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.