Girls Basketball Recruiting

By Patosha Jeffery

I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to attend the University of Memphis on an athletic scholarship to play basketball. It’s funny because when I was entering high school, I did not know that this was even possible.

I was not focusing on going to college, it was just something that did not really enter my mind until I got to the high school level. And my high school coach told me, you know there’s a possibly you could get an athletic scholarship. During my sophomore year of school, I received my first letter. It was from Southern Illinois University. It just opened my mind to the possibilities that are out there.

I wanted to talk to you about the possibilities of playing college basketball.

What is recruiting?

One of the first things I want to talk about is recruiting. You hear about recruiting and being recruited. But what does that really mean? What does it really mean when a college coach is recruiting you. What is recruiting? Recruiting is the process of college coaches looking and finding qualified players to fill positions on their roster, or on their team.

When you go to college, a college has a certain amount of players that they can have on their team. Just like you’re in whatever level school you’re in – middle school, junior high school, high school – you know you eventually leave this school. And so after a certain period of time, players leave. I mean players leave for whatever reason, it may be graduations, it may be personal reasons.

But every year college coaches have to find someone to fill a spot. So what they do, they go out looking for players. And that’s what it’s called, that’s what recruiting is for college basketball. Where college basketball coaches are actively looking for players to fill spots.

What skills do coaches look for?

A question that I always receive is what skills are most looked at. Some people may say that the most looked at skill is a shooter. Somebody may say colleges are looking for point guards. But in actuality, college coaches are looking for the skills that their program needs at a particular time. Just like I just mentioned that a player may be leaving or has left. Or someone may be graduating.

That player could have been a good ball handler or a good shooter. A good defender. Well that’s a particular skill that that college coach will be looking for in the future. It doesn’t matter. Another thing, a question I always get. Am I too short? What is the height? You know, over the recent years some top programs have had some very extremely short point guards in their system.

When I was playing college basketball, Ole Miss was known for having short guards. About five-three, five-four. They were known for having aggressive guards like that. Don’t limit yourself on the possibilities of your height. Or how tall you are, because if you have a specific skill that a college coach is looking for, you can be recruited.

How do you get started?

Now, how do you get started. How to get started to being recruited. Well, the process of getting recruited requires you to put yourself in position for a college coach to personally witness and recognize your talent or have an associate of a college coach to witness and recognize your talent in order to pass that information to the college coach.

When I say an associate of a college coach, that can be in the form of a person, a service as a scouting report, or the media -like the newspaper or website. Basically, getting started is having somebody see you. Just putting yourself out there to be recognized and that’s how it gets started.

What is the next level?

You hear people say that you can play at the next level. Well what exactly is the next level? When you watch ESPN and you see the national championships and the Division I national champs, what does all that mean? There are different associations out there that govern college athletics.

One we’re most familiar with when you hear you can go to a Division I school. You probably hear the NCAA, well NCAA stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. That’s basically a national association that governs different universities. A majority of them are extremely big universities. Thousands of kids attend those universities. Another association that governs college athletics is the NAIA and that stands for National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The next level is the National Junior College Athletic Association, or NJCAA. These are normally two-year universities, your community colleges or they call them junior colleges. They have their own governing system.

So, when you hear people talk to you about – you could play college basketball, you could play at the next level – this is what they’re talking about. You can play at an NCAA school, you could play an NAIA school, or if you have to, you could go to the junior college route.

NCAA

There are three different divisions of NCAA. Like I said, the one we hear about the most is always getting all the publicity in the newspapers, on television, on the Internet, are Division I.

What does that mean? Basically, just to give you a little bit of what that means, what’s the difference between Division I, II, and III. Division I members must offer at least fourteen sports. At least seven for men and seven for women, or six for men, and eight for women. Division I institutions must offer a minimum amount of financial aid, but may not exceed established maximums.

Student athletes at Division I schools pretty much receive full scholarships. Meaning they do not have to not have to pay for anything when they attend a Division I school. There are 335 members of Division I, and in Division I, 66% of the members are public institutions and thirty-four percent are private institutions.

So what is a Division II school? Division II is an intermediate level division of competition which offers an alternative to both the highly competitive level of intercollegiate sports offered in Division I, and a non-scholastic level offered in Division III. There are over 302 members of Division II. Very few of the over a hundred thousand students athletes competing in Division II receive a full athletics grant that covers all of their expenses. But most of them will receive some financial aid to help them through school, but as you see, they do not receive full scholarships as Division I. They call it partial scholarship.

Division II schools tend to be smaller public universities, 52% are small public universities and many private institutions. So it’s made up of 52-48% split, so a majority of them – almost 50/50 – half public half private schools.

Division III programs must offer at least five sports for men and five for women. There are 447 total members, 20% are public institutions and 80% are private institutions. So there’s just some basic information to give you about the differences between Division I, Division II, Division III.

One of the major differences that you see, Division I student athletes receive full scholarships. Division II do not receive full scholarships. They receive partial scholarships. I’m looking on the NCAA website, and I do not see how the scholarship situation is broken down. I’m assuming they probably do not receive full scholarships. It does not mention it on the NCAA website. But I want to give you some kind of overview of what are the differences.

NAIA

Now with the NAIA, there are over 300 members of the NAIA. They’re broken down into 25 conferences. When you enroll in an NAIA school or you’re a student athlete of an NAIA school, you have fewer recruiting restrictions. When it comes to the NCAA schools there are a lot of restrictions of when a coach can talk to you, when they can send letters to you, when they can come watch you play.

There are not as many rules in NAIA. There’s a flexibility to transfer without missing a season of eligibility when you play for an NAIA school. In NCAA schools when you transfer, there’s the likelihood that you will have to – they say sit out a year, meaning you will not be able to play. If you go from one school to the next school, when you get to that second school you will not be able to play at that school for a full year.

Another thing, the scholarship are awarded differently at an NAIA school from NCAA schools. In an NAIA school you may not receive a full scholarship. There may be more of a partial scholarship system at an NAIA school.

NJCAA

Then you have the NJCAA, which are basically like I mentioned earlier, your junior college associations and these are for two-year schools, two-year colleges. There are 525 members.

Most players think going to automatically go to Division I. When you think of Division I, that’s the highest level of competition, the highest level of college basketball. That’s primarily where the most gifted athletes go. And most athletes automatically think they are Division I material. But you have to be honest with yourself and think about what level of a player are you. Are you a Division I level player?

It’s not a bad thing to not be a Division I player, like I’m just mentioning to you. There are different divisions out there. If you’re not a Division I player maybe you are a NAIA type of a player. Or maybe you have to go to the junior college route. The junior college route is basically if you have an academic situation, or your skills are not up to par, maybe you should go the junior college route to get you that extra two years of preparation. And then once you receive your associates degree from a junior college, then you move up to a four year institution. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to go through.

In this lesson I want to give you an overview of what it meant – what is the next level. What is the collegiate level. What does it mean that you can play college basketball.

I wanted to give you that general overview in this lesson. Over the next parts, I’m going to break down different ways that you can get your name out there so college coaches can recruit you. So the recruiting process can get started for you.