College basketball insider Adam Zagoria says some programs have abandoned recruiting high school players altogether, a change he discussed on the most recent episode of The Sportsknot Interview Podcast.
Zagoria told host Evan Groat that Kansas State is one of those programs.
“I think the state of Kansas, which has some real problems this year, they don’t even recruit high school players anymore,” Zagoria said. “Rick Pitino has a new player on his roster at St. John’s, but he has said several times that he won’t really recruit high school players anymore.”
The reason is quite simple. Coaches can look for someone who is older, bigger and more ready to contribute right away.
“If you’re a coach and you can get an adult, who is 23 years old, out of the portal, or a European, a former European professional, they will be more experienced and physically stronger than a high school kid,” Zagoria said. “There’s a lot of worlds overlapping.”
College football has already proven that model works. Indiana won a national championship the previous season with a roster based on experienced transfers and older players. The Hoosiers were not recruited through traditional high school recruiting classes. They were paired with people who were ready to compete at the highest level immediately. Basketball coaches are clearly paying attention.
Zagoria said the best formula over the past decade has been a combination of the portal’s veterans and some exceptional newcomers. Duke pulled it off last season.
“Duke clearly has the perfect mix,” he said. “They had Cooper Flagg, they had Kon Knueppel, and they had some older players. It looked like they were going to win the whole tournament. They got to the Final Four, blew a lead late on Houston.”
UConn is running a version of it this year with Braylon Mullins. But Zagoria made it clear that most programs can’t recruit at that level.
“Not every school can or is recruiting five-star guys like Cooper Flagg and Braylon Mullins,” he said.
So they take another route. Zagoria referenced UCLA coach Mick Cronin, who recently joked about the kind of player he’s looking for now.
“UCLA coach Mick Cronin joked yesterday that he wanted to bring in someone who drinks vodka and wrestles bears from Lithuania,” Zagoria said. “I think now only a few schools are really enrolling high school players, and that’s hurting high school recruiting.”
The conversation turned to something even more strange – former professional players trying to gain college eligibility. Zagoria said he has a longstanding view on the issue.
“If you’ve decided to leave college and you’re going to go professional and lose your qualifications, you shouldn’t be able to leave college and come back to college,” he said.
Current NCAA rules allow a player to return if he is within five years of his high school graduating class and has not signed an NBA contract or participated in NBA games. But Zagoria points out a contradiction that makes the whole thing unclear.
“There are all kinds of European professionals who have signed with schools during semester breaks and are coming to American colleges,” he said. “So really, what is the difference between a European professional and an American professional? I understand the arguments, but it’s such a huge change from the college game we all grew up with that it’s hard for many people to process it.”
He talked to people from both sides. Jai Bilas has no problem with this. Certainly not Tom Izzo.
Zagoria said, “One day I couldn’t get Tom Izzo off the phone for 25 minutes because he just said it was the end of the world.” “And he’ll go back and try to get Miles Bridges and Magic Johnson back playing for Michigan State.”
What makes this season so interesting is that the freshman class runs counter to the overall trend. Zagoria said eight of the top picks in the NBA draft will be freshmen, headlined by Darrin Peterson at Kansas, Cameron Boozer at Duke and AJ DiBantsa at BYU.
That this talented freshman class exists at exactly the same time as programs are abandoning high school recruiting says a lot about where college basketball is right now.
Zagoria also breaks down the conference race and mid-major contenders on the podcast. The full interview is available on The Sportsknot Interview.
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