PHILADELPHIA — The state of women’s college basketball and even high school girls basketball and travel will face the most difficult next six months ever. Why, because of Covid and the impact on Players at all levels being able to play.
The important issue is the college freshman class of 2021. This is last year‘s high school great 2020 class that did not have a chance to finish the season, have a graduation, and in many places not even have a chance to play for state championship or any kind of championship.
Colleges weren’t spared either as many top women’s programs had their tournaments stopped some even in mid-game and their seasons canceled. Many college seniors had no choice but to move on and graduate. And that meant getting a diploma without walking with family and friends to a ceremony. High School and College All-Star games were canceled. Pro workouts were canceled as the world came to a complete stop and turned into a virtual universe.
That was life a year ago give or take a few weeks. For those in college it was a wait-and-see as to what comes next. Graduate the following year, get a year back, transfer, quit playing basketball. For those at the high school level who had their seasons put on hold or canceled the hope of summer basketball still loomed last June. And even that was up in the air after many states governors put their respective constituents under lockdown for most of April and May and into June. Last summer became helter-skelter as some states were able to play in the mid west and south while others on both coast were under brutal lock down. All this created an atmosphere of uncertainty as players played with the only option to hop into a regional event and hope that video was everywhere.
For the first time ever college coaches had the ability to watch on live-stream as much basketball as they chose from their own homes or offices and not travel or have any other expenses except the stream itself. Here was a golden opportunity to sit back and watch hundreds of games when you wanted and to watch players whenever you want it.
Some travel teams & programs out right decided not to play or waited till late in the summer to get some games in. While some of this was over health reasons, the real rationalization was money. Many programs did not play because elite level basketball cost money and as we all know some directors run their operations on a shoestring if that.
The fall of 2020 brought some relief as travel basketball played well into August and September while high schools in some areas were still put on hold while others had the freedom to go play. Many states across the country had truncated high school seasons or a short calendar of days to play. Again, College Coaches had the opportunity to watch if they so choose to view their recruiting list. The critical point is it saved everybody at the college level money.
While everybody who played basketball was having their life turned upside down college coaches had to also Indore the financial impact of last year‘s men’s and women’s finals, as no money distributed to the universities which meant major cutbacks across-the-board for many athletic departments. There are, I’m told, quite a number of universities that had to tell their staff to take furlough days off, that means unpaid vacation, sometimes for weeks on end to save their athletic department money. Some coaches took direct cutbacks in their salary in order to spare their assistance that impact. Many schools were not able to get new hires or had to hold off on new hires until well into the fall. This season for colleges was similar to high school it was across the board with many players and programs shutting down due to Covid.
Right now the push is to get both the men’s and women’s final four played, especially the men because they bring in the bulk of the TV money for the NCAA. As we all have witnessed nothing matters except getting the event run so that the money comes in. Two big items have come out of this push: The disparity of treatment and execution between men and women’s programs in the final four and the other big monster in the room player activism over name image and likeness which is now also headed to the Supreme Court.
I will spare everybody a deep dive on that since I’ve covered it so many times on the Blue Star Media podcast. If there’s any group that needs to listen to this information it will be all those top players in high school and even college freshman because something will come down for next year. I’ll cover that in another separate Podcast and article.
Since we are looking at the Final Four in April, we are also now in the process of every player needing to decide what does next year look like.
Next year – well that starts for college athletes in three weeks.
Everybody on a college roster it’s facing the following: do I come back and if I do will I play? If I do come back and I don’t play should I stay? If my desire is to get an education, do I stay or do I transfer? If it’s for my education, do I get my masters during this time? If I’m only thinking about trying to be a pro player overseas and not worried about a masters and I may not play, I guess I better think about transferring, maybe? If I’m going to transfer, where do I go? No matter what, I have to tell my school, which puts me into the portal. But everybody knows you can’t tell that to any coach before the end of the season which is right about now. So during that time those who know the process have been contacting their travel coach or high school coach or trainer to try to find another school for them. If you’re not that alert to the process and as to your destiny, you may wait until the end of the season and then put your name into the portal and hope somebody find you. All of that is going on right now. Here comes the problem.
If you’re a good player and starter and you want to go into the portal you will most likely have an opportunity to find a school because another college would rather take you as a proven player than a high school senior. This is preferred versus taking a non-proven HS college unless you are a highly rated player. If you’re not a starter in college then you will have a tougher time because you could end up just being another roster player on another college unless one of the schools that recruited you in HS still thinks you have it.
Since college rosters have given the option to play this year without losing a season that means many schools who recruited class of ‘21 players will have issues staying within the 15 roster spots mandated by NCAA women’s basketball. They will probably be an exemption for additional roster spots but that will lead to more roster players and less playing time which puts people back into the discussion of “are they playing happy to sit or leaving” and that means you head to the portal.
The present college freshman class who were the high school players who didn’t get to finish their HS careers, get an additional year. But what if a college brought in a stellar freshman class? And that same thought includes all the sophomores on a college roster. Many colleges who signed high school class of ‘21 players will have either huge rosters or or use the coming weeks to “suggest“ the players leave so they can add the incoming freshman or transfers off the portal. It is a game of musical chairs as to what you take. What is the value and playing time for the transfer portal player or an incoming freshman? That is the big question everybody has to work on right now.
If you were one of the players to get a Class of ‘21 scholarship offer, you are very lucky. If you are in the class of ‘22, well, here comes the impact for you.
The class of ‘22 which should have an opportunity to play the spring without coaches in person and possibly July with coaches in person. Regardless, they are still facing uphill battle to get a scholarship because of all the cuts in college budgets, over extended rosters, options to take transfer portal players and heated competition for the few scholarships available this year. Many colleges that expected to sign four and five players may end up signing two or three because of loaded rosters and failure for people to leave. That gives the class of ‘22, this year‘s rising seniors, a tough road to claim one of the hopefully 1,000 division one scholarships.
Many class of ‘21 players who did not get an offer have an option of playing into this spring and summer being unsigned. If you are smart, everybody should have a back up plan looking at a division down and the best economic college choice possible (lowest cost). Even junior colleges will benefit from this bottleneck of talent.
So with the class of ‘21 and ‘22 being topsy-turvy, the next impact group is the class of 2023, the rising junior class. Don’t let anybody kid you, this summer will be about watching this class more intensely than ever. Most of the big schools have set their sights on the 23‘s and 24s because they already know who they want. It’s your mid-level schools that do not have that luxury. They have to recruit a bigger swath of players especially those in a class of ‘22.
Where does that leave the class of 2023? Dealing with the same fear factor of the availability of scholarships. This will not become apparent until we reach this July. Many colleges by this time will have cleaned out the rosters and added their portal players and understand their scholarship count over the next two years. Many coaches will lie about what their real scholarship options are. There’s nothing better than your competition creating a negative recruiting environment based on these situations.
If the 2022s and 2023s are going to have a hard time, what about the class of 24 and even 25 which is the fall incoming HS freshman class? Everyone will try to forget the bottleneck above but some people think the impact will roll across four years, even down into this 2024 and 2025 class. This is why many high school freshman, if they have the chance to re-classify for high school, should take it just to put them in a better situation a year down. Some parents and players may resist this idea, and that’s OK but you can’t kid yourself about the scholarship numbers game at D1 and also at D2. This is why it is important for these older high school players to compete as much as possible and to get as many of these games on video to create “packages because college head coaches do not like watching games. Many prefer to watch the All-Star type , travel roster games to be entertained while they babysit their talent. If you can play up while staying back. Otherwise this is what you have to do if you are going to roll the dice and stay in your grade and move accordingly.
Right now I see a big shift in those players who are in the class of 2025, present 8th graders who may look to re-class and do eighth grade again just to get out of the bull’s-eye of limited scholarships come their junior year.
The ability to repeat in grade school may not be educationally beneficial, but you also have the chance to take prep high school classes or find time to learn other things and languages. Repeating a seventh or eighth grade is a valid choice for the first time for girls because it will distance themselves from the scholarship crunch.
All the above will create a chaotic and eventful spring and summer of basketball because all the traditional norms have been cast aside and college coaches have the ability to watch any talent, at any time, anywhere across the globe from their home or office. Everybody talked about the desire to watch players in person, but the real truth of that statement is they want to watch the players on their list so they can figure out if they made the right decision by video. That is what coaches are telling everyone, and why they want to be out. It’s about their ability to evaluate.
This spring and summer with everybody trying to run an event or tournament, making promises of this and that, and a huge lack of insight and direction with all of these issues will add to this spring and summer being chaotic from a visibility opportunity scholarship standpoint. Especially if it is to just what is the future in 2022 and 2023.
Everybody assumes that Cove it will go away by the fall while others think this could be a yearly issue. Expect colleges to demand that everyone be vaccinated before returning to campus, especially athletes this mid-summer.
Over the coming weeks everyone will see the transfer portal grow from 450 to possibly over 1000 female players looking for a new home.
Just the last few days a number of college coaches have been calling me or people I know asking either is this player available or what’s the status of this other player.
My guidance to everyone is unless you already have a connect for your next school, do not make an ego choice and think you can make a lateral move, look for a move that get you to playing time that you think you deserve. And that could mean going down a level play or even down to division.
High school and grade school players may not have the option to wait for the summer to see how other players and parents decide on a decision to stay in your grade or reclass.
For now enjoy the women’s final four and let’s see how the portal fills up in the coming weeks. And keep an eye on the supreme court hearings about name image likeness because this will also have an impact on the viability of Division I scholarships as we know it. I can save that too for another article.
Thank you for your time in coming to Blue Star Media.
