Monday, October 31, 2011

Men's Basketball Coaches, Recruits Weigh in on Rules Changes

Feedback on New NCAA MBB Recruiting Model

Last Thursday the NCAA Board of Directors met with the purpose of reviewing NCAA rules and regulations in several areas.  Among the areas that the Board touched on were initial eligibility requirements, transfer eligibility requirements, APR benchmarks, scholarships and recruiting issues in Men's Basketball.

This article offers interesting insight into the legislation that was modified in Men's Basketball because it reached out for opinions from current DI Men's basketball coaches, AAU coaches, recruits and the parents of recruits. Several of the revisions that were made were targeted at allowing college coaches earlier access to recruits.  While this may seem counter intuitive from an NCAA standpoint, the idea in the Men's Basketball world is that allowing earlier access directly to the recruits will cut down on the influence that third parties will have on the recruiting process.

Each piece of legislation enacted by the Board of Directors will carry a different effective date.  Changes to the APR and to initial/ transfer eligibility will go into effect two to four years from now.  This will allow coaches and student-athlete's to plan to meet the new standards established by the legislation.  As for the men's basketball specific pieces of legislation, coaches will now be able to recruit at non-scholastic events held in April starting with the April of 2012.  Along with that, the recruiting calendar for July 2012 will be scaled back from what it has been in the past.  The rules which will allow the earlier access carry an August 1st, 2012 effective date.  After that date PSA's will be allowed to make official visits during their Junior years of high school (in Men's Basketball only).

The Compliance Office will have more information on all of the proposals passed by the Board of Directors as soon as the Head Coaches Meeting this Wednesday.  There is a very good chance that it will also be a main topic of the November Coaches Compliance Workshop, which is Wednesday November 16th at 10:00AM in the SkyDome East Suites.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Huskies Cancel Alumni Shootaround

Washing Dumps Scrimmage After Radio Interview

The University of Washington has canceled  an alumni scrimmage after one of the coaching staff members mentioned the upcoming scrimmage during a radio interview.  The publicity about the event is at the heart of the issue because of the wording in specific Bylaw 14 bylaw.  The shootaround, which would have otherwise been permissible on an "occasional" basis, is now not permissible due to the public announcement.  This specific bylaw differs from the Bylaw 17 rules which allow the closed scrimmages as soon as the start of the permissible playing season in Basketball.  These closed scrimmages, which are against outside competition and not a group of alumni, must be closed to the public, cannot be publicized and no score can be kept.  Exhibition basketball games that are open to the public can also be held as soon as the permissible playing season starts, these are games against non-division one schools and can be publicized and open to the public; in fact, St. John's played one of these games last night in New York.

Publicity also plays a role in several other NCAA bylaws, including many of the bylaws that deal with recruiting and signing NLI's; two other big topics that will be in the news two weeks from today when recruits from several sports will be lighting up fax machines all over the country. 

Just a few examples of how publicity plays into the NCAA manual.  I hope that these situations help to serve as reminders to think before you speak!!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

New Housing Information



  Attached are the links to the websites for the new campus dorms.  The website now has information on floor plans and it does list rental rates for the various housing options.  From what is now listed online, it appears that rent will range from $559 per month to $599 per month depending upon the layout.  It also appears that the “Hilltop Dorm” will have a 12 month lease and the “Suites” will have a 10 month lease term.

The contact information for the leasing company is listed online.  There will also be representatives from the leasing company at the three remaining home football games.  The company will have an informational table set up on the West concourse, which is the student seating side of the Dome.

Bobby Knight Meets with Prospective Student-Athlete's

Pat Knight gets Helping Hand from Father

It is being reported that Bobby Knight may have had interaction with two prospective student-athlete's being recruited by Lamar University, where Pat Knight is now the coach.  We have talked a lot about this as it relates to our staff, more specifically when it comes to interaction with boosters, as is mentioned in the article.  You all know that at the beginning of the year, each coaching staff submits a coaching declaration form as required by Bylaw 11.7.4.  Which also limits the number of countable coaches each team can have and how many of those countable coaches can be off-campus recruiting at any one time.  In order to interact with our current student-athlete's in a coaching capacity, a coach must be listed as one of that teams countable coaches.  This interaction would include having any type of skill related or instructional conversations with current student-athlete's  The same thing applies when talking about recruits, in order to recruit a prospect, or enter into a recruiting conversation, a coach must be declared a countable coach; additionally, they must have passed the NCAA recruiting test in order to recruit at off-campus locations.  A recruiting conversation would be any discussion that is designed to elicit a prospects ultimate enrollment at NAU.  This could include discussions of how a recruit would fit into the team or any discussion of offering financial aid or a scholarship to the student.

Friday, October 14, 2011

ASU Basketballer Waiting on Initial Eligiblity Decision

Sun Devil Sitting Out Pending Eligiblity Center Decision

Sun Devil recruit Jahii Carson is currently sitting out pending an initial eligibility decision.  The story mentions that he may have taken a course towards the additional core course that he is allowed after his graduation date.  With the regulations regarding non-traditional courses and initial eligibility that went into effect on August 1st, 2010, there could be a lot of potential issues with the additional course that Jahii took.  It could range from the amount interaction that he had with the course instructor to the time frame that it took him to complete the course.  The article also touches on the fact that he is currently sitting out and not attending team functions, which could likely mean that he has used up his 21 day temporary certification time and is now sitting out because no decision has been made on his case.

If you recall from our Legislative Proposal review in September, there is legislation out there that would potentially require a recruit to have their seven semester transcripts submitted to the EC prior to being allowed to sign an NLI.  This would help the EC to get early academic qualifiers certified in a more timely manner and would also potentially help by requiring that students who attended multiple HS's to get those transcripts tracked down before July and August roll around.  The latter issue is one that has cause a lot of students to exhaust their temporary certification periods in the past. 

There is also talk that CAP and other NCAA level academic panels may soon look to require prospective student-athlete's to have a certain number of core courses completed after two or three years of HS in order to be on track to be a qualifier.  This would put an end to PSA's getting behind in their early years of HS and then loading up on summer courses/ online course or JC courses in their final year to make up ground towards becoming a qualifier.  None of this is in writing or proposal form yet, but it may well be something that we see coming out in the next legislative cycle, so stay tuned.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

NCAA will not Penalize Auburn for Newton Recruitiment

NCAA Clears Auburn Football

The Enforcement staff at the NCAA has cleared Auburn of any major violations related to the recruitment of Cam Newton; though they do reserve the right to reopen the investigation if any new information surfaces in the case.  Both Julie Roe Latch and President Emmert had vowed to complete a full investigation into the situation when all of this news broke last fall.  The NCAA has made a point of following through with punishment in the recent "high-profile" cases, though in this case it was stated that this case did not meet the "burden of proof", perhaps suggesting that there was something there, just not enough to file a major violation. 

However, this does not mean that the NCAA is dropping the issue of runners/ agents and over-involved parents.  This years legislative cycle included a proposal that would expand the definition of an agent.  In a few months after the NCAA Convention we may find out if President Emmert's efforts to close the "Cam Newton Loophole" will pay off by cracking down on agents and the shopping around of student-athlete's.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

NCAA Chapter 13 Presentation

NCAA Bylaw 13 - Recruiting Materials Presentation

All, attached is an advanced preview of the Recruiting presentation that we will have for all of your tomorrow at the October Compliance Workshop.  We may also present this at the Wednesday October 19th staff meeting at the DuBois Center.

Please let Lee or myself know if you have any topics that you would like covered at tomorrow's workshop.  In additional to this rules ed session, we will have a discussion of the upcoming NLI signing period, which begins Wednesday November 9th.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Tennessee Chattanooga learns from the past

UTC Athletics More Compliant Following Violation

At Tennessee Chattanooga, their Compliance Office discovered and self-reported secondary text messaging and phone call violations.  Upon submitting the violation, the NCAA implemented additional penalties for the secondary violation, including a probationary period.  Regular reports are always part of a probationary period, and it no surprise that following the violation, the issue was addressed and went away moving forward.  What is interesting about this article is that the NCAA asked the institution to go back and look for similar phone call or texting violations over the past two years.  It is an interesting thought, especially for a secondary violation, which could then lead to something more severe, especially since the Compliance Office will be looking into an area where there was just a violation.  That may be something that could be implemented as a best practices for all of us who go through secondary violations, it would certainly help to identify the scope of the problem going back beyond the what most recently happened or was self-reported.