UGA MBB
Gadogs.com: Bulldogs In Italy: Day 7 Recap
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2023/7/27/mens-basketball-bulldogs-in-italy-day-7-recap
2024 Recruiting
College Basketball
Norlander CBS Sports: Citing burnout from NIL, transfer portal and non-stop recruiting, college basketball coaches make big changes
"Our industry is not sustainable with the current model," one SEC assistant told CBS Sports. "Every coach says so. We are all exhausted."
Recruits and players already in college are also broadly affected. For coaches — and this goes for assistants at low-majors making $35,000 just as much as it does for the multi-millionaire faces of the profession — the masses have never felt stretched this thin.
"The calendar doesn't work. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. It doesn't work," Towson's Pat Skerry said, and like nearly every coach interviewed for this story, he was quick to admit the obvious. "I think every one of us is overpaid, it's just at different levels."
But money made doesn't avert health issues. Earning a nice paycheck doesn't prevent anxiety, depression or acute loads of stress. There can be a better way. Many coaches aren't seeking sympathy — they're looking for logical reworks. CBS Sports spoke with more than two dozen people within college basketball in the past month about this topic, and it's painstakingly clear that most believe the offseason calendar has lost the plot.
"If we don't change some things, we're going to lose some coaches."
Baylor coach Scott Drew
"I'm very concerned about our younger coaches," Auburn's Bruce Pearl said. "I'm concerned about them as dads not seeing their kids in-season, and when the season's over, their wives are expecting to surely see your son play baseball, or your daughter play softball, or see a play. But no. We're talking about marriages and kids. This has been the conversation."
After Kansas' Bill Self was forced to rest and not coach his team in last season's NCAA Tournament because of a medical procedure, Pearl was thrown and went to see his team doctor.
"I'm concerned about Bill Self having heart challenges (and) Mike Leach concerns me," Pearl said, referring to the death of Mississippi State's football coach last year. "I'm 63 years old, so there's a health issue there."
Something has to give. If it doesn't, an exodus of sorts could come.
"If we don't change some things, we're going to lose some coaches," Baylor's Scott Drew said. "If I was 25 and I was in this profession now and an ops guy, I would say there's no way I'm grinding my way through this profession. I'm doing something else, unless the rules would change."
Hall of Famers retiring gets noticed and leaves a void. Much less noticeable are the young people trying to work their way up in their 20s and 30s who have quit in the past year-plus due to the strain with this schedule.
Chris LePore might have been the most valuable person in Cincinnati's men's basketball program. LePore was chief of staff for UC men's basketball, and a former assistant under Wes Miller at UNC Greensboro. He officially left the business this month.
"For me, it was about having more time for my kids, having more time for my family," LePore told CBS Sports. "It became very 24/7, 365. You can't really turn it off."
LePore, 31 and with three children under 6, had been mulling the move for more than a year. He has the smarts and potential to eventually be a good head coach, but he said it's not worth the wait in the current climate.
"One of the biggest changes was the transfer portal," LePore said. "Now, the day your season ends, the day you play your last game, you don't really know who's with you in that moment. You're hoping you know the guys who are going to stick with you, but truthfully you don't really know. With the portal, April and May, we're putting more hours into it than during the season, almost. ... It takes a toll. You feel like you don't get an opportunity to catch your breath. That's why I started to feel the burnout."
LePore said coworkers in his new line of work "think I'm an alien" because he was so accustomed to working late on weeknights and practically every weekend. Now, the calls and texts aren't coming in and he has pangs of anxiety because he still feels like he should be working more. Checking out at 5:01 p.m. to play Wiffle Ball with his boys is an exhilarating but odd sensation, LePore said. The concept of PTO blew his mind.
Recruiting is more intense and around-the-clock than ever before, and it stems from roster uncertainty because of players seeking as much playing time and NIL money as possible.
"We've always had to recruit our own players, but not to this magnitude. We've always had to recruit transfers, but not to this magnitude," Drew said.
"As a guy who lost 31 games my first year, I feel like I've done more this offseason than then," Skerry said.
The price (NIL deals aside) is mental and physical tax, not to mention guilt amongst assistants that can linger in an extremely competitive profession. Recruiting isn't just the lifeblood of college basketball. To hear some coaches lay it out, it can also feel like a hamster wheel. It used to be that a team's season would end and players would get a couple of weeks to decompress before meeting with the staff to look ahead. Now it's two days — if that. The portal is a-callin'.
My good players are getting phone calls that 'you need to go in the portal. If you come here you're going to get this much money," Kampe said. "'I'm a representative of [Big 12 school] and our average NIL deal is $140,000. I'm telling you, you've gotta go in the portal, and the minute you go in the portal, you'll hear from them.' This is happening in the middle of our season."
"It's heartbreaking. Families are breaking up." Auburn coach Bruce Pearl
In the past year, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division I congress (32 coaches from 32 leagues) has built up momentum and support to do something about it — and ideally as soon as possible.
"Scott Drew's been a rock star in driving this thing," Skerry (who, like many coaches I interviewed, sits on the congress) said.
Drew has been a head coach for two decades. He wants to leave college basketball better than how he found it, and if he were to leave right now, he said that wouldn't be the case.
"Right now it's hard for coaches to recommend the profession to former players and friends until we can get things changed and adjusted," he told CBS Sports. "That's disappointing because it's such a great profession and a chance to influence people in the next generation. It is rewarding in a lot of ways, but at the same time it's gotten to where I've never told people NOT to go into the profession, and most people are saying it's at that point until we get these things rectified."
From a recruiting standpoint, the workload has tripled in the last few years, according to coaches I spoke with. There has to be an exchange, because otherwise circumstances and the environment in the sport is expected to get worse.
"We're tired at the end of the year. We've worked basically seven days a week and the last day we had off was New Year's Eve," Pearl said. "Now, with the exception of a few days at the Final Four, we work every day in April, every weekend, every day at a very high-stress time when an average of 3.5 players per team per year are leaving. It's heartbreaking. Families are breaking up. I've historically not had a lot of guys transfer, this was the most we've ever had. We had three, and it broke my heart."
The good news is this isn't a story about an issue without a resolution. Change is coming to the recruiting calendar thanks to unprecedented unity among coaches.
"Normally you get 60%, 70% on board with whatever, but this was something everybody was on the same page," Drew said. "COVID taught us all some different things, and one of them was: When we didn't go on the road and were with our players more and families more and all had full rosters, we were still able to do our jobs."
What will these changes be? A complete overhaul to the spring recruiting period, more time off around every major holiday, a big shift in July, and elongated dark periods that are expected to better serve coaches, college players and recruits. It amounts to one of the biggest shifts in the calendar in ages…”
https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...lege-basketball-coaches-make-big-changes/amp/
Norlander CBS Sports: Major calendar changes coming in college hoops: Spring and summer overhaul, more time away for mental health
“Here's how the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) hopes to change college basketball starting in 2024.
New portal window for 30 days
The top complaint with the portal is how long it's open. An NCAA-wide policy from last season set it at 60 days. That meant it opened the day after Selection Sunday and seeped into mid-May, complicating the recruiting process more than ever. A change across all NCAA sports to reduce from 60 to 30 will be up for review in October. Eventually, it's expected to pass. In men's college basketball, the halving is enthusiastically backed.
"You can't get 363 coaches to agree on anything, but it's pretty unanimous that everyone wants a 30-day window," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, who has been a driving force behind the NABC's proposed changes.
The question becomes: When should the portal open? Many in college hoops believe it was a bad look for the sport to have hundreds of players hopping in mere hours after the reveal of the 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket. The four start dates up for discussion:
• Option 1: Push back the entry date to the Monday after the first weekend of the NCAAs (seven days later than 2023).
• Option 2: Open the Monday after the Elite Eight concludes/week of the Final Four (14 days later than 2023).
• Option 3: Open after the national championship game. Let the postseason standalone, then commence de facto college basketball free agency for almost all of April, with the tail end wrapping up in early May.
• Option 4: There is no universal start date. Rather, the portal opens for every team 1-3 days after its season ends
CBS Sports obtained the latest revision of the proposed 2023-24 recruiting calendar, which is nearing completion and subject to minor tweaks. What's detailed below is what's hoped to be next year's calendar. In addition to these changes, a deal was struck to drop a program's total on-the-road recruiting days from 130 to 100. What's more, the ad hoc committee pushed for "dead" days around every April, May, June and July weekend that includes a major holiday, in addition to Juneteenth. Those holidays are: Easter (in years when it falls after the season), Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day and Fourth of July.
This schedule is not yet official, but here's much of the vision the NABC is hoping will pass come October.
April
A major change: Because of unlimited official visits for recruits and transfers, the new normal with the portal and appreciable roster turnover expected each April, the fourth month of the year will no longer have live evaluation days for coaches to go and watch high school recruits. This will mark the first time in a generation that April will not have an in-person evaluation period. But as CBS Sports detailed earlier this month, coaches' lack of attendance was telling.
"I thought it was the least-attended live periods that I've seen, just from a coaching perspective," Duke's Jon Scheyer said, citing the spike in transfer visits in April. "Coaches, we're out all the time. It's taken away from what's most important, which is your current team. We've had to make decisions not to go to everything."
If the '23-24 calendar is approved, April will become a month entirely dedicated to roster retention and recruiting the portal with in-home and/or on-campus visits, save for the weeklong dead period surrounding the Final Four (April 4-11). Because of this, the number of recruiting days jumps in April from 14 to 22.
May
The first four days will be live recruiting periods for visits, then a quiet period will run from May 5-16, with the exception of a dead day on Mother's Day (May 12). (Read here for the differences in live/dead/quiet/recruiting periods.)
The big change: May will have one live evaluation period (May 17-19), marking what's believed to be the first time in many decades that any type of basketball evaluation days have been on the calendar in this month. With April evals gone, that May weekend will be highly anticipated, as the major apparel companies will play their spring competition circuits. For years, grassroots coaches have asked for the live evaluation period to be moved from April to May to put young recruits in a better position to succeed. Now it's in position to happen.
From May 22-June 2, there will be a slightly elongated recruiting dead period, meaning the only permissible contact would be phone calls, texts, written communication or private contact via social media.
June
Father's Day and Juneteenth would be dead days, while the scholastic-based evaluation period (high school teammates, not AAU; for many a mid-major, it's the most treasured of all the eval periods) would shrink from two weekends to one five-day period (June 20-24). The reasoning: it cuts back on travel, plus would allow different states to schedule different days to hold their scholastic events. One example: Michigan high schools can do Thursday/Friday, then Ohio goes Sunday/Monday.
This also allows wider gaps for team camps on campuses, which are important periods for young coaches to make extra money and stay connected to their communities.
"Monday to Friday you're with your team, and then on the weekends you're gone recruiting, so that's when you really get that fatigue setting in, where you're grinding and you're not fresh or good for your players," Drew said. "You're not around your family in the summer, it's the never-ending cycle we're trying to put an end to."
July
July would jump from 12 to 23 dead days, while shrinking from 10 to eight eval days, which would be over two four-day stretches on consecutive weekends (July 11-14, 18-21). This calendar adjustment puts coaches on the road, watching high school recruits, or back on campus so they can be around their players amid summer workouts/classes. Zero recruiting visits are permitted.
"May used to be a down time, now it may be the most important month," Kampe said. "For mid-majors like me, July doesn't mean shit anymore. I'm not getting those kids anymore. I'm out there so they see who I am, so when they want to transfer, they'll remember who I am."
The move to two evaluation periods on back-to-back weekends could offer an improved cadence of playing time for recruits. The belief among many coaches is that players are worn out by the end of July, so anything beyond two periods would reduce quality of competition and lead to spottier attendance.
August
Because of travel fatigue, burnout and the relentless nature of recruiting, the calendar here will increase in dead days for the longest stretch of the year: a 14-day period (Aug. 6-20). This is the one part of the calendar revamp that is already official (approved in June). The long-term goal is to keep this dead period in August moving forward, so coaches can either prepare for overseas exhibition trips or be able to decompress after the push of summer recruiting.
The two dead periods in May/August will allow for respites, but they fall short of one bigger action: an outright blackout space. That means no contact whatsoever, be it calls, texts or any signaling through social media. Women's basketball has it. Some men's coaches want it.
"I'm in favor of the dead period being exactly that," Pearl said. "The recruits and their families need a break, we need a break, no one is getting a leg up on anyone else. It would be good for the profession and the recruiting process. I'm not worried about anyone breaking the rules because, if someone is breaking the rules, the family will know the phones have been shut off and the family will know that someone is operating dishonestly."
https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...er-overhaul-more-time-away-for-mental-health/
Borzello ESPN: Men's college basketball roster changes, departures, newcomers for 2023-24
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...23-24-rosters-departures-changes?platform=amp
Cincinnati
Rothstein: Cincinnati and Georgia Tech will start a home-and-home series next season at Fifth Third Arena, according to a source.
Return game in Atlanta during the 2024-25 season.
Colorado
Denver Post: Buffs bolt back to the future before the Pac-12 crumbles into ocean. “My job just got harder … and better,” CU basketball coach Tad Boyle says
https://www.denverpost.com/2023/07/...yle-deion-sanders-conference-realignment/amp/
Duke
Memphis
Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway on 3-game suspension: 'I'll just say I was wrong'
https://www.commercialappeal.com/st...rdaway-discusses-ncaa-suspension/70467387007/
Rothstein: Penny Hardaway told reporters that Wichita State transfer Jaykwon Walton has decommitted from UCF and has signed to play next season at Memphis.
Walton averaged 13.9 PPG last season at Wichita State.
Purdue
Rivals.com: Purdue Basketball - A Tale of Two Seasons
https://purdue.rivals.com/news/purdue-basketball-a-tale-of-two-seasons
Rutgers
Rivals: Rutgers Basketball lands Iowa State transfer guard Jeremiah Williams
https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/rutgers-basketball-lands-iowa-state-transfer-guard-jeremiah-williams
South Florida
USC
ESPN: Bronny James released from hospital following cardiac arrest
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...es-released-hospital-following-cardiac-arrest
Recruiting
NBA
Atlanta
History
WLOS TV: WNC sports legend Henry Logan passes away at 78
“His talent earned him a scholarship to play for Western Carolina, which made him the first African-American scholarship athlete at a predominantly white institution in the state of North Carolina. It's believed, yet unconfirmed, that he was the first Black scholarship athlete in the southeast.
"He paved the way for Michael Jordan and the great basketball players of today," stated Ellison. "Before there was Michael, there was Henry."
Logan always maintained that his Western teammates and classmates never treated him poorly, but the road crowds were a different situation.
"When somebody asked Henry, 'How did they treat you when you first started playing and you were the only black playing?' He'd say, you know - I could hear them calling my name and calling me different kind of names, but every time they called me a name I'd score more points," smiled Ellison. "He never let it bother him personally because he had a mission and the mission was to be the best basketball player."
That mission was successful in Cullowhee. Logan averaged 30.7 points per game in his four years as a Catamount (1964-68) and is the only player in NCAA history to tally 3,200 or more points and more than 1,000 assists.
Logan was drafted in the fourth round by the Seattle Supersonics in the 1968 ABA draft and won a league championship with the Oakland Oaks in 1969. He was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2000 along with Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and former Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.”
wlos.com
Gadogs.com: Bulldogs In Italy: Day 7 Recap
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2023/7/27/mens-basketball-bulldogs-in-italy-day-7-recap
2024 Recruiting
College Basketball
Norlander CBS Sports: Citing burnout from NIL, transfer portal and non-stop recruiting, college basketball coaches make big changes
"Our industry is not sustainable with the current model," one SEC assistant told CBS Sports. "Every coach says so. We are all exhausted."
Recruits and players already in college are also broadly affected. For coaches — and this goes for assistants at low-majors making $35,000 just as much as it does for the multi-millionaire faces of the profession — the masses have never felt stretched this thin.
"The calendar doesn't work. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. It doesn't work," Towson's Pat Skerry said, and like nearly every coach interviewed for this story, he was quick to admit the obvious. "I think every one of us is overpaid, it's just at different levels."
But money made doesn't avert health issues. Earning a nice paycheck doesn't prevent anxiety, depression or acute loads of stress. There can be a better way. Many coaches aren't seeking sympathy — they're looking for logical reworks. CBS Sports spoke with more than two dozen people within college basketball in the past month about this topic, and it's painstakingly clear that most believe the offseason calendar has lost the plot.
"If we don't change some things, we're going to lose some coaches."
Baylor coach Scott Drew
"I'm very concerned about our younger coaches," Auburn's Bruce Pearl said. "I'm concerned about them as dads not seeing their kids in-season, and when the season's over, their wives are expecting to surely see your son play baseball, or your daughter play softball, or see a play. But no. We're talking about marriages and kids. This has been the conversation."
After Kansas' Bill Self was forced to rest and not coach his team in last season's NCAA Tournament because of a medical procedure, Pearl was thrown and went to see his team doctor.
"I'm concerned about Bill Self having heart challenges (and) Mike Leach concerns me," Pearl said, referring to the death of Mississippi State's football coach last year. "I'm 63 years old, so there's a health issue there."
Something has to give. If it doesn't, an exodus of sorts could come.
"If we don't change some things, we're going to lose some coaches," Baylor's Scott Drew said. "If I was 25 and I was in this profession now and an ops guy, I would say there's no way I'm grinding my way through this profession. I'm doing something else, unless the rules would change."
Hall of Famers retiring gets noticed and leaves a void. Much less noticeable are the young people trying to work their way up in their 20s and 30s who have quit in the past year-plus due to the strain with this schedule.
Chris LePore might have been the most valuable person in Cincinnati's men's basketball program. LePore was chief of staff for UC men's basketball, and a former assistant under Wes Miller at UNC Greensboro. He officially left the business this month.
"For me, it was about having more time for my kids, having more time for my family," LePore told CBS Sports. "It became very 24/7, 365. You can't really turn it off."
LePore, 31 and with three children under 6, had been mulling the move for more than a year. He has the smarts and potential to eventually be a good head coach, but he said it's not worth the wait in the current climate.
"One of the biggest changes was the transfer portal," LePore said. "Now, the day your season ends, the day you play your last game, you don't really know who's with you in that moment. You're hoping you know the guys who are going to stick with you, but truthfully you don't really know. With the portal, April and May, we're putting more hours into it than during the season, almost. ... It takes a toll. You feel like you don't get an opportunity to catch your breath. That's why I started to feel the burnout."
LePore said coworkers in his new line of work "think I'm an alien" because he was so accustomed to working late on weeknights and practically every weekend. Now, the calls and texts aren't coming in and he has pangs of anxiety because he still feels like he should be working more. Checking out at 5:01 p.m. to play Wiffle Ball with his boys is an exhilarating but odd sensation, LePore said. The concept of PTO blew his mind.
Recruiting is more intense and around-the-clock than ever before, and it stems from roster uncertainty because of players seeking as much playing time and NIL money as possible.
"We've always had to recruit our own players, but not to this magnitude. We've always had to recruit transfers, but not to this magnitude," Drew said.
"As a guy who lost 31 games my first year, I feel like I've done more this offseason than then," Skerry said.
The price (NIL deals aside) is mental and physical tax, not to mention guilt amongst assistants that can linger in an extremely competitive profession. Recruiting isn't just the lifeblood of college basketball. To hear some coaches lay it out, it can also feel like a hamster wheel. It used to be that a team's season would end and players would get a couple of weeks to decompress before meeting with the staff to look ahead. Now it's two days — if that. The portal is a-callin'.
My good players are getting phone calls that 'you need to go in the portal. If you come here you're going to get this much money," Kampe said. "'I'm a representative of [Big 12 school] and our average NIL deal is $140,000. I'm telling you, you've gotta go in the portal, and the minute you go in the portal, you'll hear from them.' This is happening in the middle of our season."
"It's heartbreaking. Families are breaking up." Auburn coach Bruce Pearl
In the past year, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division I congress (32 coaches from 32 leagues) has built up momentum and support to do something about it — and ideally as soon as possible.
"Scott Drew's been a rock star in driving this thing," Skerry (who, like many coaches I interviewed, sits on the congress) said.
Drew has been a head coach for two decades. He wants to leave college basketball better than how he found it, and if he were to leave right now, he said that wouldn't be the case.
"Right now it's hard for coaches to recommend the profession to former players and friends until we can get things changed and adjusted," he told CBS Sports. "That's disappointing because it's such a great profession and a chance to influence people in the next generation. It is rewarding in a lot of ways, but at the same time it's gotten to where I've never told people NOT to go into the profession, and most people are saying it's at that point until we get these things rectified."
From a recruiting standpoint, the workload has tripled in the last few years, according to coaches I spoke with. There has to be an exchange, because otherwise circumstances and the environment in the sport is expected to get worse.
"We're tired at the end of the year. We've worked basically seven days a week and the last day we had off was New Year's Eve," Pearl said. "Now, with the exception of a few days at the Final Four, we work every day in April, every weekend, every day at a very high-stress time when an average of 3.5 players per team per year are leaving. It's heartbreaking. Families are breaking up. I've historically not had a lot of guys transfer, this was the most we've ever had. We had three, and it broke my heart."
The good news is this isn't a story about an issue without a resolution. Change is coming to the recruiting calendar thanks to unprecedented unity among coaches.
"Normally you get 60%, 70% on board with whatever, but this was something everybody was on the same page," Drew said. "COVID taught us all some different things, and one of them was: When we didn't go on the road and were with our players more and families more and all had full rosters, we were still able to do our jobs."
What will these changes be? A complete overhaul to the spring recruiting period, more time off around every major holiday, a big shift in July, and elongated dark periods that are expected to better serve coaches, college players and recruits. It amounts to one of the biggest shifts in the calendar in ages…”
https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...lege-basketball-coaches-make-big-changes/amp/
Norlander CBS Sports: Major calendar changes coming in college hoops: Spring and summer overhaul, more time away for mental health
“Here's how the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) hopes to change college basketball starting in 2024.
New portal window for 30 days
The top complaint with the portal is how long it's open. An NCAA-wide policy from last season set it at 60 days. That meant it opened the day after Selection Sunday and seeped into mid-May, complicating the recruiting process more than ever. A change across all NCAA sports to reduce from 60 to 30 will be up for review in October. Eventually, it's expected to pass. In men's college basketball, the halving is enthusiastically backed.
"You can't get 363 coaches to agree on anything, but it's pretty unanimous that everyone wants a 30-day window," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, who has been a driving force behind the NABC's proposed changes.
The question becomes: When should the portal open? Many in college hoops believe it was a bad look for the sport to have hundreds of players hopping in mere hours after the reveal of the 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket. The four start dates up for discussion:
• Option 1: Push back the entry date to the Monday after the first weekend of the NCAAs (seven days later than 2023).
• Option 2: Open the Monday after the Elite Eight concludes/week of the Final Four (14 days later than 2023).
• Option 3: Open after the national championship game. Let the postseason standalone, then commence de facto college basketball free agency for almost all of April, with the tail end wrapping up in early May.
• Option 4: There is no universal start date. Rather, the portal opens for every team 1-3 days after its season ends
CBS Sports obtained the latest revision of the proposed 2023-24 recruiting calendar, which is nearing completion and subject to minor tweaks. What's detailed below is what's hoped to be next year's calendar. In addition to these changes, a deal was struck to drop a program's total on-the-road recruiting days from 130 to 100. What's more, the ad hoc committee pushed for "dead" days around every April, May, June and July weekend that includes a major holiday, in addition to Juneteenth. Those holidays are: Easter (in years when it falls after the season), Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day and Fourth of July.
This schedule is not yet official, but here's much of the vision the NABC is hoping will pass come October.
April
A major change: Because of unlimited official visits for recruits and transfers, the new normal with the portal and appreciable roster turnover expected each April, the fourth month of the year will no longer have live evaluation days for coaches to go and watch high school recruits. This will mark the first time in a generation that April will not have an in-person evaluation period. But as CBS Sports detailed earlier this month, coaches' lack of attendance was telling.
"I thought it was the least-attended live periods that I've seen, just from a coaching perspective," Duke's Jon Scheyer said, citing the spike in transfer visits in April. "Coaches, we're out all the time. It's taken away from what's most important, which is your current team. We've had to make decisions not to go to everything."
If the '23-24 calendar is approved, April will become a month entirely dedicated to roster retention and recruiting the portal with in-home and/or on-campus visits, save for the weeklong dead period surrounding the Final Four (April 4-11). Because of this, the number of recruiting days jumps in April from 14 to 22.
May
The first four days will be live recruiting periods for visits, then a quiet period will run from May 5-16, with the exception of a dead day on Mother's Day (May 12). (Read here for the differences in live/dead/quiet/recruiting periods.)
The big change: May will have one live evaluation period (May 17-19), marking what's believed to be the first time in many decades that any type of basketball evaluation days have been on the calendar in this month. With April evals gone, that May weekend will be highly anticipated, as the major apparel companies will play their spring competition circuits. For years, grassroots coaches have asked for the live evaluation period to be moved from April to May to put young recruits in a better position to succeed. Now it's in position to happen.
From May 22-June 2, there will be a slightly elongated recruiting dead period, meaning the only permissible contact would be phone calls, texts, written communication or private contact via social media.
June
Father's Day and Juneteenth would be dead days, while the scholastic-based evaluation period (high school teammates, not AAU; for many a mid-major, it's the most treasured of all the eval periods) would shrink from two weekends to one five-day period (June 20-24). The reasoning: it cuts back on travel, plus would allow different states to schedule different days to hold their scholastic events. One example: Michigan high schools can do Thursday/Friday, then Ohio goes Sunday/Monday.
This also allows wider gaps for team camps on campuses, which are important periods for young coaches to make extra money and stay connected to their communities.
"Monday to Friday you're with your team, and then on the weekends you're gone recruiting, so that's when you really get that fatigue setting in, where you're grinding and you're not fresh or good for your players," Drew said. "You're not around your family in the summer, it's the never-ending cycle we're trying to put an end to."
July
July would jump from 12 to 23 dead days, while shrinking from 10 to eight eval days, which would be over two four-day stretches on consecutive weekends (July 11-14, 18-21). This calendar adjustment puts coaches on the road, watching high school recruits, or back on campus so they can be around their players amid summer workouts/classes. Zero recruiting visits are permitted.
"May used to be a down time, now it may be the most important month," Kampe said. "For mid-majors like me, July doesn't mean shit anymore. I'm not getting those kids anymore. I'm out there so they see who I am, so when they want to transfer, they'll remember who I am."
The move to two evaluation periods on back-to-back weekends could offer an improved cadence of playing time for recruits. The belief among many coaches is that players are worn out by the end of July, so anything beyond two periods would reduce quality of competition and lead to spottier attendance.
August
Because of travel fatigue, burnout and the relentless nature of recruiting, the calendar here will increase in dead days for the longest stretch of the year: a 14-day period (Aug. 6-20). This is the one part of the calendar revamp that is already official (approved in June). The long-term goal is to keep this dead period in August moving forward, so coaches can either prepare for overseas exhibition trips or be able to decompress after the push of summer recruiting.
The two dead periods in May/August will allow for respites, but they fall short of one bigger action: an outright blackout space. That means no contact whatsoever, be it calls, texts or any signaling through social media. Women's basketball has it. Some men's coaches want it.
"I'm in favor of the dead period being exactly that," Pearl said. "The recruits and their families need a break, we need a break, no one is getting a leg up on anyone else. It would be good for the profession and the recruiting process. I'm not worried about anyone breaking the rules because, if someone is breaking the rules, the family will know the phones have been shut off and the family will know that someone is operating dishonestly."
https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...er-overhaul-more-time-away-for-mental-health/
Borzello ESPN: Men's college basketball roster changes, departures, newcomers for 2023-24
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...23-24-rosters-departures-changes?platform=amp
Cincinnati
Rothstein: Cincinnati and Georgia Tech will start a home-and-home series next season at Fifth Third Arena, according to a source.
Return game in Atlanta during the 2024-25 season.
Colorado
Denver Post: Buffs bolt back to the future before the Pac-12 crumbles into ocean. “My job just got harder … and better,” CU basketball coach Tad Boyle says
https://www.denverpost.com/2023/07/...yle-deion-sanders-conference-realignment/amp/
Duke
Memphis
Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway on 3-game suspension: 'I'll just say I was wrong'
https://www.commercialappeal.com/st...rdaway-discusses-ncaa-suspension/70467387007/
Rothstein: Penny Hardaway told reporters that Wichita State transfer Jaykwon Walton has decommitted from UCF and has signed to play next season at Memphis.
Walton averaged 13.9 PPG last season at Wichita State.
Purdue
Rivals.com: Purdue Basketball - A Tale of Two Seasons
https://purdue.rivals.com/news/purdue-basketball-a-tale-of-two-seasons
Rutgers
Rivals: Rutgers Basketball lands Iowa State transfer guard Jeremiah Williams
https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/rutgers-basketball-lands-iowa-state-transfer-guard-jeremiah-williams
South Florida
USC
ESPN: Bronny James released from hospital following cardiac arrest
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...es-released-hospital-following-cardiac-arrest
Recruiting
NBA
Atlanta
History
WLOS TV: WNC sports legend Henry Logan passes away at 78
“His talent earned him a scholarship to play for Western Carolina, which made him the first African-American scholarship athlete at a predominantly white institution in the state of North Carolina. It's believed, yet unconfirmed, that he was the first Black scholarship athlete in the southeast.
"He paved the way for Michael Jordan and the great basketball players of today," stated Ellison. "Before there was Michael, there was Henry."
Logan always maintained that his Western teammates and classmates never treated him poorly, but the road crowds were a different situation.
"When somebody asked Henry, 'How did they treat you when you first started playing and you were the only black playing?' He'd say, you know - I could hear them calling my name and calling me different kind of names, but every time they called me a name I'd score more points," smiled Ellison. "He never let it bother him personally because he had a mission and the mission was to be the best basketball player."
That mission was successful in Cullowhee. Logan averaged 30.7 points per game in his four years as a Catamount (1964-68) and is the only player in NCAA history to tally 3,200 or more points and more than 1,000 assists.
Logan was drafted in the fourth round by the Seattle Supersonics in the 1968 ABA draft and won a league championship with the Oakland Oaks in 1969. He was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2000 along with Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and former Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.”
WNC sports legend Henry Logan passes away at 78
Western North Carolina lost one of its Mount Rushmore of local sports icons Wednesday.
wlos.com
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