Does it pay to recruit high school kids?

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Powder

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With the state of the game the way it is, does it pay to recruit high school kids? It's the rare exception where a true freshman is a major contributor. I wouldn't even consider Christie to be in that category. I'm thinking more like Humphries. Kids who are all-conference as freshmen. If it's not a local kid, we don't get kids who are top 50 and those are the ones who are most likely to be major contributors.

Would it make more sense to not even waste time doing it? Focus more effort on transfers since the roster has such high turnover anyway.
 

I still think it pays. In fact you might get better ones than in the past. At that point it is up to the coach to convince kids that, all things being equal, this is a place you want to stay and grow.
A player will likely stay for a competitive NIL bid at their first school. Take good recruits and you have the home advantage when they go to market.
 
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I say no. Let the 5 stars and high 4 stars go to the blue bloods like they always have, and the rest of the power conferences will stack up on transfers. It could lead to more talent going to mid-majors, which will obviously get poached in a year or two by bigger schools anyway.
 

I wonder how much time and money could save by literally not recruiting high schoolers. Why not go all in unless they’re a big name local recruit. Put it towards NIL instead…
 

Drake University Gopher said:
I wonder how much time and money could save by literally not recruiting high schoolers. Why not go all in unless they’re a big name local recruit. Put it towards NIL instead…
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It's not the same pots of money. You pay to recruit HS kids from the athletic budget. NIL has to come from donors. We are not going to be able to go toe to toe for really good players in the NIL market. We are going to have to be crafty and work both avenues.
 



yes. fewer hs players will be going to the programs with lots of nil
 

Humphries was the best player I've ever seen on the Gophers. And he married Kim Kardashian.

Yet we still managed to get ZERO publicity out of it. That a herculean accomplishment. Fits right in with sabotaging all of our best teams.
 

Fits right in with how I outlined that we fans always support sabotaging our best teams. We instantly turn on whoever is about to get booted out.

All of us (well except me) hated Humphries and disowned him.

Even the best Minnesota player of all time...we threw Kirby Puckett under the bus.
 



Drake University Gopher said:
I wonder how much time and money could save by literally not recruiting high schoolers. Why not go all in unless they’re a big name local recruit. Put it towards NIL instead…
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Gotta agree. You also don’t have the uncertainty about how a guys game will adjust to the college level. Just go look gif proven commodities.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
Fits right in with how I outlined that we fans always support sabotaging our best teams. We instantly turn on whoever is about to get booted out.

All of us (well except me) hated Humphries and disowned him.

Even the best Minnesota player of all time...we threw Kirby Puckett under the bus.
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I guess one perception is that we threw Kirby under the bus. The other(and not insane Easy Pilgrim) side was that he sexually forced himself upon a woman in a bathroom stall.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
Humphries was the best player I've ever seen on the Gophers. And he married Kim Kardashian.

Yet we still managed to get ZERO publicity out of it. That a herculean accomplishment. Fits right in with sabotaging all of our best teams.
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Maybe because they got rid of MSC and tried to set up the victory channel so nobody got to watch Gopher basketball on TV for entire season and the fact that Humphries did what he wanted to do he was not a team player. Nobody seemed to care.
 

Back to should we recruit high school kids? Changing it to what about recruiting Minnesota High School kids? I absolutely don't think recruiting Minnesota high school kids as a priority is a end all be all philosophy.

I think in the last couple years your focus needs to be on the transfer portal.

But, if you recruited the MN HS kids and they went somewhere else...I think you have a better chance to land them out of the portal if you already have a relationship with them. So, I'd continue to recruit MN HS kids and other HS kids I thought were a fit that I could get....but my focus would be on the portal.
 



Rocksoldier said:
Maybe because they got rid of MSC and tried to set up the victory channel so nobody got to watch Gopher basketball on TV for entire season and the fact that Humphries did what he wanted to do he was not a team player. Nobody seemed to care.
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And the team didn't win so nobody invested much interest.
And Humphries played in 2003 and Twitter was founded in 2006....completely different world.
He was ahead of his time. If it happened 5-10 years ago he'd be Travis Kelce today.
 

It's a really interesting question. On one hand it seems useless. A decent amount of freshman (at least realistic targets for the Gophers) aren't going to be huge contributors year 1. 30 years ago that's OK, now that means the kid is either not good, annoyed they aren't playing, or get NIL deals elsewhere and leave. So now you've put in years into the kid and got next to nothing. On the other hand, they are likely cheaper NIL targets, and there is a lot of the calendar year you can't recruit anything but HS kids.

What I think my strategy would be at the U is to identify a very small number of kids (maybe 2-4) per class and go all in on them. Probably swing a little above our weight class talent wise and hope your complete focus on them wins you a few recruiting battles. If you get them great, more likely contributors day 1 and get them in the system in the hopes it adds even a small bit of loyalty. If you miss and get 0-1 of them, ohh well, you're probably adding 5-8 transfers anyway.
 

There will always be a need for recruiting high school players but I think the big change is that you can't really try to build around high school recruiting anymore.

You still need to bring in high school guys and you will hopefully get multiple seasons out of them, but you can't rely on that being the case anymore.
 

at the major-conference level, I think you will see fewer 'developmental' type HS recruits. those players will go to mid-majors to prove themselves.

at a major conference school, if you're going after HS recruits, they need to be able to contribute something - at least be able to give you 5 to 10 minutes a game. if they're just sitting on the bench wearing a uniform, you might as well fill those slots with walk-ons.

bottom line, it's a cost-benefit analysis. you weigh the cost of bringing in a HS recruit (cost being time spent on recruiting and NIL required to land HS recruits) versus the cost of bringing in transfers. but in the end, it still comes down to NIL. if you have the NIL to re-load every year with top-level transfers, you don't need the HS players. if you're short on NIL, you probably need more HS players assuming they are more affordable.
 

Powder said:
With the state of the game the way it is, does it pay to recruit high school kids? It's the rare exception where a true freshman is a major contributor. I wouldn't even consider Christie to be in that category. I'm thinking more like Humphries. Kids who are all-conference as freshmen. If it's not a local kid, we don't get kids who are top 50 and those are the ones who are most likely to be major contributors.

Would it make more sense to not even waste time doing it? Focus more effort on transfers since the roster has such high turnover anyway.
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This is a key question and doesn't have a straightforward answer, except to say that I think it's still wise to develop relationships with HS players and their families - they might go somewhere else first, but I would think you have a better shot for getting them as a transfer if they already know you.

A guy like Grove is an interesting case study. In my ideal world, he would go to a mid-major, get some PT, and, if successful, then you bring him in as a transfer. If not, you've lost nothing.
 

I don't think recruiting HS kids takes a lot of time and resources away from recruiting transfers. Most times you start recruiting a HS kid several years in advance. For basketball, I imagine a lot is done during the summer and then middle of winter. There's nothing you can do for the portal at those times. Even if there's tampering going on, I can't imagine it's activities that are taking a lot of your time.

There's still value in recruiting HS kids and I don't think it takes away from what you can do in the portal.
 

formerlybis said:
This is a key question and doesn't have a straightforward answer, except to say that I think it's still wise to develop relationships with HS players and their families - they might go somewhere else first, but I would think you have a better shot for getting them as a transfer if they already know you.

A guy like Grove is an interesting case study. In my ideal world, he would go to a mid-major, get some PT, and, if successful, then you bring him in as a transfer. If not, you've lost nothing.
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Let's take the Grove example- Isn't it more likely that he ends his career here if he starts here?

If I am a ballplayer and the team I have been with (if I like them) offers me $100k to stay and another team offers me 100k to go there- I'm staying put. If on the other hand he goes somewhere else- we likely have to outbid the incumbent to get him to come back home.

I think that the coaches that use depth and a mix of HS recruits plus selected transfers will do the best in this new world. If you use your depth you don't build up these players beyond what they really are and you build a team instead of individuals.
 

In my opinion, a school like ours better go after the 3/4 star kids who might have been developmental guys at better schools but aren't getting the opportunities now bc of the current landscape. We need guys like Betts or a Grove where they can develop and might not play but understand they would be at a mid-major as an alternative. We get at least 1 or 2 of those guys per year, and we will have less roster turnover and fewer guys to go after in the portal. We can raise our program's floor if we go after those guys with clear expectations of playing time. Also, we must build relationships with the top locals based on what we see with Dawson. If we are the 2nd or 3rd team, they are on after the portal, so be it, but at least we get the portal opportunity because of the relationships we built.
 

bga1 said:
Let's take the Grove example- Isn't it more likely that he ends his career here if he starts here?
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In a word, no.

Right now, he's a crapshoot. If he doesn't play year one (which is the likely scenario IMO), he's highly likely to transfer to a lower level. Every player not named Betts has done this. So, taking your likelihood question literally, more players transfer these days than stay, so the answer to your question is a somewhat resounding no.

If he started out at a lower level and transferred in, then he'd be more likely to finish here, because he'd be playing - you don't transfer to a place you won't play (unless you're studying to be a trainer and are ok being on the scout team).

GopherPlaya said:
In my opinion, a school like ours better go after the 3/4 star kids who might have been developmental guys at better schools but aren't getting the opportunities now bc of the current landscape. We need guys like Betts or a Grove where they can develop and might not play but understand they would be at a mid-major as an alternative. We get at least 1 or 2 of those guys per year, and we will have less roster turnover and fewer guys to go after in the portal. We can raise our program's floor if we go after those guys with clear expectations of playing time. Also, we must build relationships with the top locals based on what we see with Dawson. If we are the 2nd or 3rd team, they are on after the portal, so be it, but at least we get the portal opportunity because of the relationships we built.
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I'm confused Why do you want guys like Betts and Grove on a roster who never play? You're recruiting HS guys to the scout team? They'll always get recruited over by transfers that have proven that they can play. I would strongly advise those guys that if they want to play P5 basketball, they would be much better served by proving they can play somewhere else first and transferring in.

I agree with the 2nd part about building relationships - I tried to make that point, too.
 

formerlybis said:
In a word, no.

Right now, he's a crapshoot. If he doesn't play year one (which is the likely scenario IMO), he's highly likely to transfer to a lower level. Every player not named Betts has done this. So, taking your likelihood question literally, more players transfer these days than stay, so the answer to your question is a somewhat resounding no.

If he started out at a lower level and transferred in, then he'd be more likely to finish here, because he'd be playing - you don't transfer to a place you won't play (unless you're studying to be a trainer and are ok being on the scout team).


I'm confused Why do you want guys like Betts and Grove on a roster who never play? You're recruiting HS guys to the scout team? They'll always get recruited over by transfers that have proven that they can play. I would strongly advise those guys that if they want to play P5 basketball, they would be much better served by proving they can play somewhere else first and transferring in.

I agree with the 2nd part about building relationships - I tried to make that point, too.
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Betts will play this year as a sophomore, and if they are getting recruited by portal guys, then we are doing our job to develop those guys. There is no way we can fill a roster like we have to next offseason, where we have to fill 9+ roster spots. If we do that with portal players only, then we won't be able to survive in the Big Ten. We need some guys who can help sell or push whatever culture the coach sets. It's not like every single college hooper will hit the portal every year. We retained most underclassmen on the roster going from 22-23 to 23-24. We are still in the earliest stages of the portal/NIL era to say high school recruiting is a waste because kids will leave anyway.
 

I don't think Deion Sanders has set foot in a high school, he's all portal. Not sustainable though, still need a blend.
 

Powder said:
With the state of the game the way it is, does it pay to recruit high school kids? It's the rare exception where a true freshman is a major contributor. I wouldn't even consider Christie to be in that category. I'm thinking more like Humphries. Kids who are all-conference as freshmen. If it's not a local kid, we don't get kids who are top 50 and those are the ones who are most likely to be major contributors.

Would it make more sense to not even waste time doing it? Focus more effort on transfers since the roster has such high turnover anyway.
Click to expand...

A lot of coaches are asking themselves the same thing these days, and the consensus is "No", it doesn't pay to recruit high school kids anymore. Certainly not like it once did. You spend years building relationships with AAU coaches, courting the families, hosting the kids, you get a commitment, and a team that's never even seen him play offers a bag of cash at the last minute, and they're gone. In the current environment, there is no tomorrow. No developing guys for later. You're better off with proven commodities that can be had via the portal, and contribute immediately.
 

Powder said:
With the state of the game the way it is, does it pay to recruit high school kids? It's the rare exception where a true freshman is a major contributor. I wouldn't even consider Christie to be in that category. I'm thinking more like Humphries. Kids who are all-conference as freshmen. If it's not a local kid, we don't get kids who are top 50 and those are the ones who are most likely to be major contributors.

Would it make more sense to not even waste time doing it? Focus more effort on transfers since the roster has such high turnover anyway.
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We will always want a couple each year.
 

bga1 said:
Let's take the Grove example- Isn't it more likely that he ends his career here if he starts here?

If I am a ballplayer and the team I have been with (if I like them) offers me $100k to stay and another team offers me 100k to go there- I'm staying put. If on the other hand he goes somewhere else- we likely have to outbid the incumbent to get him to come back home.

I think that the coaches that use depth and a mix of HS recruits plus selected transfers will do the best in this new world. If you use your depth you don't build up these players beyond what they really are and you build a team instead of individuals.
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No. Most young players are going to transfer down a level to get minutes, if they're not playing. The ones who do get immediate minutes, will look for a payday elsewhere after the season. We'll have the opportunity to match it, but it's always going to be an uphill battle. If we can offer $X, and other teams can offer $X + 50k, 75k, 100k, 200k, our guys will usually leave. There will always be some exceptions, but this has turned into free agency, with year-to-year pro contracts.

Pharrell Payne's a good example. Minnesota kid, who Ben Johnson courted for years. Sounds like he got 200k-250k more to play for Texas Tech next season. How could he turn that down? Most of us would move to Lubbock for a year if we were young, single, & it meant an extra $200k, wouldn't we?
 

GopherPlaya said:
Betts will play this year as a sophomore, and if they are getting recruited by portal guys, then we are doing our job to develop those guys. There is no way we can fill a roster like we have to next offseason, where we have to fill 9+ roster spots. If we do that with portal players only, then we won't be able to survive in the Big Ten. We need some guys who can help sell or push whatever culture the coach sets. It's not like every single college hooper will hit the portal every year. We retained most underclassmen on the roster going from 22-23 to 23-24. We are still in the earliest stages of the portal/NIL era to say high school recruiting is a waste because kids will leave anyway.
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The bolded remains to be seen. Right now, with all the experience and proven production that was brought in from the portal and Fox staying, I don't see him high in the rotation. But, he could surprise. Anything's possible.
 

formerlybis said:
In a word, no.

Right now, he's a crapshoot. If he doesn't play year one (which is the likely scenario IMO), he's highly likely to transfer to a lower level. Every player not named Betts has done this. So, taking your likelihood question literally, more players transfer these days than stay, so the answer to your question is a somewhat resounding no.

If he started out at a lower level and transferred in, then he'd be more likely to finish here, because he'd be playing - you don't transfer to a place you won't play (unless you're studying to be a trainer and are ok being on the scout team).


I'm confused Why do you want guys like Betts and Grove on a roster who never play? You're recruiting HS guys to the scout team? They'll always get recruited over by transfers that have proven that they can play. I would strongly advise those guys that if they want to play P5 basketball, they would be much better served by proving they can play somewhere else first and transferring in.

I agree with the 2nd part about building relationships - I tried to make that point, too.
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If you bring in 13 transfers a year, three or four of them won’t play.
 

Yes. It will help us when that player hits the portal after their freshman or sophomore year.
 

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