Recruiting Advice for High School Girls Basketball - Div III

Athletic Recruits
1

With two sons playing (or about to play) college football, my wife and I understand how the football recruiting game works, but we have no clue about how recruiting is done for basketball.

Here is the skinny: D is a high school sophomore. Plays basketball for competitive public high school and for competitive AAU team. Not big/good enough for Div. I, but we have no idea about Div. III. She has a 4.3 GPA and scored about 1300 on the PSATs as a sophomore - with no prior test prep.

Does anyone have experience with girls basketball recruiting for NESCAC. Centennial and ODAC, etc? Is it just as tied to the AAU showcase circuit as Div I recruiting?

Do these Div III coaches look at film?

If the individual school has a camp, is that a potential source for recruits, or just a money maker for the coaches?

Does the high school coach/program play a role at all (her school is one of the top public school programs in the area).

I assume there is a vast talent difference at the Div III level - with some teams (like Tufts) fielding borderline Div I players, and others with players that are not as good?

We know football recruiting at the high academic schools quite well, but womens basketball is an entirely different animal.

Any insight or shared experiences greatly appreciated and welcomed!

Thanks in advance!

2

We just finished this process with D’16.

Background: She is a starter on an elite HS team from a large, competitive state and played on a national travel club team. She is a 5’6" shooting guard. We had a local mid-major D1 looking hard at her, and have been told by them and several other sources that she is low to mid-D1. She was looked at by a few other mid-majors and some Iveys and a few D2s.

We decided to focus on D3 b/c she wants to play and be an impact player, not sit there due to her lack of size. She has good grades (4.1 with 8 AP classes). So-so SAT. The UAA schools were very interested in her until it became clear she was not going to get her SAT scores up to an acceptable range for that conference.

We didn’t have any experience with the schools from the conferences you named, but I think the D3 recruiting experience is pretty similar across the board. You are right that there is a vast difference in talent at the D3 level.

Since D was recruited by D1, D2 and D3, I can say that there was no difference in how the recruiting was handled by each level. And although D3’s typically don’t offer OVs, she did have several OVs where the schools paid for her airfare and meals.

Yes D3 coaches look at film. 80% of D’s recruiting came from us sending film highlights directly to the coaches at schools of interest. 20% came from her being seen at AAU events in July with no prior contact.

Yes, D3 coaches are at the AAU tournaments in droves, and they are primarily there to look at players they are already recruiting, just like with D1.

For her last travel season, we picked a travel team based on which tournaments they were going to. She played for a team that was the only team from our area that was going to play in the area where most of her recruitment was happening (opposite coast). The D3 college coaches were adamant about seeing her in person.

Her HS coach had no hand in the recruiting other than fielding some phone calls about her. The majority of the D3 coaches we dealt with had no interest in talking to her HS coach.

She did attend a couple of camps at schools that were interested in her, and I think those were quite valuable. Typically camps are money-makers, but if you already have contact with the coach and they are interested in you, then it’s a great way to check each other out.

Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me with any other questions.

3

Hi, @sanmin, My DD’20 is a 5’6" 8th grader shooting guard and going to play HS varsity basketball this summer. She played for her middle school, city (won all star championship) and a local club team (with high schoolers). She is passionate about playing basketball and really hope to play for college. She doesn’t care which college as long as she can play (mostly interested to play for prestige well known schools). We were told we need to get her ready early and we really don’t know what to do. Her high school is very small (~600 students), academic focused and not known for its sports but she will have lots game time and can be placed in Varsity team. She also has another home high school she can choose to go, they earned a championship for their league last year but we don’t even know the coach and most likely will not be placed for varsity as freshman (school is big with close to 3000 students, lots players, serious tryouts, and has Fresh, JV and Varsity teams)

Can you give us some advices on how to help her? We learned about Maxprep website recently that many athletes have personal stats, but her HS coach doesn’t record players stats. ( should we record that?) We read many online websites for helping players to create profiles, uploading videos and charge for monthly fees to help sharing videos or making connection with college coaches. Does it help? Is it too early for my DD to think about this? I was told if players are really serious, we should start preparing around middle school. In fact, we know few girls who got recruited by private high school (free tuition) already. We just recently joined a club team, had couple tournaments already and will continue to have monthly tournament, but how do we know which tournaments are viewing tournaments?

Sorry, I have so many questions but so happy to learn from you!