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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Does anyone have any tips or thoughts about how to approach the Div. III (for example NESCAC) "high-academic" recruiting process, whether through AAU clubs or not? Team Takeover is sending kids to Brown University now, so I assume Ivy League basketball is just for elite players at this point, and we need to aim lower. TIA[/quote]

I saw a pretty good presentation at a Top 100 event my son attended by a guy who publishes a recruiting newsletter that hundreds of college coaches actually pay to subscribe to (unlike the mountains of spam they get from camps and exposure events).  Here's what I remember of his talk, paraphrased along with notes about our experience:

- Unless you are an ESPN top 100 recruit, the process actually needs to be you recruiting the schools.  Kid should make a list of programs he's interested in and contact coach or assistant coach.  Request information about summer camps (on an invite if they are invite only) and complete the school's athlete interest form.  Follow up with coaches with links to games, information about stats, etc.

- Don't make a choppy highlight video that's all dunks and threes.  Show some defense.  Show complete plays.  Have a video of a whole game or a half where your kid played well that's available online.  Coaches want to see your kid play defense.  They want to see what the kid does when they miss a shot or make a mistake -- do they get back on defense and take the ball back?  Also -- if they make a three, do they stand around celebrating or get back on D?

- Post a profile on a site like Captain U or Be the Beast (Captain U is cheaper).  Not necessarily because your player will be found there but because it makes creating a profile with video clips and all the info coaches need pretty easy.

- Get good grades and have test scores available.  Coaches can help players get merit aid at d3 schools (I attended a d3 school a million years ago -- so this may have changed -- on a merit-based academic scholarship for student athletes .  It wasn't an athletic scholarship, but it was given to people who were successful athletes in high school).

- Every single coach who has contacted my kid has asked for test scores first ---SAT English, math and writing and ACT.  It's their first question.

- Play at events that coaches attend.  Local tournaments at some random high school gym won't lead to any recruiting interest.  Also, be aware that playing at a Jam Fest where there are 100 D1 coaches on a live period weekend doesn't mean that any of those coaches will see your kid play unless your kid is playing on center court.   For kids who aren't 4 or 5 star kids, my impression is that you are more likely to have success by contacting coaches proactively with information about grades, test scores and character and then provide links to game video that shows your kid can also play.

- College summer camps seem useful, but they are not all created equal.  And I'm not talking about the Georgetown summer camp or Duke or UNC camp that anybody can sign up for.  Your kid will get lots of summer camp invites, and you want to look carefully at them.  Some are real prospect camps where a limited number of kids are invited to work out for coaches from that school.  If your kid is invited to a camp that tells you how many kids will be there (e.g. 30 kids), that tells you your kid will be coached by the team's coaches (only -- not coaches from a bunch of different schools) and where they will meet and work out with the players, those seem useful.  Others are moneymaking ventures intended to take advantage of kids thinking that playing at a college camp means they are being recruited.   My kid attended a camp at a d3 school in New Jersey that was totally doing camps to make money  -- they do 5 camps a summer, and they pack 120 kids into a gym, have them play 3 terrible games (everybody plays selfish ball and tries to create highlights) and then send them home.  The coach of that school actually really persistently called and texted my 15 year old and me after the camp -- not out of genuine interest in recruiting my kid, but rather to get him to sign up for another camp.  It was really gross.

- Your high school coach should be helping with recruitment.  At the very least they should pick up the phone when coaches call.  I spoke with a d2 coach who told me that he has a lot of trouble getting calls back from high school coaches.

Finally, I would say be very skeptical -- getting invited to a camp or an exposure event doesn't necessarily mean anything and you will start to get tons of spam trying to convince you that your kid is a prospect when the reality is that they want you to pay to register for an event.  It's really sad because kids want to believe it means something, but it really doesn't.  Even being contacted by a coach is just a first step --- the recruiting newsletter guy said that many schools contact 3,000 players a summer in order to end up eventually making offers to 5 kids.[/quote]

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