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About a month ago, I wrote about how the NCAA implemented some new basketball recruiting rules that would limit June access to some of the best high school basketball players from the most prominent schools in the country.
The reason for these recruiting restrictions was in response to the widespread corruption that has consumed college basketball recruiting. The new rules were put in place with good intentions, but they’re already having negative effects. And it needs to be fixed...now.
Just to refresh you on what exactly the changes were, the NCAA eliminated July’s middle evaluation period and replaced it with two live weekends for high school coaches and their federations to put on tournaments.
The problem is some of the top players and programs in the country won’t be able to compete because they’re not members of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). The NCAA set these rules to limit college coaches to watching just one school association per state.
247Sports’ Evan Daniels spoke to more than 25 college coaches, including Coach Mike Krzyzewski, about the new model. Not one was in favor of it. As Daniels puts it, “[t]his is change for the sake of change... not change for the betterment.”
ESPN’s Jay Bilas also gave his take on the revamped recruiting schedule on Twitter.
Evan Daniels on the "idiotic" new basketball recruiting schedule. The NFHS meets January 3-6 in New York, after the NCAA dropped this into its lap. It needs to fix this coming mess before it is finalized. https://t.co/bX6Q8gCS5X
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) January 2, 2019
And the effects of these new rules are already being felt. According to Adam Zagoria, New York won’t hold any recruiting events in June. This effectively will leave every basketball player in the state out of the recruiting mix that month because the state feels as if the new rules are discriminating against players and schools that are not New York’s only NFHS member.
According to Daniels, “I really hope they reconsider,” seems to be the consensus. Hopefully, there’s a big change that makes things better before the spring and summer recruiting circuits begin.
What do you think of the new recruiting rules?