A parents guide to basketball recruiting - navigating "offers"

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Fresh off the article regarding social media, I wanted to dig in a bit more to what an offer is from my viewpoint. As I said in my first post in this series, these articles are from my perspective as a parent and not a definitive truth on what is happening. Often times, we gather the truth by finding different views on the same topic and bringing them together. So here is my view!

Early on, when my son was a freshman in High School, he started to see a few of his friends posting on social media about receiving an offer to play basketball in college. These posts were interesting because…well…this was a first for us! I started to look into it a bit more over the years and then gained the perspective of talking with a few coaches (which most parents don’t get).

Early Offers:

If you see a kid or parent posting about an offer before the beginning of their junior year of HS, it’s more than likely not a committable offer. Meaning, a coach (often times not the Head Coach) has reached out and made it clear that the program is interested in having the player come play at their college when they graduate. I’ve heard that sometimes there is documentation which probably give it some more teeth, however, even if the player verbally committed to the school right then and there there’s nothing binding. If an offer is posted before June 15th of the summer before the players sophomore year and it’s from a Division 1 program, that’s not really real at all considering a coach can’t contact a player and do any recruiting prior to that date.

What these offers do accomplish though is start the recruiting process and show interest. They’re not “fake” per se and there’s nothing illegal about players and teams posting about them. They just aren’t “real” either in the sense of they aren’t actionable. To use a dating analogy, the early offers are first dates, not proposals.

Fake Offers:

I’ve heard about these happening and I have strong words about this topic. DO NOT DO THIS EVER, EVER, EVER! Sometimes, fake accounts show up on X and start sending out fake offers and kids and parents bite. I remember when my son said he received his first football offer to an NAIA school. I told him we had to have a conversation with the coach on the phone before sharing or posting anything about it. I needed to make sure it was real and committable. Integrity is everything for our family and, I hope, for yours as well. So there are bad actors online and you shouldn’t be fooled by them. Also, don’t ever post about an offer without the college coach knowing you are doing it. My view is, the coach shouldn’t be surprised you’re posting about their school by finding out online.

Committable Non scholarship offers:

My opinion here, which is all this is after all, if the offer is for a PWO (Preferred Walk-On) the player should make it clear what the offer actually is. A lot of non D1 schools have JV or Developmental teams as well. There’s nothing wrong with going to a school and playing for these teams and fighting for a spot on the top team. Just be clear with the coach on what the offer is for. Example, our son did receive a partial athletic scholarship to play basketball and the coach was very honest that he thought our son would start on the JV team because all their freshman do. Great! Glad to know.

Committable scholarship offers:

Less than 1% of HS Seniors will receive full ride athletic scholarships to play in college. Around 2-3% of HS players will go to college for free and play basketball, but the scholarships might be mixed. A few things to note, a D2, Juco, NAIA school can combine scholarships together to get an athlete to a full ride or close to it. But if you’re child receives paperwork and it includes a full ride athletic scholarship to a D1 basketball program as a senior in HS…well, you probably don’t need my advice on recruiting :) For the rest of the parents, it’s 100% within your rights to ask the coach to send over the financial information before verbally committing to a program. I was surprised at the few schools who were reluctant to send us the information honestly. However, the realest offers to play will include paperwork, conversations with the head coach, and the offer will likely come from the head coach. If you haven’t talked with the head coach, then chances are the offer isn’t committable.

Side note here about D3 recruiting. While D3 schools can’t offer any financial money for athletics, they often can come up with scholarship packages to make the financial burden less than or equal to a D2/NAIA school. Follow D3Direct on Substack or check out their playbook (it’s paid, but WELL worth it)

To post or not to post…that is the question

I covered this a little bit in the 2nd article in this series about social media, but the answer is really…it depends. I called a few basketball coaches who were interested in our son and asked them if they thought it was a bad idea to post about the few football offers he received. They all told me it was great! So we did. Maybe that’s different for you and your athlete. I know one dad who told me they won’t post up any offers and likely won’t post about a commitment. Awesome! There’s no rule to this thing. I did talk with a coach who told me they were frustrated when they took the time to talk with and recruit and player and make them a real offer, and the player posted about others but not their school. I think I’d just say, be consistent is all. Why would you make a coach frustrated with you 1-2 years before you go to college?!? Coaches move around all the time and they talk.

Which brings me to my last thought - whatever you do, don’t piss off college coaches. Reply back to them. Answer their calls. Don’t ghost coaches or big time them. These are adults and deserved to be treated with respect. I know it’s frustrating because they aren’t replying to you. I get it. But if a coach takes time to spend with you, respect that time. Don’t post up about offers if the coach who gave it to you isn’t aware you’ll be posting about it. Ask at the end of the call (or confirm via text/DM). Our son personally called every coach who had recruited him before posting about his commitment. My suggestion is, if your athlete can, do the same thing.