Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino is concerned that shoe companies have too big an influence in summer trravel team basketball and recruiting.
Louisville has a lucrative all school contract with Adidas and Pitino claims he can see his talent pool shrinking, likely because arguably 80-85 percent of the best prospects in any given class play for Nike-based travel teams. Nike has the most sophisticated youth development program in the country, with its EBYL league, which produces most of the prospects for USA Basketball and limits entry to prestigous post-season events like the Nike Hoop Summit in Portland and Jordan Brand Classic in New York City to those athletes who play for Nike-travel teams.
“If you’re doing your homework, the shoe companies aren’t to blame,” Pitino said in an informal chat with the media after practice Thursday that was reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal. “They’re playing the ultimate competitive game.”
But coaches of travel teams sponsored by Nike worry that the money they receive could be affected if their players sign with a school sponsored by a competing shoe company.
“Our talent pool is shrinking”” Pitino claimed. “It took me a long time to realize what type of player Louiisville should recruit. I wish it wasn’there. I think it’s going to be there for a long time.”
Louisville athletics signed a long term $39 million branding rights deal with Adidas this spring and UCLA and Kansas also have deals with that shoe company, but Tennessee and Notre Dame just left that company, with Tennessee signing with Nike and Notre Dame signing with UnderArmour.
Pitino said he wasn’t referring to any special situation, but earlier this fall, five star guard Antonio Blankney from Oak Ridge High in Orlando, Fla. decommitted from the Cards Although Blankney’s high school coach said shoe affiliation had nothing to do with it when Blankney said he wanted to re open his recruiting, but the four universities he will visit are Missouri, Oregon, LSU and Kentucky– are all Nike schools. Blankney wanted to keep Louisville on his list, but, after hearing about Blankney’s chance of heart, Pitino severed ties with the star.
“I’ve was seeing this for the last five years, things have to change,” Pitino said. “I don’t like not being about to recruit a kid. We need to get shoe companies out of their lives. The NCAA should host and operate all travel team events.”
It is a nice thought, but it seems unlikely that the NCAA will agree to sponsor competitions for prospective student-athletes who are not enrolled in college.
