hangs up, looking back at the list. Five states of scouting, hundreds of miles driven, hotels, bad road food, ice cold gyms in summer heat…has resulted in talking to 3 potential players, only one of which sounds like a definite Division I player and only one other player which sounds like he can actually stay in college for four years.
It’s late, and it’s been a long day for McKite. Calling the recruits was the last thing he needed to get done before he leaves for the day, and it’s a tough way to finish up. He pulls up Google Maps and starts to try and figure out where Full Court Elite Academy actually is, but the search just shows him an intersection in the middle of some rural fields.
As he grabs his car keys and tries, fruitlessly, to straighten up the already embarrassing mess of papers on his desk, his phone chirps.
It’s an email from Marquise Davids:
Coach,
Thanks so much for reaching out and talking with me today. I just wanted to let you know I appreciate your taking the time and I hope to talk to you again soon. I also wanted to let you know that I am playing in an AAU tournament next weekend and if you are nearby I hope you can drop by. I will send you the schedule when the tournament publishes it.
Thank you again,
Marquise Davids
The tournament dates listed on his email are the same as the date he’s already agreed to visit Luka Felix at his school.
He turns off his phone, turns out the lights and walks down the pipe-lined corridor that leads to the parking light.
Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
So this week I’m delving more into how I rate players in high school, and it starts with two components: where they are ‘today’ (meaning, the day I see them play) and what rating they might reach in an optimum environment. Yes, I know that sounds convoluted, so let me break it down a little bit. Let’s say I see a freshman high school player who I watch play a few times and he looks like he definitely is a college player, but possibly at the ‘low major’ level. That would mean that over the next 3-4 years if he just continues along without much change in his game other than getting stronger and older, he will probably be able to play at that level of college (more about ‘level of college’ later). However, a high school freshman has time on his side; over those 3-4 years he may work extremely hard on his weaknesses, may grow much taller, and may mentally mature a significant amount. So let’s say I see a player who is 6’4″ as a freshman and is playing as a power forward. The reality is that a 6’4″ power forward is common in high school but will be limited in college – most colleges at the Division I or Division II level are going to be looking for at least 6’7″ and 6’8″ post players if they can get them. In Division I, players who are 6’4″ or 6’5″ usually fall somewhere between shooting guard and small forward, and it’s not uncommon at all for high major schools to have 6’7″ small forwards and 6’4″ point guards.
The gap in time – and the amount of change that can occur in players from their freshman year in high school and the time the graduate – is the reason why it’s not very accurate to rate or rank players before their junior year. As I said, I don’t see rankings as much of a tool in scouting players, but even for ratings (which I do use) rating a freshman is risky. So let’s go back to our fictitious 6’4″ post player. Let’s say he’s athletic and has decent footwork in the post, good hands, and can score out to 15′, and as we said, he looks solid enough to actually play in college. In reality, he’s probably going to fall somewhere in the NAIA or possibly Division II range, but there’s just as much chance he would be a Division III player. But here’s where it gets tricky – let’s say he has great quickness and agility already, and there are several things he might be able to do to move to the perimeter – improve his dribble, extend his range, add moves and explosiveness to his first step. A hard working player who trains on these things and already has athletic ability may develop into a shooting guard or small forward in a couple of teenage years. If he already looks like a college player who is undersized, then either two things can happen that improve his rating: a growth spurt or he moves to a different position. If I look at the 6’4″ power forward who I already think is at least an NAIA or Division III player but is undersized, but I think he could move to the wing and have the same effectiveness, then I have to give him a higher ‘potential’ rating. So in this case, let’s say that if this player works like mad and does all of the things he needs to do on the court to improve, and I think he could end up as a mid major wing player, then his ‘potential’ rating – the second component of scouting a high school player – would fall into the ‘mid major’ range. So if I rated this player he might have a current rating of NAIA/4 or Division III/5 but a potential rating of MM/3. An important caveat to this is that players do not stop developing once they leave high school. The vast majority of players will not see significant minutes on their teams until their junior year of college, and will have added considerable muscle and strength during that time. While it does matter what the roster situation is (such as arriving at a college who has no starting PG and all underclassmen guards) as a general rule, the player who commits to college is still considered a developing project in almost all cases.
Now I know what you’re thinking – that’s a huge gap to make up, and you’re right. Normally the gap isn’t that wide. Most players end up pretty close to where they initially rate at, but since the player has several years of teenage growth ahead of them, it’s not out of the question. When rating players, their age/grade matters a lot in this gap. Obviously a senior player halfway through his season doesn’t have the years ahead of him to allow for this gap in ratings. If our player listed above was a senior, his current rating (NAIA/4) and his future rating are going to be very close. There also the fact that teenagers are usually still adjusting to their new height/size all of the time. A 6’9″ player as a freshman may be awkward and raw, but by the time he’s a senior he might have a killer drop step and hook shot. It’s rare this occurs, but that’s where the gap falls.
Okay, so with all of that said, I know I am skipping over the difference here of what a ‘2’ or ‘3’ rated player is and a ‘5’. I’ll have more on that this week. For now we have to stop and address what a ‘high major’, ‘mid major’ or ‘low major’ school is, the differences between Division I, II and III and the misunderstood aspect of NAIA basketball. You can check here historical blog for all information related to basketball.
Mid Major, High Major and Super High Major
For purposes of record, there technically is no official designation of ‘high major’ or ‘mid major’ Division I colleges, and no college refers to themselves as ‘low major’. Only scouts do that, but there is a reason for that and I even take it a step further. I see a difference between high major colleges and ‘super high major’ colleges – these are the colleges that have multiple McDonald’s All-Americans on their roster, among other things. The designation between all of these Division I colleges can change – just because a school is winning today doesn’t mean they will still hold that ‘high major’ status in 10 years when they are perennial cellar dwellers.
Generally speaking a ‘super high major’ meets the following criteria:
Plays in a ‘high major’ conference, such as the ACC, Big 10, SEC or Pac 12
Almost always make the NCAA tournament
Routinely advance to the Final Four, Elite Eight or compete for a national title
Are rarely not in the Top 20 and normally are in the Top 10 during the year.
Routinely have recruits from the McDonald’s All America, Jordan Brand Classic or USA Basketball roster
Routinely have players who leave early as NBA draft picks, often as first round picks
Have major recruiting budgets, fan base and merchandise sales that rival (or surpass) some pro teams.
Obviously, there are very few schools that would fall into the ‘Super High Major’ designation, but these include schools that are most obvious:
– Duke
– Kentucky
– North Carolina
– Kansas
– Arizona
– Michigan State
– Connecticut
– Syracuse
– Florida
– Indiana
There are others, but there aren’t many. Don’t email me about how your school is ‘super high major’. However, once you leave the rarefied air of the super high majors, here’s where the designation can start to get fuzzy between ‘high major’ and ‘mid major’. A high major school, by my definition meets ALL of the following criteria:
Plays in a ‘high major’ conference, such as the ACC, Big 10, SEC or Pac 10
Routinely has a winning record and competes for the conference title
Often makes the NCAA tournament
Is often ranked in the Top 25
Has players every few years who are drafted into the NBA, regardless of round, or make an NBA summer league roster
So this list would be much, much longer – too long to list. But there are two problematic things with my ‘high major’ criteria above: schools who play in ‘high major’ conferences but rarely compete for the conference title, rarely make the NCAA tournament and rarely are ranked nationally. Are these schools really ‘high major’ schools? Not by my definition. And then, we have the schools who do win consistently, make the NCAA tournament, and even have players heading to the NBA; those are not technically ‘mid major’ schools just because they reside in a ‘mid major’ or ‘low major’ conference.
Examples of high major schools who do not play in high major conferences are pretty obvious: schools like Butler and Gonzaga would definitely meet that criteria. While I do think that these schools benefit by not playing in a high major conference, there’s no argument that even if they did, they would still be able to make the NCAA tournament and be in the upper tier of the conference standings, and both schools have multiple NBA players and deep NCAA runs over the last 10 years. Wichita State and VCU (under Shaka Smart) probably fall into this category, or are pretty close to it. San Diego State and SMU under their current coaches are definitely recruiting more like high majors than mid or low majors.
So, what are ‘mid majors’ and what are ‘low majors’?
My ‘Mid Major’ criteria:
Plays in a high major conference but doesn’t consistently win OR plays in a ‘non high major’ conference but routinely wins or competes for the conference title
Often makes the NCAA tournament over a span of time
Is always a possibility for the NCAA tournament field, whether by conference title or at-large
Has a winning record over time or during current coach’s tenure
May have players who make NBA summer league rosters or play internationally.
By this designation, schools in the ACC, Big 10 or SEC who don’t consistently win are mid-majors. I know this sends people into a fury, but this is the reality of it for me- schools like that aren’t competing for the same recruits as the high majors, aren’t consistently winning and generally are destined for coaching turnover if things don’t improve. These schools are the ones who really need to find under-the-radar high major players who have slipped through the gaps of the high and super high majors so they can get back into those upper reaches. However, there are schools (like Davidson) who play in a conference many would designate as ‘low major’ but win so consistently that they would fall under my definition of ‘mid major’.
But, why do I need these definitions, anyway? It matters because I need some way of determining where a player might be able to compete and which schools could actually be a good fit at the current time. Over the years, despite what people really want to believe, teams that don’t make the NCAA tournament (and I’m ignoring any outside of the field of 64 – ‘play ins’ are irrelevant) are not competitive with teams that do make the tournament. The blunt truth is that the NCAA selection committee is very good at making their choices, and for those few mistakes, there are hundreds of selections that are proven correct. I have to rely on the years of documentation for this – this season Wichita State, which plays in the Missouri Valley Conference, knocked off Alabama during the regular season and then downed Indiana and Kansas in the NCAA tournament. By my definitions above, Alabama’s basketball program falls into the ‘Mid Major’ category and Wichita State is pushing up into ‘high major’ territory. I’m not trying to upset Tide fans here, but on the basketball side of things, their recruiting reach isn’t high major as it stands today. Alabama isn’t going to be competing with Kentucky for many recruits, and they might not be able to beat Wichita State out for some recruits right now – at least while Gregg Marshall is coaching for the Shockers. And here’s where it gets really tricky – if I rate a player as a ‘Mid Major’ talent, does that mean it’s more likely he’s a fit for the talent level at Wichita State or Alabama? Does it mean he can’t get minutes on either team because they are sort of both ‘high majors’. There are players on Duke that never get major minutes – are they all high major players? The answer is no. So just because a player is rated as a ‘mid major’ doesn’t automatically mean he’s not going to play (or ride the bench) at a high major. And just because a player is rated as a ‘high major’ does not that mean the ‘super high majors’ are going to come after him, either.
See why I scoff at the ‘five star’ system? Explain to me the difference between a 2 star player and a 4 star player. There are Division II players who are headed to pro careers overseas while there are Division I players who won’t play another game after college ends. In the ‘star rating’ system, the DII players would probably not even have stars. But a 6’7″ player rated at DII/5 and who reaches his full potential on a solid Division II program has a legitimate shot at professional ball on some level. How in the world is that ‘no stars’? And many of the players in the NBA were 2 or 3 star players in high school – how does that work, exactly?
If I rate a player as a MM/5 (mid-major/5) it means that by the time he is a college senior, he could start and be a significant impact player for any mid major in the country. Any player who can be an impact player at that level could also get minutes at most high major colleges, too, but probably wouldn’t be a starter. And we’re talking over four years of college. I hesitate to publicly rate a player as MM/3 or LM/2 because parents, high school coaches and players will fly off the handle but the reality is, most players aren’t even good enough for Division III basketball. Rating a player as an LM/5 means that he can go to a ton of Division I conferences, play and get minutes and likely be a major contributor on a team by the time he’s a senior. Rating player as a D2/5 technically means he’s so good he could play Division I but might be a better fit at the right DII program.
Now for the last item, let’s talk about the NAIA. The NAIA is often lumped into the same level as Division III, and although Division III basketball is far superior to what the majority of fans think, NAIA is a competing organization to the NCAA, not just Division III. There are some very good players and teams in NAIA and most fans have no idea that there is a whole different set of recruiting regulations and structure for NAIA.
I know this is a long read, but there’s a lot more I need to expound on – such as how the Impact Ratings are determined for players and why you should separate the lottery picks from the vast majority of players.
Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
As in past years when I’ve covered the EYBL, I’m always impressed by the format and organization – it’s a fantastic chance to scout many of the top recruits in a single location. This year the big draws were Harry Giles and Jayson Tatum, the #1 and #2 players in the 2016 class respectively. I didn’t get a chance to catch as many games as I wanted (this is always the case) but nonetheless, here are my notes from the 2015 event. Where applicable, I’m also including my actual ratings for players – as most people are aware, I am not a big fan of rankings, but rather I focus on ratings, and that means ratings beyond just ‘five stars’ or ‘three stars’. I’ll be posting much more about my rating system this week. For now, just know that ‘high major’, ‘mid major’ and ‘low major’ are the breakouts of Division I, and that I consider a player who is a ‘HM/5’ to be almost a lock for the NBA and the scale goes down from there. So players who are three or four year players at a high major school and may be NBA players tend to fall into the HM/4 or even HM/3 range. I also don’t consider every school in the ACC or SEC to be equal and I don’t consider every player on a high major roster to be HM rated players. As recent examples, I had Kyrie Irving rated as HM/5, Anthony Davis rated as HM/5 and James Michael McAdoo rated as HM/4, because I was less sure McAdoo was a pro prospect. Schools like Duke, Kentucky and UNC are generally only looking for HM/3, HM/4 or HM/5 level players. Some additional notes are: I never rate a player publicly unless I’ve seen him a minimum of 3 times; I rate players based on their actual age as well. I pay ZERO attention to who has offered a player.
Harry Giles (PF/C, 6’10”, 2016) CP3 All-Stars – Even though I’ve seen Giles many times over the years I haven’t written much publicly because he never needed the exposure. But Giles has become one of the best high school players I’ve ever seen. He’s fluid and quick with elite athleticism and size. Even as a freshman, he had a pro level slashing move and finish hook, but now he’s expanded that first step so it’s extremely difficult for big men to stay in front of him. His handle is more like a small forward and he has elite timing. It’s no secret he’s considered an NBA lottery pick. Areas for improvement might be continuing to add strength for the pro game and free throw consistency, but it should be noted how much work Giles has done after his injury to improve on his already solid skill set. Rating: HM/5.
Jayson Tatum (SF, 6’9, 2016) St. Louis Eagles – Tatum is explosive and has a light bounce and handles from the SF spot at an elite level. Shot elevates and releases in a flash and even though he can show incredibly dexterity getting to the bucket, it’s going to be off the charts once as he continues to add strength. Another player who is likely one-and-done, he and Giles are the only two players I see as locks for the NBA at this point in the 2016 class. Rating: HM/5
Travis Atson (SG, 6’5, 2016) PSA Cardinals – Atson is a dynamic playmaker from the wing who looks like he could play from the SG or SF spot effectively. Quick, active player who has excellent passing vision from the wing and good look-ahead passing. Can finish above the rim, shoot, and get himself to the line. Tough player who looks like he is mentally and physically ready for college.
Jordan Ford (PG, 6′, 2016) Oakland Soldiers – Elite speed guard, deadly end-to-end scorer who can and does blow by people. he can run the point but is so effective at getting inside or getting open for shots that he should be considered a score-first PG. Deadly floater and finisher.
Ira Lee (F, 6’9″, 2017) Oakland Soldiers – above the rim, active athlete and has a nice running floater that is hard to stop at his size. Plays facing the basket and probably should be considered a 3/4 type player depending on the size of the opposition. Excellent bounce and timing.
Cyril Langevine (C, 6’8″, 2016) NJ Playaz – still a bit raw but a lot to like in a post player with good strength already and a frame that looks like he will be a beast once he gets to college. Decent shot blocker but his timing needs a bit of work. Good hands.
Charles O’ Bannon (SG, 6’5″, 2017) Las Vegas Prospects – O’Bannon is a high level scoring guard who is a bucket getter, and in multiple ways. A solid scoring option no matter whether he’s in the half court or transition, has excellent pull up on the move, can easily create his own shot. Squares up well and is consistent even from mid range. Problem for defenses and is the type of player who can drive opposing coaches crazy even with good defense.
Lonnie Walker (SG, 6’5″, 2017) Team Final – Walker is a solid, big time scoring guard with high major size and ability. He can score both slashing to the basket and with the deep shot, and he can finish in traffic with his agility. As a 2017 player, I expect him to be a significant pick up for a high major school.
Samuel Japhet-Mathias (C, 6’11”, 2017) PSA Cardinals – Pure center with soft hands and big space-eating physique. Physically imposing and makes it very tough to score in the paint with his size. A half court style big man with potential.
Marques Bolden (C, 6’11, 2016) Pure center with decent poise and polish in the paint. Good hands and has a very good up-and-under move to finish. Does pass out of the double team when it comes but made multiple turnovers when doing so. Half court style player. Does box out very well. He is a solid big man at the Division I level but I will have to watch him a lot more to see if he’s worthy of the high rankings that have been given him – I just didn’t see enough during this tournament to accurately judge.
Paul Washington II (F, 6’7″, 2017) Team Penny – athletic forward who can be dominant around the rim at times with his explosiveness. Bigger, slower post players have trouble staying in front of him because of his athleticism, but he’s not really a pure post player at all.
Grant Williams (PF, 6’8″, 2016) CP3 – Williams is a guy I’ve written about before and I love the physical presence he brings to the game. He is a big player – about 250 lbs – but has bounce, nimbleness and shot blocking that allows him to play either at the 4 or 5 spot. His shot blocking is excellent and he has that coveted timing that translates to every level – he gets putback buckets by the handful and is one of the key guys that can clean up when a team’s shots aren’t falling from the perimeter. Not ready to make an assessment on Williams but he’s definitely a Division I big man.
Andrew Jones (SG, 6’4″, 2016) Pro Skills Elite – scorer who is a high motor, high octane wing and can run some point but is really effective as a passer or scorer from the wing. Made a lot of nice plays on the offensive end but was very effective and disruptive in the defensive passing lanes.
Alterique Gilbert (PG, 6’1″, 2016) CP3 – Gilbert is an excellent, poised guard with a deft handle and a true PG who runs the offense, I like where he is always looking to go with the pass and doesn’t over dribble. However, even with all of that, what really impressed me about Gilbert was his defense – he has elite lateral quickness on defense and he uses it.
Vaughn Covington (PG, 6′, 2016) Team Final – vocal point guard who is a gamer, gets into opponents’ heads and can drop big time deep shots. Has a toughness about him.
Derrick Funderburk (F, 6’9″, 2016) King James Shooting Stars – Thin but incredibly agile forward with great length. Really a prospect that should be watched – has a good handle from the PF spot and elite athleticism/size. Funderburk is committed to Ohio State and he’s going to be a big time get for them.
Lamar Stevens (PF, 6’7″, 2016) Team Final – Stevens is a physical, powerful and athletic post player who was a major factor in his team’s win over Harry Giles and CP3 during pool play. To be blunt, Stevens matched up defensively very well with Giles because he is one of the few players I’ve seen with the athleticism and size to deal with him. However, as good as Stevens looked against CP3, he was not a factor later in the day and I do wonder if he was dealing with fatigue. Stevens’ performances are exactly why I never rate guys until I’ve seen enough. I will definitely watch him multiple times this season, as his first performance looked incredible.
Henry Baddley (SF, 6’5″, 2016) King James Shooting Stars – I really love Baddley’s game because he’s a beast from the perimeter – did show an ability to drop the deep shot but he’s a physical bruiser who attacks from the wing with power.
Jordan Tucker (SF, 6’8″, 2017) NY Lightning – has a textbook jumper, and at 6’8″ his high release is extremely difficult to guard. Moves well without the ball but at least when I saw him in this tournament he seemed to struggle with consistency and wasn’t creating his own shot as much as moving to the open wing off of curls.
Carlos Johnson (G/F, 6’5″, 2016) Oakland Soldiers – power guard who bangs hard and is a bruiser at the rim. Goes up for putbacks or dunks and tries to two-hand slam everything he can. Versatile and strong.
Markus Howard (PG, 5’11”, 2017) Las Vegas Prospects – Howard fits the mold of the type of PG who rarely makes bad plays, but then as the game progresses, starts burning the defense with his deep shot and consistency. The type of guard who doesn’t miss transition layups and you can’t leave open on the perimeter.
Dylan Painter (C, 6’9″, 2016) Team Final – I had the opposite experience watching Painter as I did with his teammate Lamar Stevens. Where Stevens looked great in his early game but faded in the second, Painter struggled against CP3 but looked like a monster in his second game on the same day. Showed excellent rebounding timing and shot blocking, and one thing he did in every game I saw him was a a consistent two-hand tomahawk on the move or catch.
Elijah Pemberton (SG, 6’4″, 2016) NY Lightning – Good scorer and finisher and not the type of player to leave open on the perimeter – active on both ends and worked hard; at times when I watched the Lightning they seemed to go through periods of scoring difficulty and Pemberton was the only player who consistently attacked; can also create his own shot.
Schnider Herard (C, 6’10”, 2016) Proskills Elite – Excellent strength, size and awareness in the post. Looks like he could blow up with a good big man coach; can be sometimes taken out of the play and is a half court type center, but definitely not a big stiff and has great post size.
Michael Diggins (SF, 6’6″, 2016) Las Vegas Prospects – Diggins is slender and has eye-popping bounce and a fluid slashing ability. Needs to add strength but as he does I would expect him to rocket up in the ratings and he’s definitely the type of impact athlete for college.
Jayden Hardaway (G, 6′, 2017) Team Penny – excellent scorer and is the type of player who knows how to get his points within the team offense – kind of a silent killer, never looks like he’s forcing shots but will have 20+ points at the end of the game. Nice quick release on the move as well.
Nazeer Bostick (SG, 6’4″, 2016) Team Final – very fluid slashing wing with size and really knows how to play off of the ball in the backcourt. Collegiate size at the off guard spot and scoring.
Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
If you are looking for a basketball scholarship, please take a moment to read this.
First, let me back up and start at the beginning. Or, at least, a beginning.
A bit over five years ago, my good friend James Blackburn and I were sitting in a frigid gym, frustrated and fed up. After several hours of sitting on cold metal bleachers in overlooking courts with no heat in March, we’d scouted about 60 high school players in an open run style showcase. We scouted every single player at the event…but let me explain why we did it, and why it infuriated us. Finding table covers wholesale for your party rental company or event venue is a snap with CV Linens.
When we walked into the gym, we never saw the event organizer (he never showed) and there were no college coaches in attendence. There were no media in attendance. There were over 60 kids who had paid $150 each, or about that much, to get scouted, and there was no one there to see them. We were the only people who showed; no media, no colleges, no scouts…nobody but James and myself. The players were basically left on their own to warm up, and eventually a few coaches and ‘referees’ showed up to organize the games, but the qualifications for being a ref were basically ‘have a whistle’. One ‘ref’ per court, and the ‘coaches’ at the event were texting on the sidelines, paying no attention to the games, as the players subbed themselves in and out of the game.
So James and I looked around and decided that these kids deserved better than to be scammed; we decided that if we were the only people who came to see the players, then we would watch them all and make sure someone actually scouted them. We sat down and watched basketball all day and we found several college level players. Time has passed and I can confirm that this is not speculation; over a dozen of the players we saw that day are currently playing college basketball, a couple have gone on to play at the Division I level.
Now, there are good individual showcases that exist…but this was definitely not one of them, and there are too many that spring up which just look to make money off of young players and naive parents who think they are going to show up to a gym packed with ACC coaches and national media. This is similar to why I rant about middle school rankings, but that’s a different topic. To be clear, there are a few showcases that are very good. I don’t want people to think I’m painting with a broad brush here.
So that day, after seeing all of those good players, I told James that we needed to put together a showcase that actually gave the kids what the bad showcases promised. We would bring in some players we knew could play and had name recognition, we would call some colleges we knew, we would try to sign up players who were under the radar and we would charge as low of a price as we could. We would get some of the best high school or AAU coaches we knew to interact with the kids. My goal was simple: every kid who came to my event would walk out a better player, even if that only meant he was more knowledgeable about the recruiting process or learned a new drill.
It was, in retrospect, a naive ambition; putting on an event is incredibly expensive. The week before our first event I barely slept, trying to organize and pay for everything without losing too much money. Kids would commit to coming to the event only to back out the following day. Colleges would commit to coming only to back out. I scrambled to put rosters together that would make good match ups on the floor. We met with coaches, we tirelessly contacted media we knew, we pitched sponsors. It took a Herculean effort, and by the time of the event we had about 40 players show up, a half dozen colleges, a TV news channel and some minor sponsors. I lost about $700 on the first event…but about two-thirds of the players who came to that first event went on to play in college. Four players who had no college interest were offered by colleges at the event. I suspect the coaches and staff that helped me put together the event felt badly for me, losing money on the attempt. I was ecstatic, and as I drove home in my SUV crammed full of camp equipment and Gatorade coolers, all I could think about was how good it felt to see a player who had almost given up being offered a college scholarship by a college coach. For me, it had been a resounding success.
Since that first event, we’ve grown tremendously; We landed on ESPN’s top 10 in 2013; we’ve had players who went on to become McDonald’s All Americans and had multiple players who went on to high major schools. We added Pepsi, Subway and Champion as sponsors (many thanks to their generosity) and added much more national and regional scouting coverage. MaxPreps has stated more than once that our event is one of the biggest on the East Coast and it’s much appreciated. Phenom Hoops and Rivals have been supporters of ours for some time and that’s greatly appreciated as well.
We accomplished this by sticking to same basic formula:
Bring in some known players so college coaches know the talent level is strong
Bring in as many under the radar players as we can so college coaches can see how they fare against good competition
Use high quality, highly engaged, diverse coaches for the staff. Coaches’ schedules prevent them from being able to work the camp every single year but we have been incredibly fortunate that we have been able to have so many dedicated coaches involved over the years. This is extremely important to me, because the players interact with the coaches all day.
Scout every player, and have scouts on every court
Elite drills and warm up – we’ve scouted NBA practices and camps so many times over the years that we know the drills that elite players have access to, and we bring them to high school players. We put so much work into the drills that we had to reduce the number of games from 3 (our first year) to two because players were getting too gassed by the end of the day.
We actually LOWERED the price over the years. What’s that? You say the economy’s doing well and inflation is normal? Not for us.
We work every year to make sure that players get some type of improvement. The reality is that we can never make everybody happy; but my goal isn’t to make everybody happy, it’s to try and deliver what we promised and help as many players as we can.
We have recruiting experts come in and speak to the parents and players about the realities of getting recruited for college, and they are available all day.
There have been pitfalls along the way as well. New people and organizations enter the grassroots scene all of the time, and some are fantastic people, but many are not. We’ve been called names, we’ve had derogatory things said about us and our event, and we’ve had people become angry because they thought we were playing favorites. Many of the people who have told parents not to come to our events are people I’ve never even met and certainly weren’t involved in grassroots or high school ball five years ago. There’s also the misconception that we are somehow making massive amounts of money off our event – my reaction to that is always the same: if you think it’s easy, there’s no one stopping you from trying it. If it’s reputable, I’ll even do everything I can to help you. But if you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re looking for a money grab, or you just want to spout nonsense, keep quiet. I’m not listening. It takes no courage to complain, because it does not leave you vulnerable. It takes far more courage to stand up and tell people about something you like, because people can attack you for it. So either stand up for something positive or step aside. I have no time for your silly braggadocio.
I honestly don’t know how much longer we will put on our event. It’s been a big success and I’m elated at how far it’s come. However, the work involved is immense and you never know when it will come to a point where I just no longer have the time to put in to make it run the way I want it. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. I’ve certainly made mistakes and I’ve worked to correct them immediately.
So what I’m saying is this: if you are interested in what we stand for at Basketball Elite, please consider attending our 2015 Southeast Summer Showcase. If we can help you in any way,now or in the future with your goals for college (or even your goals for life), we will. Honestly, even if you don’t attend to play but just want to come and talk with me or anyone on our staff, you are welcome to do so.
Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
To say that North Carolina is a hotbed of grassroots basketball is an understatement, and one of the most pivotal and influential people involved in the AAU and high school scene is Rick Lewis, a nationally know basketball scout whose company, Phenom Hoop Report, organizes and runs dozens of events throughout the year. Rick and his partner Jamie Shaw cover the region thoroughly and people who have known me for some time or follow me on various social media know that I have long been a supporter of Rick’s events and his approach to the sport.
One of my favorite business books is ‘Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive‘ by Harvey McKay and that title certainly describes what it feels like to try and run a reputable, upstanding business (or even non-profit) in the world of grassroots basketball, and Rick has managed to do just that.
As a person who has organized my own Southeast Summer Showcase for the past 5 years, Rick is also one of the few people I can talk with about the issues that come up when running events. He and I have talked about our events over the years and he, like myself, is dedicated to constantly figuring out what his company can do better and improve it.
One of his more brilliant ideas was introduced last year, and I’d like to see it implemented in a lot more events. I call it ‘The Rick Lewis Rule‘ or even the ‘Rick Lewis Three Dribble Rule‘…I know Rick well enough that he doesn’t care about getting credit, but I feel it’s important to note the strategy, why he implemented it, and why I think more individual showcases should implement it. And if I’m going to ‘borrow’ (steal) Rick’s idea and use it, I feel I should at least give credit where it is due. I hope more high school coaches will use it in practices, too.
As a high school basketball scout, I need to see halfcourt offense, for multiple reasons. The primary reason is that once players get to the college level, they are going to have to play against half court sets all of the time – in fact, most of the time. In high school and AAU players who are extremely athletic can look very good because they get breakaway dunks and can finish in transition over smaller, more slow-footed defenders. However, when those same players are faced with an equally athletic defender in a halfcourt set, suddenly they can look pretty average.
The second reason is I need to see if a player can actually create their own shot, if they understand spacing, if they can shoot consistently against a close out, all of the things they will need to do as an individual to play better team ball – and one of the biggest part of being a valuable part of a winning team is being able to pass the ball. I love watching teams that understand ball movement. I get more excited watching a team whip the ball around the perimeter to the weak side for an open look than I do a transition dunk. And you know what? Players that know how to move the ball around are far more rare than athletic dunkers. Don’t believe me? Consider that Lebron is a good dunker but a Hall of Fame passer and you’ll understand. Lebron James is the best passing forward in NBA history – he won’t make the Hall of Fame because of his dunks (no one does) but he will in large part because of his passing ability.
Over the years I’ve watched thousands of guards play at the high school and AAU level and one thing is abundantly clear – players aren’t great at passing in general and there is an epidemic of guards who don’t understand how -or why- to throw an entry pass to the post. If you are a wing player, throwing and entry pass should be more common than a behind-the-back dribble, but teams will run multiple sets, several times up and down the floor, with the guards and wings never even looking at the post to throw a pass. The highest percentage offense a basketball team can have, and most players on the perimeter don’t use it. When running an individual showcase, it’s extremely common for the games to turn into track meets – the fastest wing players shoot the gaps, get steals and transition shots (often poorly chosen shots) while the post players are left to trail behind, never getting into the offense or even rebounding position. It’s a struggle to organize the games in such a way to facilitate real offense against real defense, which helps the players improve but also shows attending college coaches what the players can actually do.
Of course, there’s also the problem of players overdribbling, trying too much one-on-one, overlooking teammates…it all stems from the ragged style of play where there is no real team work or movement.
Here’s where Rick’s ‘3 dribble rule’ comes in. In recent events, Rick introduced a basic rule that players are only allowed 3 dribbles in the frontcourt or it would result in an offensive turnover. That one change dramatically alters how players can run an offense, and it’s for the better. Players are forced to move, pass and work as a unit to try and create an open shot. However, this did not eliminate enough of the transition ‘open court, no defense’ play that happens, so in a recent event, he added some additional rules as the games continued. In the players’ second game of the day he instituted a rule of ‘maximum of 3 dribbles in the frontcourt with a 2 pass minimum’ before a shot could be taken. This eliminates a lot of the transition game and forces players to wait on teammates. Finally, Rick wanted to address the overlooking of the post entry pass, and the last game of the day he added another wrinkle – players still had to make 2 passes but one of the passes before a shot could be taken had to be an entry pass to the post. It didn’t matter if the post had to pass back out, it just means that the pass has to go into the post at least once during the halfcourt set.
So, here’s what I observed as a scout after these rules were implemented. Suddenly very few players seemed to know what to do. They would dribble, pass around the perimeter, and dribble again, aimlessly. Meanwhile I watched as the center had already sealed his man on the blocks, only to watch his teammates overlook him and pass the ball back around and he had to slide across the lane and work to establish position on the other side. I saw players who had looked amazing during the morning games suddenly look like they’d never actually played organized basketball before. And I saw one player who completely understood what was happening and started yelling instructions to his teammates: “set a pick!” or “hit the post!”.
This is why I love the experiment and Rick’s rules: the player who understood exactly how to move the ball under the new rules suddenly helped his team start scoring; they built a quick lead. The center started getting touches and either scoring or passing out to an open teammate. It’s real offense. When coaches talk about playing ‘the right way’, this is the kind of thing they mean: doing consistent things as a unit that will improve your chances of winning, not just relying on luck or athleticism.
So as of now, I’m dubbing this ‘3 dribbles’ rule as the ‘Rick Lewis Rule‘. If you merchandise T-shirts with this rule on it, please send the royalties to Rick.
Marcus Shockley is the creator, along with a band of talented (but possibly misguided) misfits, of BasketballElite.com, the Southeast Summer Showcase and has scouted and written about basketball for longer than any person should openly admit. You can follow his rantings on sports, life and acceptable flavors of ice cream on Twitter @m_shockley
I don’t know many parents who aren’t worried about their children’s futures. No matter how talented our children may be, no matter how much we know they have going for them, it’s impossible not to worry that they won’t get the best shot at reaching happiness and success.
Parents of student athletes are no different than parents of any other student, and rightfully so. Just because a child plays a sport well does not mean that child isn’t just as deserving as children who excel in other areas. Many students excel in multiple areas, but sports is so consuming, so personally identifiable, and so prominent in our culture that it can take center stage in our children’s lives.
Over the years one of the questions I’ve gotten lobbed my way many times is simply, “How can I help my child get recruited to play college basketball?”
This is a question that I can absolutely answer, but giving parents the answer –which is all I really want to do– is not as simple and blurting it out; each student is different, each family is different, and each set of opportunities is different. I never want to just tell them ‘hey, your son should just come to my showcase’, because while I do work extremely hard to make my showcase a valuable tool for players to improve their game while getting seen by college coaches, I don’t feel like it’s the answer for everyone, and I would rather try and determine exactly what would help their specific child instead of sounding like someone just promoting my own event to anyone.
If you are a parent, then you know there are established scholastic methods to help your child get to college, or improve their school performance. It basically comes down to time, money, and your child’s ability. ‘Ability’ is a tough subject to tackle when talking about scholastic work, but let’s sidestep the possibility that we are talking about students who cannot do the classwork. That’s a bit out of scope of what I’m delving into at this point, but the three things that compose a winning formula in the classroom also are the exact same three things that create blueprint for a college athletic scholarship, but with one significant difference…which we will get to in just a moment.
Let’s start with an example high school student who is struggling in a math class. Parents already know, or can quickly learn, what the standards are for their child to successfully be accepted to a college, and one of those is having a high enough GPA and the correct course credits; several of those are going to be in mathematics. So parents have several options available – first, to determine where their child is lacking, what their study habits are, and putting in more time with their child to help them overcome and work through these issues. For some parents, they are able to take it a step further, hiring a tutor who is an expert in the subject and thus allowing their child to get even more assistance than they might have been able to get from the parent alone. Every child’s situation is different, every family is different, but the tools available to parents and students are pretty much established. They can invest time, money, or hopefully, both, to help their child improve and succeed in any scholastic area.
Now, let’s talk about the last component of the formula: ability. One of my favorite quotes is from comedian Jackie Gleason, who quipped “find out what you don’t do well…and don’t do it.” We all know, especially as adults, that we have some things we do well and others which we don’t…do so well. I know I do; we all do. My wife is fantastic at crossword puzzles, but I am definitely not. However, show me some physics equations and I will run circles around them. Like all of us, I know I am stronger in some areas than others…and that is where ability comes into play. All of understand this is a truth for everyone; no one does everything brilliantly.
For parents, it’s pretty straightforward to figure out where our children’s scholastic strengths are. In addition, there are tests – both classroom tests assigned by teachers and standardized tests administered at local, regional and national levels. It’s pretty clear when your child scores in the top 98th percentile in a nationally standardized English exam that they are doing just fine in that subject.
However, while these same components for scholastic success –time, money and ability– are exactly the same for athletics, the key difference is that while parents understand the ‘time’ equivalent – more gym practice, more physical workouts, more games –and the ‘money’ equivalent– paying for them to play on an AAU team, paying for a trainer to work out with them– parents have almost no way to determine ability in athletics.
For parents, they are left to determine athletic abilities of their student-athlete with the following available methods:
– The opinions of others, including presumed experts, published rankings, coaches and other parents
– Their own sports knowledge
– The box score of games played
– The attention or publicity their child receives
This is not just a guessing game, it’s a guessing game loaded with bias and misinformation as a launching point. This is a system based in informal logic from the very onset and it is no wonder so many parents spend several years immersed in in the AAU scene before suddenly coming to the realization that nothing they’ve believed was true.
So now that we’ve determined that the basic similarities of successful formulas exist between scholastic and athletics, here’s my initial answer to parent’s question about getting recruited for college, and a basic plan for raising your child’s athletic profile.
As I said, everyone’s situation is different, but in order to try and provide a generic answer that can help the most people, let’s set some basic assumptions.
First, if your child is in grade school or middle school, stop worrying about recruiting. Just stop. No legitimate college or NCAA service scout is looking at elementary school kids. I really don’t want sound harsh, but it matters absolutely zero that your 5th grader is ranked number 12th or 57th or 83rd nationally by some service. I already know as I write this that some parents are reading this and walking away, convinced that I am an idiot. I can’t help those parents. But elementary school rankings are not real. Middle school rankings aren’t real, either.
Look, here’s the deal: It’s hard enough to look at a high school senior and figure out if they are a college prospect. Each year backwards on the age level becomes even more difficult. Judging a high school freshman and trying to figure out if he’s actually a college prospect is such a gamble that no major scouting services or fan ranking site even attempt to truly rank players (which is another issue I’ll get to in a moment) until after their sophomore season. Proof? Andrew Wiggins wasn’t the number one sophomore in his class when he was in the 10th grade. A few years later he was the number one pick in the NBA draft. Kids and teenagers grow and mature so drastically that judging where they will wind up is extremely hard. A player who dominates every game he plays in as a 6th grader might be the shortest, smallest and slowest kid on the court by the time he’s in the 11th grade. Not to mention that no one knows how puberty will affect a child, and I’m not just talking about physical changes. The entire concept of Catcher in the Rye, the famous book so often listed among the literary masterpieces, is based on the difference between how children view the world versus adults and teenagers.
If your child is in middle school, there are a rare few — a very rare few — who are already good enough to get some notice by colleges and scouts. Guess what? If your child is one of those players, chances are pretty good you’ve already been contacted by a few colleges and scouts with name recognition. We’re not talking about the vast majority of college prospects here; we’re talking about Lew Alcindor type of players, kids usually already with enough height to play college ball and dexterity to compete against really good high school players. Remember that even most of the players in the NBA today weren’t those kind of players in middle school and it should help frame the conversation. Almost no middle school players fall into this category.
So we’re talking about high school kids, primarily. Recruiting for most high school players will generally start picking up between their sophomore and junior years – that’s when many of them start playing varsity, and that’s when many of them start growing to the height/position they will play in college. This is also when parents start noticing that their child isn’t getting much college interest and that’s when the questions start getting asked. So, after all of this preamble, let’s talk about where to go from here.
1. You need some video of your child playing. Honestly, a lot of people have video of their child but it’s pretty much useless. I’ve seen so many videos with blurry video of a ‘featured’ player making an open pass on the perimeter to another player who scores – that’s not a highlight, guys. If you show me six plays where your student athlete made a routine play or scored an open layup, that’s not really showing much. And mixtapes –the glorified, slickly edited kind that gets tons of views– don’t work for most players and don’t really show what a player can do. What you really need is the best game footage you can get, showing things like ballhandling, shooting, finishing in traffic, deep shot, things like that. And cut down on the hype music. But you will need video.
2. Once you have video, you can reach out to colleges yourself, and here’s the part where parents balk, but I can’t state this clearly enough: if your child has zero college offers and zero colleges contacting them on a regular basis, you need to start with Division III and NAIA school and work up from there. I’ve had dozens of parents over the years who had kids who were decent players tell me that they’d sent their son’s highlight videos to schools like UNC, Duke, Kentucky, and so on. This is just naive, and it’s also a reflection of the fact that most parents don’t know that there are hundreds of schools that a player could attend that don’t play all of their games on national television. I can also tell you that Division III, Division II and NAIA schools have miniscule recruiting budgets; if you are a serious recruit and you reach out to an assistant coach of those schools, there is a very good chance that many of them will follow up with you. This does not mean they will automatically give out a scholarship, but it does mean they will take a look at your student’s game and see what they think.
Before you shake your head and say ‘no way, my kid is Division I all the way’, I’d like to point out that I’ve heard that from hundreds of parents over the years whose children ultimately never got an offer from any school. I can also tell you that I personally have known dozens of players who took my advice, starting contacting colleges and in many cases, eventually landed at Division I or Division II schools. I can also tell you that most parents and players are completely deluded about Division I basketball, thinking that it means they are one step away from the NBA, but that is absolutely not true. I know several basketball agents who cannot get players signed, even with foreign teams, who played on high major college teams but got little to no playing time.
But let’s not get into pro prospects now, that’s something to discuss later. Right now, let’s talk about getting your child the best shot at playing basketball in college. This is why I usually ask players what they want to study in college first, instead of where they want to play. Too many teenage players (and often, unfortunately, their parents) are completely focused on the basketball teams of their prospective colleges. Yeah, it does matter if the coach is a decent person or if the basketball team makes headlines for committing crimes. But most college players will begin and end their basketball careers at the college they attend, and for most of them, they will need to make sure they like the school and they can study something they want for the future. This is not an easy question to answer, but it does matter. You want to study to be a veterinarian? Chances are pretty good there are colleges in NAIA or Division III that have good programs.
I’m not saying this is where every player should end up, but this is the reality facing parents and players. I know that most people want a ’10 quick steps’ guide to getting a scholarship at a major Big 10 or ACC school, but that isn’t based in realistic thinking. But guess what? There are many players who started off with Division II or Division III offers and ultimately ended up in high major conferences.
There’s a lot more to say on this subject, including how to track down the contact information for colleges you will need, but I wanted to move back to our original list of available methods for parents to determine ability and break them out a little bit.
– The opinions of others, including presumed experts, published rankings, coaches and other parents
Okay, this is a wide range of people but I feel it’s important to at least address it a bit. Presumed experts includes regional and national scouts, coaches and trainers. The ability and knowledge of experts is as widely varied as sports fans. Regional scouts are more likely people who scour gyms constantly, working hard to find and evaluate players regardless of whether those players are nationally known prospects or not. National scouts tend to focus more on players already considered to be high major, and in some cases, there is a difference between a national ‘evaluating’ scout and a ‘media’ scout. Trainers…well, trainers are guys who really need to have a proven track record, and that means years of players and recommendations. There are some awesome trainers out there and some, like Alan Stein, have revolutionized basketball strength and conditioning. But many trainers are just people who latch onto a top physically gifted prospect and are riding their coattails, using that player to build their own business. Coaches are the hardest to gauge. For example, some AAU coaches are fantastic, have coached and played at multiple levels and really devote themselves to their teams. But AAU doesn’t really have standards for coaches, and that means anyone can organize a team. This is both good and bad, but it’s important to understand that just because an AAU team is sponsored by a shoe company or they win a lot of games necessarily means their coaching staff is composed of experts to advise you on the best path to recruitment.
And listening to other parents? As a person who has watched waves of parents come through high school and AAU, I can tell you that parents often live in an echo chamber that they perpetuate. Many parents will talk with each other about things like reclassing, which AAU teams they should be on, how to get ranked and recruited, and most of them are completely wrong. And three to four years later, all of those parents will be gone and there will be a new crop of parents on the sidelines, all claiming to be experts in how things work. There’s nothing wrong with talking with other parents, but I would be remiss if I did not point out that most of the parents you are seeing at tournaments every week only have a year or two of involvement and that’s the extent of their expertise. Meanwhile, some of the players I scouted when I first got involved in high school recruiting have since retired from the NBA. This is not a brag, it’s an attempt to point out that what you are hearing around you is not always as tried-and-true as it may seem. Echo chambers are dangerous because they feed on themselves and limit the amount of new information that is allowed in.
– Parents’ own sports knowledge
Some parents know a lot about basketball. Some know very little. But watching the Lakers on television and understanding how to scout a high school player to see if they are a college prospect are very different. Add in the fact that the player is your own child and it becomes extremely difficult to determine whether your child can play at a higher level or not, and what they might need to work on. The vast majority of sports fans have never even seen a Division III basketball game, yet will quickly dismiss it as a substandard level of play. How would they know? Frankly, they don’t know. A good scout should be watching basketball at multiple levels –high school, college, pro– and constantly be immersing themselves in various types of play to determine where a player might fit in. Many people think that college players who don’t go to the NBA are great candidates for playing overseas, but they have never seen an Italian League game and don’t know that in many countries, there are multiple talent levels of professional play – so a player could be playing in Korea, but not playing in the highest-talent-level (and best paying) league. There are players who only make a few hundred a month playing pro basketball overseas, and there are players who make as much as NBA players. This is not common knowledge and it’s not something you can glean from watching Inside the NBA a couple of times a week.
– Box scores
This is the closest thing that parents and players understand to a math test score; they think, if a player can average 25 points per game, they’ll get noticed by colleges. Sure, it’s great if you have a player who is a prolific scorer, but college coaches are not checking box scores in random newspapers around the country every morning, and I’ll be blunt: there are hundreds of players who score a lot of points in high school who can’t play in college or, even if they do, won’t be scorers in college. I’ve seen many point guards or scoring guards who averaged 30+ points per game in high school and couldn’t even break 5 points per game at the college level. This is why I get more interested when I see a player has a triple double or is averaging 8+ rebounds per game. Those stats are a little more telling than pure points. And stats are just a starting point.
– The attention or publicity their child receives
I skipped over rankings a few paragraphs back when talking about expert opinions, because I wanted to include it here. High school rankings are not real. Sure, I can whip up a list of the top 10 point guards in a region or the top 20 small forwards in the nation, but even if my rankings turn out to be perfectly accurate (they won’t) it won’t mean anything much to a player’s recruitment or how they actually play in college. College coaches aren’t looking at rankings and deciding to offer ‘Player X’ because he’s ranked at #83 and not offering ‘Player Y’ because he’s ranked at #84. They are going to watch both players play and decide who is the better fit for their program.
Make no mistake; some publicity will help a player get recruited. If multiple scouts are mentioning a player on Twitter and/or on their sites or reports, then college coaches are far more likely to take a note to watch that player in the future. Sometimes I’ve gotten calls from coaches or even newspapers about players where I have mentioned that player before. But a bigger issue is when parents stress about if their child is left off of some arbitrary ranking chart or their name isn’t hyped in an article or, even worse, they see their child ranked highly on a list of other players and think their recruiting is going very well even if their child has no offers. Publicity has its place, but it’s a piece of the puzzle, not the barometer. There are players who I fervently believed could play at the college level but had trouble getting colleges to really look at, and it really comes down to that college’s needs and evaluation.
This was a long read, I know, and honestly, I could dig into this a lot more, and I will. But if you want more information on this kind of stuff, you can sign up for my email list here:
And of course, we talk about a lot of this at our annual showcase, the Southeast Summer Showcase. Check out the event website here events.BasketballElite.com for more information and to register before slots are gone. You can also hit me up on Twitter @m_shockley.
‘ by Harvey McKay and that title certainly describes what it feels like to try and run a reputable, upstanding business (or even non-profit) in the world of grassroots basketball, and Rick has managed to do just that.