I was thinking about the basketball portal, and it brought me to wondering whether it can continue to work long-term in the present configuration, which has become somewhat of a free-for-all, a recruiting system with few rules. I don't see how it can survive without adding some rules. Maybe some of you can clear this up for me.
I think what we had last year, and now this year, has been a mad dash by all schools who want to quickly improve their teams, to recruit many or even most of their roster vacancies from the portal. On the surface, this seems smart, because players who declare to enter the portal are players with records of their play in Division One, and coaches will have a lot of data on these players, their statistics, their skills, and their physical condition, their injuries. Coaches will have vastly more data on them than they would have on the traditional freshmen high school recruits. The main downside in recruiting more from the portal than directly from the college ranks is the recruit from the portal ranks will usually have only one or two seasons of eligibility left, while the high school recruit might stay with one program for 4 years (forgetting for a moment the additional year or years that players might be granted).
What seems to be happening is that as coaches focus on recruiting more experienced players out of the portal (and there is a limit of 13 scholarships players) so many or most coaches will probably be signing fewer freshmen recruits out of high school. All players have eligibility of 4 or 5 years, depending on when they began playing in D1. Portal players have limited eligibility left, and when they leave, coaches must replace them.
Here is the rub: At some future date, sooner than later, the portal will be running out of players, because teams will have not recruited enough freshmen, to provide enough new players to declare to enter the portal after they have played for a year or two for their original team.
I don't see how the present portal system can survive, unless the NCAA mandates that schools sign a certain minimum percentage of high school freshmen recruits per roster. Or the NCAA could go another way and limit the number of players in the portal a coach can signl, but that could be more complicated.
That is how I see the math developing. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to hear your comments.
I think what we had last year, and now this year, has been a mad dash by all schools who want to quickly improve their teams, to recruit many or even most of their roster vacancies from the portal. On the surface, this seems smart, because players who declare to enter the portal are players with records of their play in Division One, and coaches will have a lot of data on these players, their statistics, their skills, and their physical condition, their injuries. Coaches will have vastly more data on them than they would have on the traditional freshmen high school recruits. The main downside in recruiting more from the portal than directly from the college ranks is the recruit from the portal ranks will usually have only one or two seasons of eligibility left, while the high school recruit might stay with one program for 4 years (forgetting for a moment the additional year or years that players might be granted).
What seems to be happening is that as coaches focus on recruiting more experienced players out of the portal (and there is a limit of 13 scholarships players) so many or most coaches will probably be signing fewer freshmen recruits out of high school. All players have eligibility of 4 or 5 years, depending on when they began playing in D1. Portal players have limited eligibility left, and when they leave, coaches must replace them.
Here is the rub: At some future date, sooner than later, the portal will be running out of players, because teams will have not recruited enough freshmen, to provide enough new players to declare to enter the portal after they have played for a year or two for their original team.
I don't see how the present portal system can survive, unless the NCAA mandates that schools sign a certain minimum percentage of high school freshmen recruits per roster. Or the NCAA could go another way and limit the number of players in the portal a coach can signl, but that could be more complicated.
That is how I see the math developing. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to hear your comments.
