Re: Transfers and Talent…
Transfers:
RedCanine posted an interesting statistic… over the weekend… 10% of D1 Men’s Basketball players are transferring each season now… As others have suggested, this appears to have increased over the recent past but exactly how much is uncertain. Although, Red extrapolated this statistic to conclude 40% of D1 Men’s Basketball players transfer over a four year period… I am hesitant to do that for several reasons…
1. Some guys transfer more than once…
2. Some guys don’t play four years…
3. The language is fuzzy and could be easily construed to read “40% of D1 Men’s Basketball transfer during their four year eligibility period.
4. There is no consideration given to the impact of coaching changes…
In any case, we may be “past due” in rethinking how we look at transfer rates…
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That said, Transfer rates or raw numbers should be broken down and analyzed before making serious conclusions… perhaps the same way a business looks at employee turnover….
For our purposes… let’s separate transfers from kids opting in to the NBA draft… and look only at transfers to other schools.
So let’s look at that “transfer rate” by eligibility year… against this framework…
Group 1. First year transfers…
Group 2. Fourth year transfers…
Group 3. Everybody else…
Given continuity in Coaches…. and some hypothetical ‘exit interview’ stuff… perhaps the following “conclusions” can be reached…
1. Transfers in groups 1 & 3 are expected and should rarely come as surprises (to coaches)… In fact, if you don’t have some transfers in these groups… you’re probably NOT recruiting hard enough…
2. If transfers in Group 3 are greater in number than Group 1 & 2 combined, then there is a problem somewhere that requires closer examination…
3. If transfers in Groups 2 & 3 are rare… then you’re doing a lot better than most all of your competitors…
All this changes dramatically…when there are Coaching changes… especially a Head Coach who brings in a new staff…
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Top Talent:
I would be hesitant to claim that we are recruiting “Top-level Talent”… regardless of the number of stars the kids have…
I would be safe, I think, in claiming that we are recruiting the top levels of the second tier of talent… as each of our most recent “top recruits” appears to have at least one area —
athleticism,
conditioning,
BB-IQ,
grades/test scores,
work ethic,
leadership
— that “has significant room for improvement”… the notable exception to this perhaps being … CUZ…
The only point to be made here is that it is reasonable to think there would be a direct correlation between true talent level and transfer rates in programs that are attempting to improve their overall competitiveness. That is to say… given a team’s competitive level (the average of the players talent levels)… more players with below average talent levels will transfer than those with higher talent levels.
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At the end of the day… it may also be useful to remember that anything we say or think here at SFN… The Coaches already knew… and have, for the most part, done everything they can do to effectively manage the same…. to this point in time.
