Already Committed to Maryland?
In the multi-billion dollar business that is college basketball, high stakes games are played between college programs looking for success, players looking to play their way into the NBA gold mine, and hangers-on looking to latch onto the next big thing so that they too can line their pockets.  Thing is, few fans are truly aware of the way the process works from the inside — they know what they read in the papers or perhaps on blogs like this or message boards devoted to their favorite team, but all of that information is coming from outside the process, and undoubtedly, reporters, boosters and fans are not invited to the backroom dealings that go on every day and often decide where kids are going to play college hoops.
A Tampa Bay Online article, “Recruiting In The Shadows”, gives a good rundown of some recent happenings in hoops recruiting, including a brief John Wall mention:
Last summer, Baylor University hired Dwon Clifton, coach of the AAU team that includes the nation’s top point guard prospect, John Wall from Raleigh, N.C. Wall hasn’t signed a scholarship, but Baylor is on his short list.
No news there for State fans, but as part of a long list of coaches who employ the tactic (including NC State’s former head coach, Herb Sendek) one starts to get a glimpse of the unsavory nature of it all — and that has drawn the attention of the NCAA itself:
“Follow the money, follow the money,” former University of Pennsylvania and Boston College coach Chuck Daly said, evoking images of Hal Holbrook’s stern advice to Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men.”
In an unprecedented move, enforcement officials were deployed to Las Vegas, Orlando and other summer-basketball sites to infiltrate what NCAA President Myles Brand describes as a “dysfunctional” system of recruiting. On a staff of 20 investigators, the NCAA has now designated three solely for men’s basketball.
“There has been growing concern at some of the things developing in men’s basketball,” NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said. “We want to get deeper into that environment and culture.”
Front and center: The connections between Amateur Athletic Union coaches, sometimes affiliated with agents, and high-profile players.
“Recruiting is extremely difficult right now,” said Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, formerly of USF. “The player is the center of the universe. You’ve got to draw a circle around that player and then touch everyone in that circle. If you don’t touch the right person, you’re going to be eliminated.”
One has to wonder if the NCAA means what it says – that it’s going to get a grip on the situation – or if it is simply another case of Myles Brand giving lip service to restoring integrity to the recruiting game while he cashes CBS’s billion dollar checks for its annual NCAA tournament coverage. One would be tempted to think the latter will be the case — Brand himself earns at least $895K/year and common sense says that he nor anyone else is going to slaughter the golden goose that’s making everyone involved wealthy.
Talent wins games, so coaches recruit talent. Therefore, head coaches hire assistants who can recruit talent, not develop it. Plenty of Division I coaches cannot teach the game, but they can recruit. Because the NCAA limits off-season practice time and players jump to the NBA after one or two seasons, recruiting is the single greatest element of college basketball.
The best players suffer the same Entitlement Affliction, as they have been The Man at every level. While they may be great with the ball in their hands, they lack the wherewithal to play a team game within a coach’s system. Players stand and watch without the ball and lack the feel for the game; they need set plays to tell them how to move and where to go. They reach, lunge for steals and do not understand help defense and defensive rotations, as they always excelled due to natural ability, size, speed or strength, which evens out at the college level.
College recruiting spawns the year-round AAU play, as it’s more convenient for college coaches to attend 2-3 tournaments each with 40-50 teams filled with legitimate college prospects than to attend high school basketball games and tournaments during their season.
In short, it is a clearinghouse or a cattle-call for talent, depending on what you want to call it. And now the NCAA is on the case. Just keep in mind that this is an organization that has gone from banning post-season play for schools giving a ride to a recruit home from a university to one that is perfectly willing to overlook O.J. Mayo and Reggie Bush’s obvious payola just because it would negatively impact one of their big-market high profile teams and thus hurt their own bottom line.
One thing here is good news for NC State and its fans: there has not been a hint of impropriety of any kind by Sidney Lowe and his staff.
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