0:02

There's nothing like walking into a gym and feeling the electricity before a game. There's nothing like hearing nothing but net. And there's nothing like watching someone fly through the air with a dunk that would scare demons. Welcome to Locked In. Whether you're a parent, player, or gamer. Coach or just a diehard fan, this is your go to source for everything basketball. From the latest recruiting news to expert training tips to deep dives into the most controversial topics in the sport, we've got you covered. We're breaking down game changing strategies, giving actionable advice, and helping athletes succeed both on and off the court. This is Locked In, and now your hosts, Jason Shay and Nick DeFeo. Welcome everybody to Locked In Basketball, your source for everything basketball. My name is Nick DeFeo alongside my co host Jason Shea. We're diving into all things hoops, recruiting tips, training advice, hot takes, latest news, whether you're a player, coach, parent, or fan, we've got you covered. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on social media for great content every week. Let's get locked in. We are here with Coach Shea. Coach, what's going on? How are you? I'm doing great, man. Here we are. Let's do this thing. First episode, we've been talking about it for a long time and working out some tech kinks, but we're doing a podcast. We're doing a YouTube channel and all that good stuff. So yeah I'm really excited to be here and get started on this journey. So let's do it, man. Yeah. I'm excited too. This is going to be a lot of fun and just providing. educational background and information to whether it's coaches, wherever they're going next to those parents who have a recruit or potential college basketball player. And for the kids themselves, obviously that are living it day in and day out. So today's episode, we're talking about the transfer portal and how it affects college basketball, how it affects high school basketball and even how it affects the younger generation nowadays. So we're gonna start with pros and cons. Just your general thoughts on the transfer portal and how it's affecting a basketball these days. Yeah, I guess that's the question, right? Is it a positive or is it a negative? And, you go back years, now it feels like years, before the portal, and you had this system where you host Jay Billis and, other college analysts that were on one side or the other, but really advocating for player, Freedom to move obviously to pay players. That was a topic for years. We were growing up watching games and the portal didn't work well for players in the past. If you didn't have a good situation, you transferred, you had to sit out entire year. And you sit out that entire year. It's tough. You're not playing basketball. You're just practicing with the team, while coaches could leave. And that was always a big argument. Coaches could leave for these massive contracts to get a better opportunity. Coaches had this, a great amount of mobility and players were stuck. So that probably wasn't the right thing. And we've gone from that to this completely new system and this completely different extreme. And so is it a positive or negative? I think there are positives that give players the ability to move. That's a good thing and play the next year. But I think right now, the way the system is set up, overall, it's probably a negative in so many ways, right? I don't think it's helping a lot of teams and even at the college level. I think it obviously helps some, but I think it's hurting, but I think it's especially hurting high school kids. and their recruitment. Yeah, no question about that. That it's hurt the high school kids in their recruitment and not too long ago, like you said, we had kids who had to sit out a full season. And, obviously that's a huge negative to the kid and the coach got to leave and go wherever he wants. And there should be caveats and we'll talk about the N. C. Double A. And what they should do moving forward. But the kid could, the kid who transferred could only practice with that team for the full year. That was it. Then they had to sit, they couldn't play in any games and it was unfortunate, so I guess a positive that's come from the portal is that they are allowed to play immediately if they find the right school and it all works out for them. But it starts to really impact the high school level and then when you mention NIL and we bring in a bunch of stuff that we'll talk about in a little bit, it really makes it confusing. And it's unfortunate. But from your experience at the high school level, what kind of experience have you had with high school students? And over the last couple of years, you've had some really good high school players who went on to play college basketball. And maybe we're under recruited because of the transfer portal. Yeah. And before I get that again, we're gonna apologize when I'm flipping in the camera here, and I keep checking myself out. I don't know if I like my side profile. I'm looking at you and you look great, and myself. It's good thing I'm wearing black. But The negative impact of the high school kids, it's just, it's so obvious, when you're involved with these guys and you can understand why, right? The high school player now, in order to get recruited, and let's just start again with the stats of how hard it is to get recruited. You start out with, at the division one, two, and three level combined. You have about a three and a half percent chance to be recruited as a high school senior. So everybody thinks three and a half percent, that's gotta be just division one. No, that's division one, two and three combined. Okay. So to be a scholarship player, you gotta be really the one in the best, like 1. 8%, 1. 7 percent of all high school seniors. So it's already extremely challenging. Those percentages existed before the transfer portal. Now we add in the portal. And what the portal has done is it has given college coaches a lot of apprehension in terms of going after high school players. Am I going to go recruit if I'm at a lower level? And I keep, there's a caveat without, I say lower level. If you're a lower level division one player, you're like outstanding. You're so good at basketball. Like you're better than everybody else in your state. Probably that's how good you are, but say in a lower level division one school. If I'm coaching at that level, Am I going to go out and recruit this kid who I love him? He's a diamond in the rough. Nobody else getting this is the way it used to be. And if you found a couple of those kids as a coach, college coach, did they made your career? Like you want a couple of conference championships. You went to the NCAA tournament, maybe in March, managed you upset somebody. And then you got promoted. You got to a different school, a bigger school. That's how guys did it. But now you look at those high school kids. You're like he's not strong enough yet. I think he's going to get stronger with me. He's not like totally ready to win yet, but I'm going to help him get there. And then you have success with that kid, but not a lot. Cause it's hard to win a championship with a freshman, maybe. And now that kid is all freshman team, right? He's maybe as a freshman of the year in your conference, he's gone. So he's going to leave at the portal. Like he's going to find another NIL deal. He's gone. All right, now I'm that college coach. I'm like I might as well get the kids who are entering the portal at the higher level than me. And it doesn't work out. They don't find anything. And so now I'm going to take those kids because those kids are ready to win for me now. And now that's my way to get my promotion if I'm a college coach. So the high school kid now has to be so exceptional or the college coach has to be so unsuccessful in the portal to get to the high school kid to actually recruit him. So yeah, it's crushed high school kids and their recruitment. It's made it so much difficult, much more difficult. We'll talk about the timeline in a few minutes, but. I think you know, we've got to really look at the portal and what the incidentally needs to do to fix this because it's really been short sighted. And you know what Covid did in the whole situation. Covid changed everything with that. And that Covid year really has impacted the portal enormously as well. Yeah, no question. And again, that extra Covid year helped a lot of kids. But in addition to the transfer portal, that Covid year crushed high school basketball. And that covid year impacted obviously negatively a lot of kids. But at the same time, that extra covid year helped a lot of kids as well. But there was no additional year for high school kids. So high school kids were getting jammed up as they moved into college, especially that senior class or that post grad class, that group that was going right into college. College at that point in 2020, early 2020 or late 2021. But the NCAA gifting that extra year really jammed up that process and it actually added a ton more kids to the pool of players that college coaches had the opportunity to get at the college level. So they're talking. Not 18, 19 year olds, but 22, 23, potentially 24 year olds that are playing college basketball. So it really took away those 17, 18, 19 year old kids who might've been good enough, but now I can go get a grown man and now I can go win with a grown man. He's more mature, whether he has one year left or two year left, it doesn't really matter because he's going to help me win now and that and winning obviously what the game comes down to and college coaches want to win so they can get that bump and get that promotion. They can get that. Celebration of being a winning coach, and that's ultimately what everybody wants here. But it did impact the high school seniors and the post grads going into college. And now, a kid who might have been at the Division 1 talent, maybe dropped down to Division 2. Or a kid who had a Division 2 scholarship, maybe fall of 2019 or winter as we transitioned it to 2020, might have lost that scholarship. I'm not sure if we're good enough. We're not sure what's going to happen. And then down the road when the pandemic passes, they go for a portal kid instead of that college recruit. Absolutely. And I think when you think about the COVID year was it the right move? Was it COVID year the right move? And think about it. A lot of kids played that year and still got the COVID year. But it's hard to blame the NCAA for that decision, it was COVID. So you know, what was the right decision at that time? I don't think anybody can really judge that, different state associations made different decisions, even at the high school level. So you know I think really the focus here is the NCAA has gone from, again, a very tight policy on transfers, obviously not paying players. And now the NCAA has gone to this complete opposite model and the model that we talked about before the show is it's a professional model, it's a professional sports league, right? And all the professional sports leagues that exist in the world, tell me the one, tell me the one professional sports league that has one year contracts. Which one is it? I don't know. I don't think there is one because it doesn't work. It's a stupid model. So we've gone to professional sports at the college level. Fine. I love that. We've talked about this. I have no problem. I like that the players are revenue sharing. That's a good thing. That's a positive thing. But now you've got to actually legislate and figure this thing out so that it makes sense. One year contracts at the college level, It makes coaching at that level very challenging. It makes it challenging for high school recruits, for the reasons we mentioned before, right? And it just creates this system that's not good for fans or anybody involved. They've got to regulate the process a little bit and reign it in. It's just too out of control. No question. And the kids that are going in with that mentality of the one year, Contract it and essentially Hey, I'm going to commit to your school, but I plan on transferring out. And unfortunately some kids has been, have been vocal about that or some parents or some coaches have been vocal about that. Hey we want you, but if you want to transfer afterwards, we're okay with that ultimately to free up their scholarship. So they can go elsewhere and try to find somebody else which has become. It's unfortunate because that level of preparation goes away in terms of what it means and what impact that particular school has for that person or that family. And it's unfortunate that kids are going in with that mentality like, Hey, I'm just going to go here and kill for a year and then I'm, and then I'm out. I think it's a wrong mentality and I think, no question, and then it's going to be like, which coaches do it the best. We'll talk about the mentality in a second too, but on the screen here, we're just, we're replaying the Yukon national championship game and that's coach Hurley who has probably. Executed his game plan, the portal better than anybody else. Obviously I've won two straight championships and each year they filled in their recruits, their roster, which they already had their recruits with like crucial transfers, but they recruited the right guys who fit that specific role. And, does he went back to back national championships without the portal? I don't know. I think he just does it better than other guys. And that's had a huge impact on their success. Going back to what you were saying, how do you handle it? If you're a high school kid, if you're a parent, and how does a portal impact? Okay. It does impact everybody. That's why some people are like, reclassification high school, guys who are reclassing in middle school because you want to be older and because college coaches want older. And so you're trying to put yourself in that category. And then you see like the Cooper flags reclass back into their class. Cause they don't want to lose their MBA years. It doesn't make sense for them anymore. They did that at a younger age and I was like, no, I'm going to go to Duke for a year and then I'm gonna go play in the NBA. So that's worth like 40 million, like an extra contract. So maximize years, so how should parents navigate this if your kid is a scholarship level player? I think we talked about the first thing is absolutely do not approach it as if I want to go to that school as a stepping stone to another school. And there was a kid last year. Who's being recruited by a local Division 2 school here in state. And his coach made an honest mistake in an interview about his kid and just mentioned that he thinks he's a Division 1 player, but, maybe going to this Division 2 school was a good stepping stone, to Division 1. Like literally a half an hour later, I happened to be on the phone with the coach who had offered him about one of my players and it just came up, he's did you see that article? I'm done with that kid. I'm not taking him like I'm not recruiting him. I'm never going to recruit another kid. And this is why I don't recruit high school kids. He gets so fired up about it. It was crazy. So if you're a high school kid, one, even if that's your thought process, don't say it. If you're a, if you're a high school coach, like definitely don't say it. You're going to burn bridges doing that. Cause these guys want to win. They want to win championships. They don't want kids who are just using them as an AAU platform as an audition. So like the, Go to that school because you want to go to that school. Go to that school thinking it's four years. If it works out, if you just are dominating that league and you're above that level, then you go to the portal. That makes sense. You're just above the level and trust me, like the college coaches get that and they're going to support you doing that. They want you to stay, but they're going to support it. But if you go there thinking I'm better than that level, bad approach, and it's going to create an extremely unfair expectation on yourself. And for your parents, before you even step foot on campus, you're already saying, I'm looking elsewhere and that is going to cause a red flag. And obviously in this particular situation, the coach said, we're out, we're done because they don't want, they don't want a kid like that. They don't want a kid with that mentality and it's going to create extra pressure for that specific kid. And I had a kid who ended up coming to Notre Dame first prep year, Kerwin Prince who was, Under recruited and we knew that right away. And he ended up going to the division two level. And like you said, he killed that first year. He was all first team all conference in that first year in the ECC and ended up transferring up to the division one level. It's unfortunate that kids do have that mentality. But here we are in that day and age. And it's funny because you tell a coach that and coaches know each other, the division two coaches know the division two coaches who know the division one coaches who know the division three coaches. It's a wide range and they're gonna all talk to each other. So even if you do go to that Division II school, and you are good enough to transfer up, you do transfer up, but then the coaches know each other and say, Hey, just so you know, this is what you're getting. Be prepared for maybe one year, maybe not. Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. That's how you have to approach it. I think if you're a parent of a player who's lucky enough to be in that situation, that's how you have to approach it. If you are in college, if you're at the Division 3 level, you have a great situation with financial aid, a great team. If you're going to the portal get good advice. Talk to your high school coach. Talk to other guys. Because, the Division 1 statistics last year alone, we looked at it, it was 1650 went into the portal. Over 500 of those players did not get a scholarship at the same level. So you have to be careful as well when you're thinking about going to the portal, even when you get to that in that situation. That's 500 guys that are essentially dropping down. Dude, it's 33%! 33%! 500 guys dropping down, and there certainly is not 500 going up. No, absolutely not. 500 going up. It creates that jam. that jam. And that's where exactly where high school kids are impacted. 500 kids from the division one or division two scholarship level are falling back, let's say, down to that division three, possibly the juco level. But that takes away maybe a couple of 100 spots from high school kids trying to get to that division three level, even though they're okay with that division three level. That's the unfortunate piece where you get a high school kid who is good enough, but can't break through into that division three level because that division three coach is waiting for that kid and not to mention the timeline on that is insane. So you're a division three kid. You just finished your season, your senior season. You have nothing, but you're a good player. Maybe you're getting good advice and saying, Hey, maybe you should go play a you, and this is where we're talking at 17 you, but really it's 18 or 19 you because kids are playing extra year after their seniors that after their senior season, but nobody is monitoring that. No it's crazy. Like the timeline that it used to be, if you don't have a division one scholarship. If you don't have one going into the fall of your senior year, it's going to be really hard to get. It's not that it's impossible. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen. I had Jelani white coach with now and ended up getting the scholarship. Towards the end of the senior year played a Canisius did great. Covid year helped him play to Penn State. Wonderful, right? So it can happen. But if you didn't have one going to your fall of your senior year, you as a coach, we're like, All right. Now it's going to be the Division two level. Maybe let's like keep pushing them in and those guys would come in and. And then if not, the division three level was latest. Now everybody's late because they're all waiting for the portal. There's no timeline again, NCAA, you guys got to join the game, get back in the game. These kids are struggling. Now you go your entire high school season and the portal's happening so late. How can coaches make really good decisions on high school kids? Like they just don't want offers. So they string these kids along and I understand it. And we were talking to this too, like division three coaches, These guys get commitments from players and then you could go to an AAU tournament after getting quit from a player and it would not be out of the ordinary to see that player playing in the AAU tournament. Trying to get exposure to not go to your school. To not go to your school. And he just recruited you and you just committed. And he just committed to it. It's so messed up. It really is. It's messed up. And there's no guidance and I think that's the unfortunate part. And it starts with the NCAA. They have to step in and provide guidance to whether it's AAU or whether it's high school coaches across the country or even some lower level division three college coaches across the country provide guidance and timelines. Two students and student athletes who are going to be entering the college ranks so that everybody could be on the same page. A possible Division III kid isn't waiting until the first week of August to find out where he's going to school in three weeks. That's huge, and that needs to happen. And some ideas that maybe could, just right now thinking of them. Maybe you can't, maybe it's harder to put a timeline on the portal kids in college because of the NCAA tournament, do you really need the NIT? Do you really need these other tournaments? Can you start the, like just add an extra round the NCAA. So you had 64 more teams. It's one more day. Big deal. Bob Knight always wanted that. It makes perfect sense, but maybe it's every round. Those kids can enter the portal right away. Maybe you give some grace period to the final four kids. That's going to be a very few amount anyway, but that might help. But maybe it's the other way. Maybe it's you need to offer high school kids by this date. So it puts the pressure on the college coach, right? Like you are going to go into the portal, you're going to go portaling and gamble that you're going to get what you want out of the portal. Or you got to offer this high school kid by this date and you can have division one go first because the kids are waiting for division one and then division two and division three. Obviously, it's different rules without scholarships. But that's going to put pressure, I think that may be part of the fix, the NCAA getting back involved. All right? And then also, just back to the NCAA, you have a professional sport. That's what you're managing now, and you're managing it poorly. You're just not even involved. Okay? So you have one year contracts. How can we do this better? Start with like actual multi year contracts. I hate to say it, but that's what you're dealing with. Don't like, play dumb. Yeah, you get a scholarship, but you're paying the kids, which again, is great. And really education has become like an HR benefit to professional athletes. All right. So you have to treat them like professional athletes. And this is going to help high school kids where you can say to them, I'm going to offer you fifty thousand a year NIL plus a scholarship, but you now got to give me three years. That's the contract. And then the player and this high school coach or his agent. And again, we don't like to talk about if you're an older guy, you're like cringing right now, but welcome, welcome to they're out there. Welcome to the world. It's happening. Okay. So give him a contract where you say, I come with three and then we say, no, we're going to do, we'll give you two, and then give the kid the ability to renegotiate if he has a great season. His NIL money or he may leave right and if the coach leaves great He's out of the contract and you could build that in so you don't have the same situation used to have But these are very simple fixes and now a high school coach who's like a lower level or mid major division one coach Will come into my gym as a high school coach and feel comfortable about recruiting one of my players knowing I can develop him I love him. I know we might not win as a freshman, but I think we definitely went as a sophomore. And then again, if the kid kills it, the coach could have no problem going on. He's already helped him tremendously, but we've got to start thinking about fixing this stuff. And instead of just being the wild west. Yeah, no, no question. And again, with those timelines and those contracts, that's going to really help and put an educational piece to these kids, to these agents, to these parents on where to go and what to do. And in addition to the contract, we could talk about, if a contract is for 50, 000 for two years, maybe there's incentives on top of that. Maybe if it's a point guard, if they have a certain amount of assists or a certain amount of wins at the end of the year, then they get an additional 10, Or, if they win the conference, they get 50, 000, just like the coach does, whether he gets 100, 000 or 250, 000 for beating X team, or they beat an ACC team, or they won their conference, so it's another 500, 000. Let's incentivize that on top of that contract, so the kid has something to work towards, And not just a guaranteed pot of 100, 000 for the chance to maybe play, maybe not. And then in a year, eh, I think I'm leaving because I don't really like it. No, I think that's like a fantastic point. You really, we've got to do something, right? We've got to do something to fix this. And again, the NCAA's got to be the leaders in this. I think that when you're trying to figure out a solution if you're the NCAA, Just start with what's best for kids. What's best for kids. So you've already done that. You've allowed the payment of players, these college athletes, you've given them an opportunity to share in revenue, you've given them an opportunity to You know, if they don't make it to the NBA, have a starting point with a college education, it's up to them if they're taking advantage of that or not, but they have that opportunity. They have the opportunity to earn a little bit of money coming out of college, so they have a start. Some of these guys are going to come to college with a house payment, a down payment on their house, ready to go. Some pay off a house, day one. So they've done a great job there. But the NCAA, perfect storm, got them with COVID, NIL, and Transfer Portal. For And so of course they're trying to play catch up, but the high school kids are getting crushed. It's trickled down. They're absolutely getting crushed and it's creating a lot of stress. It's creating a lot. I could even say, it's mental health issues where your kids work so hard and they know they're good enough. And you have coaches telling them things like, dude, you're definitely good enough. You to tell them the coach, but I'm not going to recruit you. That's a hard pill to swallow. We want to go older. We want to get a portal kid. We want to get a kid with experience. We want to get a kid, who maybe is 23, 24 years old and physically ready. Yeah, and we get that. We totally understand it. Totally. But, you're talking about high school kids. They don't get that. They don't see 30, 000 view, whatever the big corporate guys say. They don't see that stuff, right? They're not seeing big picture. They don't even see big picture in high school. We know that. It's just it's hard for them to see that, but that's their reality now. The incidentally needs to get involved. They need to fix this. I think we both agree that the portal is, and NILs especially, NIL is very positive on. The portal, not so much. I think it's, again, has it hurt fandom, where you just don't have the same kids you root for, new kids are coming in. I think everybody can get over that, because again, they're treating it like a professional league. The NIL positive the portal could be positive right now Definitely leaning towards negative. Yeah, totally agree, and I'm on the same page definitely towards negative there's some pro stuff, ultimately it hurts the high school kids. Yeah, I think, listen, the portal initially caused a lot of conflicts. And then they added some things where, hey, maybe this might be the trick. And I think the guidance completely went out the window. And the NCAA lost it, like we had talked about earlier. And now it's just a a crapshoot. There's too many things going on. The portal here the junior college is over here. High school kids are over here. Everybody's trying to get NIL money. Everybody's looking for, 50, 000. Maybe you're a good recruit now. Now I want 175. But one school tells him 175 and one school says we'll give you 200. And is that real? Is it? Is it not real? And now kids are all over the place saying, I'm gonna go on the portal and if it comes true, great. And if it doesn't come true, then, now they're so well and they're in trouble. It's caused a lot more negative, in my opinion then it has positive. Can the NCAA step in and make some changes? Absolutely. Whether that's timelines, whether that's guidelines Put dates on things and we go from there. Yeah, I think there's obvious solutions out there. I don't think the NCAA would hurt itself by getting The perspective, or some perspectives from high school coaches And I know that's not their kind of purview But come on, these are the guys who are feeding your Professional League, we're your minor leagues now. We're like, we are the minor leagues for your professional league. Maybe get involved and take an interest. We can go more into depth, but I think that our newsletter, we'd love for you guys to subscribe, locked in newsletter. And we go into a lot more detail in our previous issue Gone Portaling. Subscribe to the podcast, locked in our latest featured post. We've gone portaling, talks a lot about all about the transfer portal, talks a little bit about mid majors and how it's affect high school recruits. We're locked in basketball, locked in b ball and all social. Subscribe, share, like all of our social medias. We appreciate the time. Coach was really good first first episode here. We really appreciate the time and happy to do this. I had a blast, man. Can't wait to do it again. Take care. Sounds good. you're a player, coach, parent, or fan, we've got you covered. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on social media for great content every week. Let's get locked in. We are here with Coach Shea. Coach, what's going on? How are you? I'm doing great, man. Here we are. Let's do this thing. First episode, we've been talking about it for a long time and working out some tech kinks, but we're doing a podcast. We're doing a YouTube channel and all that good stuff. So yeah I'm really excited to be here and get started on this journey. So let's do it, man. Yeah. I'm excited too. This is going to be a lot of fun and just providing. educational background and information to whether it's coaches, wherever they're going next to those parents who have a recruit or potential college basketball player. And for the kids themselves, obviously that are living it day in and day out. So today's episode, we're talking about the transfer portal and how it affects college basketball, how it affects high school basketball and even how it affects the younger generation nowadays. So we're gonna start with pros and cons. Just your general thoughts on the transfer portal and how it's affecting a basketball these days. Yeah, I guess that's the question, right? Is it a positive or is it a negative? And, you go back years, now it feels like years, before the portal, and you had this system where you host Jay Billis and, other college analysts that were on one side or the other, but really advocating for player, Freedom to move obviously to pay players. That was a topic for years. We were growing up watching games and the portal didn't work well for players in the past. If you didn't have a good situation, you transferred, you had to sit out entire year. And you sit out that entire year. It's tough. You're not playing basketball. You're just practicing with the team, while coaches could leave. And that was always a big argument. Coaches could leave for these massive contracts to get a better opportunity. Coaches had this, a great amount of mobility and players were stuck. So that probably wasn't the right thing. And we've gone from that to this completely new system and this completely different extreme. And so is it a positive or negative? I think there are positives that give players the ability to move. That's a good thing and play the next year. But I think right now, the way the system is set up, overall, it's probably a negative in so many ways, right? I don't think it's helping a lot of teams and even at the college level. I think it obviously helps some, but I think it's hurting, but I think it's especially hurting high school kids. and their recruitment. Yeah, no question about that. That it's hurt the high school kids in their recruitment and not too long ago, like you said, we had kids who had to sit out a full season. And, obviously that's a huge negative to the kid and the coach got to leave and go wherever he wants. And there should be caveats and we'll talk about the N. C. Double A. And what they should do moving forward. But the kid could, the kid who transferred could only practice with that team for the full year. That was it. Then they had to sit, they couldn't play in any games and it was unfortunate, so I guess a positive that's come from the portal is that they are allowed to play immediately if they find the right school and it all works out for them. But it starts to really impact the high school level and then when you mention NIL and we bring in a bunch of stuff that we'll talk about in a little bit, it really makes it confusing. And it's unfortunate. But from your experience at the high school level, what kind of experience have you had with high school students? And over the last couple of years, you've had some really good high school players who went on to play college basketball. And maybe we're under recruited because of the transfer portal. Yeah. And before I get that again, we're gonna apologize when I'm flipping in the camera here, and I keep checking myself out. I don't know if I like my side profile. I'm looking at you and you look great, and myself. It's good thing I'm wearing black. But The negative impact of the high school kids, it's just, it's so obvious, when you're involved with these guys and you can understand why, right? The high school player now, in order to get recruited, and let's just start again with the stats of how hard it is to get recruited. You start out with, at the division one, two, and three level combined. You have about a three and a half percent chance to be recruited as a high school senior. So everybody thinks three and a half percent, that's gotta be just division one. No, that's division one, two and three combined. Okay. So to be a scholarship player, you gotta be really the one in the best, like 1. 8%, 1. 7 percent of all high school seniors. So it's already extremely challenging. Those percentages existed before the transfer portal. Now we add in the portal. And what the portal has done is it has given college coaches a lot of apprehension in terms of going after high school players. Am I going to go recruit if I'm at a lower level? And I keep, there's a caveat without, I say lower level. If you're a lower level division one player, you're like outstanding. You're so good at basketball. Like you're better than everybody else in your state. Probably that's how good you are, but say in a lower level division one school. If I'm coaching at that level, Am I going to go out and recruit this kid who I love him? He's a diamond in the rough. Nobody else getting this is the way it used to be. And if you found a couple of those kids as a coach, college coach, did they made your career? Like you want a couple of conference championships. You went to the NCAA tournament, maybe in March, managed you upset somebody. And then you got promoted. You got to a different school, a bigger school. That's how guys did it. But now you look at those high school kids. You're like he's not strong enough yet. I think he's going to get stronger with me. He's not like totally ready to win yet, but I'm going to help him get there. And then you have success with that kid, but not a lot. Cause it's hard to win a championship with a freshman, maybe. And now that kid is all freshman team, right? He's maybe as a freshman of the year in your conference, he's gone. So he's going to leave at the portal. Like he's going to find another NIL deal. He's gone. All right, now I'm that college coach. I'm like I might as well get the kids who are entering the portal at the higher level than me. And it doesn't work out. They don't find anything. And so now I'm going to take those kids because those kids are ready to win for me now. And now that's my way to get my promotion if I'm a college coach. So the high school kid now has to be so exceptional or the college coach has to be so unsuccessful in the portal to get to the high school kid to actually recruit him. So yeah, it's crushed high school kids and their recruitment. It's made it so much difficult, much more difficult. We'll talk about the timeline in a few minutes, but. I think you know, we've got to really look at the portal and what the incidentally needs to do to fix this because it's really been short sighted. And you know what Covid did in the whole situation. Covid changed everything with that. And that Covid year really has impacted the portal enormously as well. Yeah, no question. And again, that extra Covid year helped a lot of kids. But in addition to the transfer portal, that Covid year crushed high school basketball. Yeah. You're going to go right back to that question. This thing is giving me a battery warning. You want to look at this? It's probably in the middle where the the battery warning comes right through the hamstring. Want me to hold something? Why don't I do this? Is that going to battery warn again? Probably. 10 percent and that's it. Okay. Check that camera. Yep. That's good. Yep. Okay. You were just going to go, I just pass it off to you to go on to the covid extra year and how it impacted the port. Yeah. And that covid year impacted obviously negatively a lot of kids. But at the same time, that extra covid year helped a lot of kids as well. But there was no additional year for high school kids. So high school kids were getting jammed up as they moved into college, especially that senior class or that post grad class, that group that was going right into college. College at that point in 2020, early 2020 or late 2021. But the NCAA gifting that extra year really jammed up that process and it actually added a ton more kids to the pool of players that college coaches had the opportunity to get at the college level. So they're talking. Not 18, 19 year olds, but 22, 23, potentially 24 year olds that are playing college basketball. So it really took away those 17, 18, 19 year old kids who might've been good enough, but now I can go get a grown man and now I can go win with a grown man. He's more mature, whether he has one year left or two year left, it doesn't really matter because he's going to help me win now and that and winning obviously what the game comes down to and college coaches want to win so they can get that bump and get that promotion. They can get that. Celebration of being a winning coach, and that's ultimately what everybody wants here. But it did impact the high school seniors and the post grads going into college. And now, a kid who might have been at the Division 1 talent, maybe dropped down to Division 2. Or a kid who had a Division 2 scholarship, maybe fall of 2019 or winter as we transitioned it to 2020, might have lost that scholarship. I'm not sure if we're good enough. We're not sure what's going to happen. And then down the road when the pandemic passes, they go for a portal kid instead of that college recruit. Absolutely. And I think when you think about the COVID year was it the right move? Was it COVID year the right move? And think about it. A lot of kids played that year and still got the COVID year. But it's hard to blame the NCAA for that decision, it was COVID. So you know, what was the right decision at that time? I don't think anybody can really judge that, different state associations made different decisions, even at the high school level. So you know I think really the focus here is the NCAA has gone from, again, a very tight policy on transfers, obviously not paying players. And now the NCAA has gone to this complete opposite model and the model that we talked about before the show is it's a professional model, it's a professional sports league, right? And all the professional sports leagues that exist in the world, tell me the one, tell me the one professional sports league that has one year contracts. Which one is it? I don't know. I don't think there is one because it doesn't work. It's a stupid model. So we've gone to professional sports at the college level. Fine. I love that. We've talked about this. I have no problem. I like that the players are revenue sharing. That's a good thing. That's a positive thing. But now you've got to actually legislate and figure this thing out so that it makes sense. One year contracts at the college level, It makes coaching at that level very challenging. It makes it challenging for high school recruits, for the reasons we mentioned before, right? And it just creates this system that's not good for fans or anybody involved. They've got to regulate the process a little bit and reign it in. It's just too out of control. No question. And the kids that are going in with that mentality of the one year, Contract it and essentially Hey, I'm going to commit to your school, but I plan on transferring out. And unfortunately some kids has been, have been vocal about that or some parents or some coaches have been vocal about that. Hey we want you, but if you want to transfer afterwards, we're okay with that ultimately to free up their scholarship. So they can go elsewhere and try to find somebody else which has become. It's unfortunate because that level of preparation goes away in terms of what it means and what impact that particular school has for that person or that family. And it's unfortunate that kids are going in with that mentality like, Hey, I'm just going to go here and kill for a year and then I'm, and then I'm out. I think it's a wrong mentality and I think, no question, and then it's going to be like, which coaches do it the best. We'll talk about the mentality in a second too, but on the screen here, we're just, we're replaying the Yukon national championship game and that's coach Hurley who has probably. Executed his game plan, the portal better than anybody else. Obviously I've won two straight championships and each year they filled in their recruits, their roster, which they already had their recruits with like crucial transfers, but they recruited the right guys who fit that specific role. And, does he went back to back national championships without the portal? I don't know. I think he just does it better than other guys. And that's had a huge impact on their success. Going back to what you were saying, how do you handle it? If you're a high school kid, if you're a parent, and how does a portal impact? Okay. It does impact everybody. That's why some people are like, reclassification high school, guys who are reclassing in middle school because you want to be older and because college coaches want older. And so you're trying to put yourself in that category. And then you see like the Cooper flags reclass back into their class. Cause they don't want to lose their MBA years. It doesn't make sense for them anymore. They did that at a younger age and I was like, no, I'm going to go to Duke for a year and then I'm gonna go play in the NBA. So that's worth like 40 million, like an extra contract. So maximize years, so how should parents navigate this if your kid is a scholarship level player? I think we talked about the first thing is absolutely do not approach it as if I want to go to that school as a stepping stone to another school. And there was a kid last year. Who's being recruited by a local Division 2 school here in state. And his coach made an honest mistake in an interview about his kid and just mentioned that he thinks he's a Division 1 player, but, maybe going to this Division 2 school was a good stepping stone, to Division 1. Like literally a half an hour later, I happened to be on the phone with the coach who had offered him about one of my players and it just came up, he's did you see that article? I'm done with that kid. I'm not taking him like I'm not recruiting him. I'm never going to recruit another kid. And this is why I don't recruit high school kids. He gets so fired up about it. It was crazy. So if you're a high school kid, one, even if that's your thought process, don't say it. If you're a, if you're a high school coach, like definitely don't say it. You're going to burn bridges doing that. Cause these guys want to win. They want to win championships. They don't want kids who are just using them as an AAU platform as an audition. So like the, Go to that school because you want to go to that school. Go to that school thinking it's four years. If it works out, if you just are dominating that league and you're above that level, then you go to the portal. That makes sense. You're just above the level and trust me, like the college coaches get that and they're going to support you doing that. They want you to stay, but they're going to support it. But if you go there thinking I'm better than that level, bad approach, and it's going to create an extremely unfair expectation on yourself. And for your parents, before you even step foot on campus, you're already saying, I'm looking elsewhere and that is going to cause a red flag. And obviously in this particular situation, the coach said, we're out, we're done because they don't want, they don't want a kid like that. They don't want a kid with that mentality and it's going to create extra pressure for that specific kid. And I had a kid who ended up coming to Notre Dame first prep year, Kerwin Prince who was, Under recruited and we knew that right away. And he ended up going to the division two level. And like you said, he killed that first year. He was all first team all conference in that first year in the ECC and ended up transferring up to the division one level. It's unfortunate that kids do have that mentality. But here we are in that day and age. And it's funny because you tell a coach that and coaches know each other, the division two coaches know the division two coaches who know the division one coaches who know the division three coaches. It's a wide range and they're gonna all talk to each other. So even if you do go to that Division II school, and you are good enough to transfer up, you do transfer up, but then the coaches know each other and say, Hey, just so you know, this is what you're getting. Be prepared for maybe one year, maybe not. Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. That's how you have to approach it. I think if you're a parent of a player who's lucky enough to be in that situation, that's how you have to approach it. If you are in college, if you're at the Division 3 level, you have a great situation with financial aid, a great team. If you're going to the portal get good advice. Talk to your high school coach. Talk to other guys. Because, the Division 1 statistics last year alone, we looked at it, it was 1650 went into the portal. Over 500 of those players did not get a scholarship at the same level. So you have to be careful as well when you're thinking about going to the portal, even when you get to that in that situation. That's 500 guys that are essentially dropping down. Dude, it's 33%! 33%! 500 guys dropping down, and there certainly is not 500 going up. No, absolutely not. 500 going up. It creates that jam. that jam. And that's where exactly where high school kids are impacted. 500 kids from the division one or division two scholarship level are falling back, let's say, down to that division three, possibly the juco level. But that takes away maybe a couple of 100 spots from high school kids trying to get to that division three level, even though they're okay with that division three level. That's the unfortunate piece where you get a high school kid who is good enough, but can't break through into that division three level because that division three coach is waiting for that kid and not to mention the timeline on that is insane. So you're a division three kid. You just finished your season, your senior season. You have nothing, but you're a good player. Maybe you're getting good advice and saying, Hey, maybe you should go play a you, and this is where we're talking at 17 you, but really it's 18 or 19 you because kids are playing extra year after their seniors that after their senior season, but nobody is nobody is monitoring that. No it's crazy. Like the timeline that it used to be, if you don't have a division one scholarship. If you don't have one going into the fall of your senior year, it's going to be really hard to get. It's not that it's impossible. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen. I had Jelani white coach with now and ended up getting the scholarship. Towards the end of the senior year played a Canisius did great. Covid year helped him play to Penn State. Wonderful, right? So it can happen. But if you didn't have one going to your fall of your senior year, you as a coach, we're like, All right. Now it's going to be the Division two level. Maybe let's like keep pushing them in and those guys would come in and. And then if not, the division three level was latest. Now everybody's late because they're all waiting for the portal. There's no timeline again, NCAA, you guys got to join the game, get back in the game. These kids are struggling. Now you go your entire high school season and the portal's happening so late. How can coaches make really good decisions on high school kids? Like they just don't want offers. So they string these kids along and I understand it. And we were talking to this too, like division three coaches, These guys get commitments from players and then you could go to an AAU tournament after getting quit from a player and it would not be out of the ordinary to see that player playing in the AAU tournament. Trying to get exposure to not go to your school. To not go to your school. And he just recruited you and you just committed. And he just committed to it. It's so messed up. It really is. It's messed up. And there's no guidance and I think that's the unfortunate part. And it starts with the NCAA. They have to step in and provide guidance to whether it's AAU or whether it's high school coaches across the country or even some lower level division three college coaches across the country provide guidance and timelines. Two students and student athletes who are going to be entering the college ranks so that everybody could be on the same page. A possible Division III kid isn't waiting until the first week of August to find out where he's going to school in three weeks. That's huge, and that needs to happen. And some ideas that maybe could, just right now thinking of them. Maybe you can't, maybe it's harder to put a timeline on the portal kids in college because of the NCAA tournament, do you really need the NIT? Do you really need these other tournaments? Can you start the, like just add an extra round the NCAA. So you had 64 more teams. It's one more day. Big deal. Bob Knight always wanted that. It makes perfect sense, but maybe it's every round. Those kids can enter the portal right away. Maybe you give some grace period to the final four kids. That's going to be a very few amount anyway, but that might help. But maybe it's the other way. Maybe it's you need to offer high school kids by this date. So it puts the pressure on the college coach, right? Like you are going to go into the portal, you're going to go portaling and gamble that you're going to get what you want out of the portal. Or you got to offer this high school kid by this date and you can have division one go first because the kids are waiting for division one and then division two and division three. Obviously, it's different rules without scholarships. But that's going to put pressure, I think that may be part of the fix, the NCAA getting back involved. All right? And then also, just back to the NCAA, you have a professional sport. That's what you're managing now, and you're managing it poorly. You're just not even involved. Okay? So you have one year contracts. How can we do this better? Start with like actual multi year contracts. I hate to say it, but that's what you're dealing with. Don't like, play dumb. Yeah, you get a scholarship, but you're paying the kids, which again, is great. And really education has become like an HR benefit to professional athletes. All right. So you have to treat them like professional athletes. And this is going to help high school kids where you can say to them, I'm going to offer you fifty thousand a year NIL plus a scholarship, but you now got to give me three years. That's the contract. And then the player and this high school coach or his agent. And again, we don't like to talk about if you're an older guy, you're like cringing right now, but welcome, welcome to they're out there. Welcome to the world. It's happening. Okay. So give him a contract where you say, I come with three and then we say, no, we're going to do, we'll give you two, and then give the kid the ability to renegotiate if he has a great season. His NIL money or he may leave right and if the coach leaves great He's out of the contract and you could build that in so you don't have the same situation used to have But these are very simple fixes and now a high school coach who's like a lower level or mid major division one coach Will come into my gym as a high school coach and feel comfortable about recruiting one of my players knowing I can develop him I love him. I know we might not win as a freshman, but I think we definitely went as a sophomore. And then again, if the kid kills it, the coach could have no problem going on. He's already helped him tremendously, but we've got to start thinking about fixing this stuff. And instead of just being the wild west. Yeah, no, no question. And again, with those timelines and those contracts, that's going to really help and put an educational piece to these kids, to these agents, to these parents on where to go and what to do. And in addition to the contract, we could talk about, if a contract is for 50, 000 for two years, maybe there's incentives on top of that. Maybe if it's a point guard, if they have a certain amount of assists or a certain amount of wins at the end of the year, then they get an additional 10, Or, if they win the conference, they get 50, 000, just like the coach does, whether he gets 100, 000 or 250, 000 for beating X team, or they beat an ACC team, or they won their conference, so it's another 500, 000. Let's incentivize that on top of that contract, so the kid has something to work towards, And not just a guaranteed pot of 100, 000 for the chance to maybe play, maybe not. And then in a year, eh, I think I'm leaving because I don't really like it. No, I think that's like a fantastic point. You really, we've got to do something, right? We've got to do something to fix this. And again, the NCAA's got to be the leaders in this. I think that when you're trying to figure out a solution if you're the NCAA, Just start with what's best for kids. What's best for kids. So you've already done that. You've allowed the payment of players, these college athletes, you've given them an opportunity to share in revenue, you've given them an opportunity to You know, if they don't make it to the NBA, have a starting point with a college education, it's up to them if they're taking advantage of that or not, but they have that opportunity. They have the opportunity to earn a little bit of money coming out of college, so they have a start. Some of these guys are going to come to college with a house payment, a down payment on their house, ready to go. Some pay off a house, day one. So they've done a great job there. But the NCAA, perfect storm, got them with COVID, NIL, and Transfer Portal. For And so of course they're trying to play catch up, but the high school kids are getting crushed. It's trickled down. They're absolutely getting crushed and it's creating a lot of stress. It's creating a lot. I could even say, it's mental health issues where your kids work so hard and they know they're good enough. And you have coaches telling them things like, dude, you're definitely good enough. You to tell them the coach, but I'm not going to recruit you. That's a hard pill to swallow. We want to go older. We want to get a portal kid. We want to get a kid with experience. We want to get a kid, who maybe is 23, 24 years old and physically ready. Yeah, and we get that. We totally understand it. Totally. But, you're talking about high school kids. They don't get that. They don't see 30, 000 view, whatever the big corporate guys say. They don't see that stuff, right? They're not seeing big picture. They don't even see big picture in high school. We know that. It's just it's hard for them to see that, but that's their reality now. The incidentally needs to get involved. They need to fix this. I think we both agree that the portal is, and NILs especially, NIL is very positive on. The portal, not so much. I think it's, again, has it hurt fandom, where you just don't have the same kids you root for, new kids are coming in. I think everybody can get over that, because again, they're treating it like a professional league. The NIL positive the portal could be positive right now Definitely leaning towards negative. Yeah, totally agree, and I'm on the same page definitely towards negative there's some pro stuff, ultimately it hurts the high school kids. It hurts the high school revert Let's start that over again Which part then? No, the whole thing when I just pass it to you and then we'll close it up You end it with your final thought and close it up. I did this thinking the cameras on you All right, we're good. Yeah, I think, listen, the portal initially caused a lot of conflicts. And then they added some things where, hey, maybe this might be the trick. And I think the guidance completely went out the window. And the NCAA lost it, like we had talked about earlier. And now it's just a a crapshoot. There's too many things going on. The portal here the junior college is over here. High school kids are over here. Everybody's trying to get NIL money. Everybody's looking for, 50, 000. Maybe you're a good recruit now. Now I want 175. But one school tells him 175 and one school says we'll give you 200. And is that real? Is it? Is it not real? And now kids are all over the place saying, I'm gonna go on the portal and if it comes true, great. And if it doesn't come true, then, now they're so well and they're in trouble. It's caused a lot more negative, in my opinion then it has positive. Can the NCAA step in and make some changes? Absolutely. Whether that's timelines, whether that's guidelines Put dates on things and we go from there. Yeah, I think there's obvious solutions out there. I don't think the NCAA would hurt itself by getting The perspective, or some perspectives from high school coaches And I know that's not their kind of purview But come on, these are the guys who are feeding your Professional League, we're your minor leagues now. We're like, we are the minor leagues for your professional league. Maybe get involved and take an interest. We can go more into depth, but I think that our newsletter, we'd love for you guys to subscribe, locked in newsletter. And we go into a lot more detail in our previous issue Gone Portaling. Subscribe to the podcast, locked in our latest featured post. We've gone portaling, talks a lot about all about the transfer portal, talks a little bit about mid majors and how it's affect high school recruits. We're locked in basketball, locked in b ball and all social. Subscribe, share, like all of our social medias. We appreciate the time. Coach was really good first first episode here. We really appreciate the time and happy to do this. I had a blast, man. Can't wait to do it again. Take care. Sounds good. You've been listening to Locked In. As you can probably tell, basketball is our life. Jason is one of Connecticut's top high school basketball coaches with over 20 years of experience. One of the winningest coaches in Connecticut and a decade in athletic administration. Nick is a former prep school head coach and he's worked with top level recruits throughout the recruiting process. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to like, rate, and review. Until next time, find us on social media. On Twitter, it's LockedIn underscore B Ball. On Instagram and YouTube, it's LockedIn underscore Basketball. And on Facebook, at LockedIn. See you next time, on the show that loves soup more than anybody, LockedIn.