5 Signs You Aren't Going To Get Recruited (The Truth)

The majority of serious players that I talk to at the high school level tell me that they want to be recruited. They want to get the opportunity to play college basketball. And in this video, I want to tell you exactly how to do that, but kind of working backwards because I see a lot of the same mistakes now. I'm a high school varsity basketball coach, and I've seen this process of recruiting happen with a bunch of different players over the years. I've seen a lot of the stuff that works, and I've also seen a lot of mistakes that prevent players from actually getting to that point. So in this video, I'm going to talk about five reasons or five signs that you're not going to get recruited, and then we'll talk about how to avoid these things. We're going to start off talking basketball and actually on the court because that is how you get the foot in the door with coaches. We can talk about all the other stuff here, but if you don't actually have the basketball piece of it, no one's going to watch you, no one's coming to your games, no one's responding to your emails, and of course, nobody's offering you a spot on, on their team. What we have to understand about the basketball piece of it is that if you are not elite at at least one thing, you're probably not going to get recruited. And if you do, it's going to be because, you know, one coach sees something or one coach knows you or knows your coach or whatever. But in terms of actually having options of playing college basketball, if you're not elite at at least one area, then you're probably not a college basketball player. I've thrown the numbers around when we talk about the amount of high school players that actually make it to the college level. There's 400,000 high school basketball players in your class competing for about 2,500 college spots that open every year. And that number is continuing to actually go down now because of the transfer portal, because of, you know, the rules, potential rules when it comes to juco eligibility and all those sorts of things here.

This year we're not even looking at a high school basketball player because we're losing Devon, Kadari and Aaron. You can't replace them with high school kids.

Attaining one of those roster spots is even more difficult than it was, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago even. And so we also understand that on the flip side of that, the game of basketball has never been more talented than it is now, right? You have incredible athletes More and more like players are skilled. And I've noticed this just as a trainer over the last few years. Younger and younger kids are better, better and better in terms of the skill level, things they can do. There are, there are moves that players can make now as 8 year olds, 9 year olds, that nobody could do. And so knowing all this sort of stuff, you have to understand that if you don't have one area that you can hang your hat on as a high school player, you probably aren't good enough to play in college. This could be obviously shooting. That's the big one, right? Are you an elite shooter? Meaning you're, you know, percentage wise, are you 36, 37 or better in high school? You know, how many are you making? Are you making 40, 50, 60 plus threes in a season, right? Are you an elite shooter at the high school level defensively, whether it's perimeter defense, inside defense, if you're a big, are you elite at that and are you constantly guarding the team's best players? Is that your job? Do you do it at a high level? Is that something you can bank on and you can hang your hat on? Say, yes, this is what I can contribute at the college level. Rebounding is another area as well. Are you a great rebounder? Is this something that you can immediately contribute to a team? And then we talk about like facilitating or being a point guard. Do you have the ability to run an offense? Do you have the ability to handle pressure? The ability to, you know, get guys into spots and be a leader on the floor? From like a point guard perspective, that's obviously a very valuable skill as well. The one skill that I really haven't mentioned is straight up ball handling. Because ball handling and having handles doesn't really mean anything. If you can't translate that to being able to facilitate, run an offense and play the game the right way, then just you having a bunch of moves in your bag, no college coach is looking for that. Now. That means you can score and create and all that sort of stuff, that's one thing. But we have to understand that there's got to be something that you do at an elite level in order for you to even get your foot in the door. So if you're not there yet, you got to ask yourself, okay, what is it that I already am inclined to? What am I naturally good at? What do I do best right now? And double down on becoming the best at that. If you're a sophomore in high school and you're a pretty good shooter, find a way to become elite as a shooter. If you're a, you know, a junior in high school and, you know you're a pretty good point guard, find a way to become elite at facilitating, at handling pressure, at running the offense, at getting guys into spots and being that extension of the coach on the floor. That way you have a reason for a coach to look at you and say, yes, I want that in my program. So point number one, if you are not elite at at least one thing, and maybe it's more than one, but at least one thing, that's a sign that you're probably not going to get recruited, or at least not recruited as much as you might want. The second thing, the second sign that you are not going to get recruited is that you're mentally weak. The first area where this is obvious is that you can't take coaching or you can't take being challenged. If your response to, you know, your coach coming at you or criticizing you or coaching you is to lash out or, or to go back at them and argue or to shell up and, you know, just kind of crawl into a hole, a college coach is going to see that. Whether, you know, if it's at a game, it's at a practice, they're going to see that and they're going to be out on you. Because they look at the next four years, five years, and they're like, well, what's going to happen when I'm in that position? Are they going to do the same thing to me? More than likely, because that's all that I've seen. So if you can't handle being coached, meaning you can't be told something by your coach, be criticized by your coach and take that and respond positively, be able to accept what they're saying and try and be better because of it, that's an immediate red flag for a college coach. And why deal with that headache, which we'll get to in a second right here. Now, the next part of this is having bad body language. And this can kind of show itself in a couple of different ways. Obviously on the court, if every time you miss a shot, your head goes down, you jog back on defense, maybe you don't try super hard the next offensive possession, that's a problem. Because when you're in the heat of battle, if you can't be trusted when bad things happen, which that's what basketball is, a game of mistakes, a game of mess ups, a game of adversity, if you can't handle that, then why would a coach want to bring that into their program. So that's the first aspect of it, but could be, you know, bad body language. It comes to being on the bench, maybe if you're not playing, you're checked out, you're slouched over on the bench and not really locked in, cheering on your teammates, all that other sort of stuff right there, Another immediate red flag that a coach is going to say, why would I want that here? So if this kid isn't playing all the minutes and making all their shots, they're going to be a cancer to everybody else. That's something that you have to take into consideration because every college coach is going to be thinking about that sort of stuff as well. And then on the flip side of that is arrogance and doing too much, right? So players who, after every time they make a play, they've got to show up the guy they made a play on, right? They've got a, you know, they're taunting and they're walking around toeing the line of getting technicals, actually getting technicals, putting their team in bad positions because of that. I think the other thing, just kind of a side note with that, one thing I try to get across to my players is that referees and other coaches are also human beings. So you have to keep in, to keep in mind that from a ref's perspective, if you're constantly showing people up and toeing the line and just overall kind of being an arrogant jerk, they're not going to like you. Meaning they're less likely to give you calls in your favor. They're also to give your team calls in your favor. And you're much more likely to get a technical foul on maybe something that wouldn't warrant it because a ref feels a certain way about you. And so you have to think about the long game with that. And coaches, college coaches understand that as well. The stuff that a coach says, hey, this is going to represent me and my program. Do I want to bring that into my program? And that's something that you have to keep in mind as well and can absolutely be reason why you don't get recruited by a college coach. The third reason, the third sign that you aren't going to get recruited is that you're not a good teammate. This can be as simple as you don't really celebrate that much when your teammates make plays. Especially if you're not playing well, you're not playing at all. And you don't, you're not there on the bench clapping, you're not celebrating when, you know, guys make plays. You're not locked in and checked in and fully there for your teammates. That's a big problem because again, you want to go into a college program where, hey, there's 2500 open spots and there's 400,000 people who potentially could fill it. And so you're going to get one of those spots. Understand that the other, other guys who got those spots are pretty good too. So you might not play right away. You might not play as much as you want to play, you might not play as well as you want to play. Are you going to be able to still be a good teammate and still contribute to the team in that way when things aren't going your way? And if you show that at the high school level, you can't do, you're not going to do it there either. So, boom, you're off the list. A coach is not going to recruit you when they see that there. When you come off the floor, when you're getting subbed out, are you high fiving your, your teammates, your coaches on the bench, or are you sulking? Not high fiving anybody. Walking in the end of the bench and checking out until you hopefully get to go back in. From a coach's perspective, a lot of times you can tell when there's a guy or a girl who, their teammates just don't like them because they probably exhibit some of these things. Maybe they, maybe they're smart enough that they don't do it in a game. You can't tell in a game, but you can tell that there's something wrong there. Whether it's in practice, you know, that's how they behave. They're super selfish off the court. And if that's the case, a coach is going to be able to read the room and see, well, why is no one celebrate when they make a play? Why does no one really want to go help them up off the floor? Why is that? And if it's because your teammates don't like you, there's another reason why, you know, you, you may not get recruited by a college coach. Right there. The fourth reason why you might not get recruited is because you have a poor recruiting plan. This is a huge hu, huge, huge problem because players and parents a lot of times don't really understand how recruiting works. They think, man, if I just go here and put up numbers, I go to this one camp, I go play for this AAU team, I'm gonna get recruited. And they don't understand that. There's like I talked about 2500 open spots and 400, 000 kids in your class alone who are potential people who could fill one of those spots right there. So the numbers already aren't in your favor that some college coach is going to randomly walk in and see you play and see you play well and know exactly what you can do, but based on seeing you for five seconds. Right. Rarely. Rarely happens. Are you sending out your film and are you reaching out to coaches? So are you going onto the school, whatever school you might be interested in, are you going onto their athletics website and emailing their coach, their assistant coaches saying, hey, my name is so and so. I go to so and so high school. Here are my numbers for this year. Here's a link to my highlights. Here's a link to a full game. This is my, my high school coaches information. This is my AAU information. Here's my schedule for my high school games. Here's my schedule for my AAU games. Giving them all the information they might need so they can look at you, watch your highlights, see, okay, you know, I kind of like this kid. And now when they go to a tournament or when they decide, hey, who am I going to go watch over the winter? What high school games am I going to go to? Now? All of a sudden you might be on their list to go to go see, because they know who you are. A lot of times coaches just don't know who you are. And that can be a big reason why you might have. You might be elite at a skill, you might be mentally strong, you might be a great teammate, but if nobody knows you exist, then none of it matters. So you have to make sure that first of all, you have a plan. Am I reaching out to college coaches? Am I doing it consistently? Am I casting a wide net in that regard? And you know, that's a, that's a big first step kind of going with that. Like I mentioned, do you have publicly available highlights? If somebody googles your name and your high school or they google your name in basketball, is your huddle page coming up with your highlights from whatever season you just played, or is there a YouTube link that they can watch that has your highlights so they know, okay, what exactly can you do? You can sit there and email and tell them, I average this, oh, I can do this really well. But until they see it, they don't know if they don't know how accurate it is. Okay, so do you have publicly, publicly available highlights? Ideally, you also have publicly available stats. So, you know, can they go on max preps and see how Many points you averaged, how many rebounds you average, how many steals you average, your shooting percentage, all that sort of stuff right there. That's also ideal. And then can they find full games of you as well? Whether your team has games on Huddle Fan or NFHS or YouTube, whatever, do you have those? Are you able to send those to coaches as well so they can kind of see how you play? And then the last piece of that is, are you targeting the right level? Another big mistake a lot of players make is that everybody thinks that they're a D1 player. Go on to these athletics websites and look at the accomplishments, the stats of these players. Are you right on par with them? Are you on pace with them? Are you achieving the same things that they're achieving? Are you playing at the same level they're playing at? Are you playing for the same type of AAU teams that they were playing for? And if the answer is no, you're probably not good enough to play at that level. So maybe it's the next level you got to look at, and maybe it's not that one. Maybe it's. Maybe it's the next level that you got to look at and you got to see and say, okay, well, where does it actually make sense that I would fit in here? Right? If you want to go play in the ACC, but you average four points per game, you're probably not going to do that. It's probably not going to work out for you. So you have to go and reevaluate and say, what level do I actually fit at? There's a huge misconception, especially when players are younger, is that, you know, it's D1 or nothing. They don't understand that every kid who plays at the D3 level was also the best kid on their team. Was also the best kid in their AAU team. Also averaged 20 points a game in high school. Also was all conference, all state. There's only 2500 open spots at all the levels. So there are really good players everywhere. So you got to understand, am I shooting at the right level here? If you want to go play in the ACC like I mentioned before, and you're a wing player, but you're only six two, probably not for you. Probably got to look somewhere else. Okay? So you also have to be honest with yourself and say, where do I actually fit in here? And then, like I said, go back to the start and say, okay, now I'm going to reach out to these coaches and let them know that I exist. Here's my Film, here's my stats, all that sort of stuff right here. And so make sure that you have a good recruiting plan in, in place. And then the fifth thing that is a sign that you are not going to get recruited is that you're a headache. Most simple part of it is grades. How are your grades? Do you, do you, you know, are you consistently failing classes, are you consistently ineligible? All that sort of stuff here. Because not only is it a problem in terms of like, you know, how often are you able to go to practice, are you missing games because of it, but then when it comes to actually getting accepted into the college you want to play at or being eligible even to get into that college or play there, and if they're going to spend time recruiting you and all of a sudden comes back that you can't even get into the school, they're going to figure quickly if, if you have what it takes there. So don't let that be something that, that holds you back. The other aspect of being a headache, behavior issues, attitude problems, you know, when they talk to your coach about those things, what is your, what is your high school coach going to say? What is your, what is your AAU coach going to say? Because what you have to understand as well is that your high school coach, your AAU coach, you are not the only player that they coach. So they have to look at, and maybe you're a senior, but there's a sophomore on your team who also is going to want to play in college in a couple of years. And if your coach isn't honest with that college coach about your issues that you might have and that college coach takes you and you end up burning them because of it. Guess what? Now that coach has just burned a bridge with that college coach and they can't help your teammate now in a couple of years. So from a coach's perspective, you have to be honest and you have to tell these guys like, hey, listen, this is what it is because I want you to trust me so that this kid gets an opportunity as well. Are there behavior issues, are there attitude problems that you have that potentially could, you know, come back to hurt you when it comes to your high school coach or your AAU coach being honest, when a coach asks them about these things, because they absolutely will, they're going to ask you, hey, what type of kid is he? What type of kid is she? Does she have like any off court issues that I should know of? They're going to ask those questions. What is your high school coach, AU coach going to say about that. Having a good relationship with your high school coach, with your AAU coach, matters Ton. If you're uncoachable and you skip practice all the time, as talented as you might be, your high school coach can't lie about it. They can't, because again, it's going to burn that bridge. So do you have a good relationship with your coach so that you know that your coach is going to be able to say good things about you and it be the truth? That's a really important part as well. Got to avoid being a headache now. The last thing I want to talk about, that's kind of like a bonus here that kind of like encapsulates all this right here. I saw this clip of Dan Hurley, who's the men's coach at UConn, and Gina Auro, women's coach at UConn, obviously, two of the, you know, most storied programs on the men's and women's side. Two of the most successful coaches in the country who were sitting down and talking about a whole bunch of different things. One thing that they talked about was recruiting and the type of players that they recruit, the type of players are looking to bring in. So I'll run that right now.

And I'm going offense. I'm recruiting offense. Oh, yeah, I've made that mistake. I will not make it. You know, I'm recruiting offensive players that, that are tough, that will be willing to defend for you, but I'm no longer going defensive. Hard playing guys that we're going to have to try to teach them to play great offense. I think that's.

No, no, that's an impossible teach. I've tried it. If you got enough guys that are going to score a thousand points, you're going to win a lot of games. I don't care how good they are defensively.

Can you play offense at a high level? Now, I know I mentioned earlier about defense being important. It is important. If you can't guard a soul, you probably won't get recruited. Right. It can't be something that keeps you off the court. But first of all, if you don't have a skill you're elite at, obviously we talked about, that's a problem. But also, if you don't understand how to play good basketball, you don't understand when to pass the ball, you don't understand when to drive, when to shoot. Okay, how do I come off of this pin down here? How do I use this ball screen? How do I use this dribble handoff? How do I create a good matchup for myself? How do I create a mismatch for my teammate? How quickly do I identify those things when I'm playing so that we give ourselves the best chance of scoring? As important as it is to have those physical skills, you also have to have the mental skills, the basketball IQ to understand when to do what, how to do those things consistently at a high level. And that ultimately is what college coaches want. Because like they talked about in that clip, they don't want to have to teach you everything about basketball. They want to bring in players who already know how to score, how to not just score, but how to play good offense, how to create for the team. And that's going to lead to a lot of wins. Because if you're a good enough athlete, you can learn how to play defense. If you're a good enough athlete and you're willing to play hard, you can learn how to play defense. But it's really, really hard, and you don't have a lot of time or attention to give as a college coach to teach a player or multiple players how to play offense. Now, this is a big part of why I created Basketball IQ Academy, which is my full basketball IQ program, where we go through how to read the game at a high level, how to become a better decision maker, understanding things like when to drive, when to pass, when to shoot, how to read different actions. So pin downs, ball screens, dribble handoffs, how to play in transition, how to make the right play, all those stuff that is overlooked because everybody's so worried about am I spending enough time working on my shooting? Am I spending enough time working on my ball handling, Am I spending enough time working on my finishing? And then they don't understand how to actually use the tools in their toolbox in the right situation. And that's where the disconnect is for a lot of players and can go into another reason why a college coach wouldn't recruit you. You might have all the talent in the world, which goes back to what I said earlier about ball handling. You can have a crazy deep bag with the handles that you have here. If you don't actually know how to use that in a way that allows you to create or allows you to facilitate an offense, then just having those physical skills means nothing and isn't a reason why a coach is going to want you or is going to recruit you. So I created Basketball IQ Academy to teach you step by step how to play the game of basketball the right way. And we go even deeper into that, we talk about the emotional intelligence piece, going back to being a great teammate, going back to being mentally tough, understanding how to deal with adversity, understanding how to actually not let some of those things derail you and instead be able to be present on the court and give your best effort regardless of things that are going on around you. We also have an entire course inside of that just dedicated to how to build a high level of confidence regardless of whether you're playing well, not playing well. So that when you get to the college level and it's difficult, everybody's good and you're learning and you're not playing a lot or playing well, are you able to maintain your confidence through that? And the players who can do that are ones ultimately who are successful. And the part that I'm the most excited about is that if you join Basketball IQ Academy and you go with the Complete player package, which is a new package that we're offering, we actually have a couple of things included that apply to this as well. We have an entire course, a step by step guide on how to get recruited, where we, we go through a lot of stuff. We talked about even more in depth. I talked about reaching out to college coaches. There's an email script that I go through that you can apply to. You know, sending your own emails out to coaches where, you know, building systems. Okay, who have I reached out to, who have I responded to, who's interested, who's not interested and learning how to put your film together. What are the best ways to be able to do that, to make sure that it catches the eye of a college coach and all the, all the little details that like I said, a lot of players don't know, a lot of parents don't know. We talk about that in depth inside this program as well. That comes with Basketball IQ Academy. We have an entire defense program. And then part of the complete player package is our skill development program, the Perimeter score system, which is a full year round skills training program. There's off season workouts, in season workouts, preseason workouts, and that used to be something that we sold separately. That was actually the first program that we ever had. And now it's only available inside the Complete player package with Basketball IQ Academy. So it truly is the one stop shop for everything that you're going to need to be a successful basketball player. Specifically, we talk about getting recruited, getting yourself to that next level. So if you're interested in all that, that's going to be the top link down below. Highly recommend you check that out. Hopefully this video gave you an idea of mistakes to avoid, how to put yourself in the best position to get an opportunity at the college level. Like I mentioned, if you are interested in basketball IQ Academy, that's linked down below, top link in the description. I appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.