How will college basketball coaches handle no recruiting & no NCAA's?
Yahoo Sports' Krysten Peek and former UCLA & St. John's coach Steve Lavin discuss the NCAA's ban on recruiting due to concerns around COVID-19, and how coaches will do their best to maintain contact with recruits.
Video Transcript
KRYSTEN PEEK: I'm Krysten Peek here with former UCLA and St. John's head coach Steve Lavin. Coach, with no NCAA tournament, obviously it's an odd time for everyone around college basketball. Coaches can't recruit until around April 15. How would you handle this time right now if you were coaching?
STEVE LAVIN: Well, for starters, coaches always preach to their teams, to individual players about the importance of adapting, of adjusting, of using ingenuity and resourcefulness. So given the circumstances of the coronavirus, a lot is fluid. And so as a result, coaches will adapt to this period.
And technology has changed the game, the fact that now a coach can work from home on his phone. I think they'll continue to be able to work the back channels in terms of the contacts, the influencers around a prospect, and there's still opportunities within the staff to also strategize in terms of the things they need to do in terms of moves in the offseason and recruiting targets and what's going to be the best fit to elevate their team's play once they get back on the court. And so it does give some time for the staff to step back and kind of evaluate their program and then plan accordingly what maneuvers, what moves they have to make as a basketball program to stay at the elite level.
KRYSTEN PEEK: Yeah, and, you know, when I've talked to a few college coaches that they have just said, plain and simple, well, we got to get creative. So what does that look like? Is that FaceTiming a recruit a campus tour because they can't get on for an unofficial visit? Is it, you know, making sure that you're always in contact with them asking about video games and stuff like that. But if you can't watch them play, like, how much does this off-the-court stuff depend on the recruitment?
STEVE LAVIN: Yeah, I do think there is an opportunity to communicate with the potential prospects about something other than basketball, and that's an important piece. I think the best coaches can take the subjects, you know, beyond basketball and find common ground. And obviously the coronavirus is something that's serious, right? This is a sobering time throughout the world.
And so naturally it would be a more subdued approach in terms of communicating with parents and prospects and the influencers around a particular prospect, but there is an opportunity to talk about things that are more important than basketball. And I think the best coaches, the natural communicators will be able to do that and build a stronger bond and rapport with the parents of a prospect and the prospect themselves.
KRYSTEN PEEK: Well, Coach, I always appreciate your input, especially on these new topics that we're trying to navigate, you know, here in the sports world.
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