Subscribe to the NCSA BlogFinally, Summer Contact for College Basketball
July 9th, 2009 - byIn an ESPN article, Andy Katz shows how ever changing practice regulations put in place by the NCAA may be shifting drastically in college basketball.
College coaches have whined for years about the lack of access to their current players in the summer.
The complaint is legitimate. Anyone — notably agents and their hand-picked workout employees — can have complete access to the players. To think there isn’t any influence over the player, especially on his game, is naive. That doesn’t mean all the advice from a third party is wrong. It’s not. But college coaches want to be in control of a player’s college career.
They might finally get their wish — with a hitch.
Next month in Indianapolis, the NCAA’s board of directors will listen to a proposal from the basketball academic enhancement committee, chaired by UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, that would allow coaches access on the court with players as long as they’re in summer school.
The model would be that over an eight-week period the coach would have access to the player, with two hours a week in skill development and the other hours to be determined, with possible uses like watching tape, observing pickup games or weight-room workouts. The only thing the coach
es couldn’t do is have a full practice.
Guerrero said the minimum for a player to be eligible to participate is three hours of summer school in the initial year. In the subsequent summers, the player must attend six hours to be eligible to work out with his coach. The NCAA won’t make this mandatory because there are a number of schools that don’t have summer school (like schools in the Ivy League). According to Guerrero, there is also a cost analysis that has to be taken into consideration.
This is obviously a long awaited change for both coaches and players. Many players enroll in summer school without this ruling in place in order to lighten their academic load during the season. Now while they are advancing academically, they can also improve athletically with coaches that know what specific skills they have to improve. Also, this is a great way to keep players out of trouble. There have been many recent examples of NCAA sanctions that have hurt the eligibility of player. If coaches have more contact with players, they can make sure they stay out of trouble and on top of their grades.
But what does this mean for basketball recruits? According to Katz:
If this is passed in the legislative cycle next year, the July evaluation period might get another tweak in 2010. If college coaches are allowed to work with their own players in July, it will lead to even more coaches and assistant coaches heading back to campus either in place of or between recruiting evaluation assignments in July.
This means that there will be even less time to get evaluated by college coaches! The recruiting world is competitive as it is and if coaches have fewer opportunities to look at potential players it’s even more important that you familiarize yourself with the Five Things You Need to Know About Recruiting and the Five Things You Need to Do to Get Recruited in order to give yourself an edge over the competition.
