ABSTRACT
Using recruiting rankings from Rivals.com, the authors examine the determinants of recruiting success among D1 NCAA men’s basketball programmes. After controlling for a host of potentially relevant variables, the authors find that recruiting outcomes are correlated with recent on-court success, historical on-court success, stadium size and playing in a ‘power’ conference. Additionally, teams with a history of sending players to the NBA receive heightened recruiting outcomes. A team with a new coach can expect difficulties with recruiting, while head coaches with national championships receive a recruiting boost. Finally, the authors show that recruiting strategies for guards may differ from recruiting strategies for other players.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The 2014 and 2015 champions, UConn and Duke, fielded rosters that contained seven and eight top 150 recruits, respectively.
3 We suspected this could result from players avoiding older coaches. However, when coaching age was included in regressions, it was insignificant and the negative coefficient for COACHEXP remained.
4 For example, research institutions usually have more students; recruits may prefer to attend large institutions.