Why TNL Is Home For April

New coaches bear brunt of bad rule


by Jeff Goodman
Jeff Goodman is a senior college basketball writer for FOXSports.com. He can be reached at GoodmanonFOX@aol.com or check out his blog, Good 'N Plenty.

This was usually the time of year that new head coaches were able to rely on to help restock their roster.

They faced a dilemma whether to head to an AAU tournament in Pittsburgh or Arkansas where they were able to get a look at 30 or so kids that were still searching for a college destination.

Not anymore.

Now coaches like Georgia's Mark Fox, High Point's Scott Cherry, Arizona's coach Sean Miller and others have their work cut out for them.

The NCAA instituted a ridiculous and baffling rule recently in which college coaches are no longer able to watch players at AAU events in April.

It was done with the intention to try and limit the amount of school days missed by student-athletes and also to attempt to shift the "power" back from the AAU coaches to the high school coaches.

But it'll backfire.

It will result in coaches having to now take someone else's word, making determinations off watching videotape and thus will lead to an increase in transfers.

"That's a hard way to make a living," said Cherry, who was an assistant at South Carolina last season. "Especially on your first coaching job. It makes it challenging and really difficult."

It certainly won't be helping cut costs either. Instead of sending coaches to one spot per weekend — such as Pittsburgh or Arkansas — they now are zig-zagging the country in an effort to see as many individual kids as possible. Take one spot in the northeast on Friday morning when there were three head coaches and five assistants.

Fox, the former head coach at Nevada, got his gig about two weeks ago and has a couple of scholarships to fill. Sure, he's recruited the southeast before and had a pair of kids from North Carolina on his roster, but he's not yet plugged into the area.

So instead of hitting the ground running and getting an opportunity to see 50 or so available players over the next two weekends, as has been the case until this year, he's forced to try and make quick decisions.

"All year long, people were talking that the coaches who were going to be affected the most were the ones who took a new job that needed some rebuilding," Fox said. "Now I'm in that situation, but you just have to deal with the cards you are dealt and be efficient."

The first day Fox was allowed to go on the road was a week ago Thursday at noon. He went to Alabama and Florida to see a couple of kids at their school (that's all coaches are allowed to do in this period) and then flew to Texas that night.

On Friday, he saw a couple of kids in the Lone Star State before getting back to Athens around 4 a.m. on Saturday morning.

The NCAA also allowed coaches to see kids over the weekend, but there was NO one to see. Most of the kids were out playing at AAU tournaments and the rest were home with their families for Easter.

Since Sunday, the NCAA hasn't allowed coaches to go on the road to watch kids at all. They were permitted to go back out this morning, but most of the players are headed to AAU tournaments this weekend — even though coaches won't be allowed to watch.

The bottom line is that kids are going to continue to play — and miss part of school on Friday — whether coaches are watching or not. Especially because Division 2 and Division 3 coaches are allowed to be out this weekend and next weekend.

"It's very difficult now," said Sean Miller, who went from Xavier to Arizona this offseason. "Everybody knows the most important way to build a program is to bring in the right players. It's hard when we don't have the opportunity to see them. ...

"We only had a couple of days last week, which allows us to see no more than eight to 10 kids at their schools."

"You have to make the most of the limited days you have," added Tony Bennett, who went from Washington State across the country to Virginia. "We can't see the mass quantity anymore, so you have to make the most of the weekdays going to the schools."

But it's far more difficult to judge a 6-foot-9 big man in a high school practice when he doesn't go up against another D-1 players than it is over four weekend days in April (which is what the NCAA allowed prior to this year) when the elite players go up against one another.

"It's difficult to evaluate now," Miller said. "It means there'll be more mistakes made."

New Memphis coach Josh Pastner said maximizing time becomes more important. However, that's easier said than done when you've just taken over a job and have numerous other responsibilities.

"You need to try and assemble a staff, take care of your current team, try and re-recruit the recruits who had already committed to the program," Pastner said. "And try and recruit for the future. It's much harder to do now without the April period."

That's why the NCAA needs to bring it back.