A 360 look at high-level men’s basketball recruiting with Jon Soch of Suited Scouting

Jared here, and today I’m joined by Jon Soch — one of the most respected young scouts in men's basketball. Through his work with Suited Scouting, Jon has built deep connections with Division 1 college programs and NBA teams, specializing in evaluating the very best prospects across North America.

We dive into what recruitment actually looks like behind the scenes — from realizing what “hard work” ACTUALLY looks like, to visualizing the concept of “stealing” recruitment.  You’ll also learn what separates the top of a scout’s recruiting list from the rest of the pack, including strategies that coaches use to find (and prioritize) the best fits as well as the toughest and most prepared athletes. 

In the second half of the episode, I ask Jon to assess my teaching practices, and it results in a back and forth about the transfer portal that you will not want to miss.  Be ready to learn A LOT about why mentorship and planning is so important, as well as how to find the right mentor for you.

Whether you’re navigating high school recruitment, eyeing a transfer, or just trying to understand the evolving demands of high-level basketball, this conversation is packed with real-world insights that I truly believe you won't find anywhere else.

If you want to know what it really takes to earn a spot at the next level, you don’t want to miss this one.

__________

Learn more about Jon:
https://www.suitedscouting.com

Contact Jon with questions via email at [e-mail]

Download the NTRP x Athlete Narrative Recruiter App:
https://signup.athletenarrative.com/ntrp2?am_id=ntrp

To obtain more information about my coaching services or to check out the book, visit www.nailtherecruitingprocess.com

Have a question that you’d like answered by me or a guest?  Have an idea for an episode topic? Have no suggestions but just want to say hello? Email me at [e-mail] 

Follow me on social media!

Instagram - @NailTheRecruitingProcess
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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Now, John, you're identified as the scout in the suit and I had wondered if you were gonnabe wearing a suit for this interview.
And I told myself, if you weren't wearing a suit, I would be like, do I get a free pizza?
Like, is the pizza free if you're not wearing a suit?
Indeed it is indeed the pizza is free if I'm not wearing a suit doesn't matter where I amI've been Every gym in America doesn't matter how hot how cold I'm in the suits I remember

(00:28):
what hundred degrees in Las Vegas I walked to summer league in the full suit I have suitswithout liners just in case of that I got suits with double double liners for if I'm
walking through a snowstorm I'm ready
I love it, stay ready.
I mean, it's good to have already built that threshold because the summer circuit's rightaround the corner.

(00:50):
I am thrilled to have you here as early in the season as you're gonna be for one reasonand one reason specifically.
um Things look a little chaotic right now.
There's a record number of both male and female scholarship level athletes in the transferportal, which is...
kicking down to being a record low of high school athletes getting recruited.

(01:14):
And I think everybody wants more clear and concise information.
I spent my last really close to 14 years on the women's side, having someone thatspecializes on the men's side.
And as we just discussed off air, doesn't mean you have anything against or won't helpfemale athletes, but your area of expertise happens to be the current men's game.

(01:35):
I think it's gonna be great to bounce some things.
uh
off on another.
So let me, if you're ready, I want to kind of dive in a bit to your background.
Yeah, for sure.
So I'm a basketball scout working for NBA and college men's college basketball teams.
I've been around basketball since I was a teenager playing semi-seriously from the time Iwas 12.
I repeated my grade 11 year while was born in Montreal, raised in Montreal.

(01:57):
Then I repeated my grade 11 year at the Tilton school in Tilton, New Hampshire, then didgrade 12 at IMG Academy.
Following that, was recruited to Brandeis University.
Unfortunately, I had some injuries, some health stuff and never really
got the opportunity to play.
It's just the luck of the draw.
ah From there, I started my own podcast during COVID, did twice a week for about a year,then came back to school, tried to figure it out and wound up getting some really good

(02:28):
breaks.
And now I run the largest basketball recruiting newsletter in America.
In fact, we just got our 600th subscriber this week and I run a premium scouting servicefor NCA and NBA teams that want that kind of info.
You can't get...
ah You can't just put out there.
need to make sure it's that premium level info.
And you also have a specialty that maybe you don't take this seriously, but I think it'sreally interesting, especially being from Buffalo and leveraging this pipeline a lot in my

(02:58):
recruiting time.
You have a very unique level of access to Canadian athletes where prep and high schoolball is a gigantic, gigantic deal.
And I want to make sure I have this right.
You have...
been a part of the committee that selects all Canadian athletes.
Is that correct?

(03:19):
Indeed I have.
I've been a member of the All Canadian Selection Committee for the last three years.
Yeah, three years.
Now sponsored by Quench, which it was an awesome game this year.
All the new, all the merch was really well done.
Big shout out to my guy Shane Sterling.
He did a great job with the creative directive for all that stuff.
And I love the way that it uh showcases the top Canadian athletes.

(03:39):
It's great.
um Yeah.
Where do you want to take this?
I don't want to start jumping in.
Where do you want to start going?
I love this.
We're on an adventure.
you just, listen, every time you speak two sentences, I'm gonna be interested in askingyou like five follow up questions, John.
But uh I wanna, there's three specific things in your background that I wanna unpack andwe're gonna do it one piece at a time, as long as you're cool with it.

(04:02):
Okay, so just to give the American audience a bit more of a background, you're from aprovince of Canada that handles high school very differently.
And that prompted, that,
prompted me to immediately want to ask you, know, with some of your work with Canadianathletes, are there kind of more unique challenges that you feel face some Canadian

(04:23):
athletes that want to pursue high level competitive basketball that maybe don't exist forAmerican athletes?
And I'd love you to walk maybe our inexperienced listeners through what that could looklike.
So the first thing that just stands out to me the most about how about this the part thatcan't change the biggest problem that cannot change for Canadian athletes versus American

(04:45):
athletes is that there is no local division one schools So your recruitment just startsoff later That's how it works most players first offer comes from a school within an hour
of where they live or where they go to school someone who can just go watch them on arandom Tuesday where
Hey, I wanna get out of the house.
You know, I'm a college coach.
I wanna get out of the house.

(05:05):
I wanna try to advance my career.
You know what, I'm gonna go watch this young kid who is probably too young for him to evenpotentially be a recruit, but you know what, I'm gonna go check him out.
I'm gonna see what I can figure out about him.
I'll write a report.
Maybe we'll offer him, who knows?
You don't get that in Canada because no one can just drive up on a Tuesday.
It's not a thing.
Maybe, because of, you know, that's the big advantage that four-year he has, the new prepschool.

(05:30):
on right on the border because they're so close to Buffalo, but even just going Buffalo toToronto hour and a half.
you just named Fort Erie and it's so funny you did.
So to give you an idea of the advantage Buffalo has, I've done it.
Door to door, Fort Erie and back, the entirety of the drive is less than an hour.

(05:51):
So it's pretty wild.
school in all of Canada that has any division one schools nearby.
And that is one division one school who, by the way, recruited, uh, multiple of theirplayers.
Isaac Jack started there.
Braden Jackson started there.
And I feel like I might be forgetting somebody, but they have at least two players fromFort Erie in three years of Fort Erie existing.

(06:14):
Uh, kind of crazy, kind of crazy.
So how do you try to work with athletes around that problem?
Because if you and I know anything about the work that we do with trying to help recruitsnavigate this, it's the panic.
No matter how many times we tell a junior that it's okay, spring of your junior year isreally when this happens, ah that still won't change the level of panic that the kid in

(06:39):
the family has freshman year, sophomore year.
How do you address that, giving that built in challenge with Canadians?
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
Like that is such because it really does just hold them back.
It starts their recruitment later.
The number there's a few things that I'll do for one.
um Especially if they're looking at just going to some random Canadian prep school, Ialways say, hey, let's find you a really good American prep school.

(07:01):
Now I we can get into the whole discussion of, is it better to go to a worse Canadian prepschool than a, you know, let's call them pop up prep in Canada versus a pop up prep in
America.
I actually do think there's an advantage in that, but that's a
huge discussion that I don't want to touch on because pop-up preps are just messy.
But in terms of going to a real prep school, if you can go to a real prep school inAmerica, there's a huge recruitment advantage in that for one.

(07:25):
But for two, you can just be patient.
I went to two.
which we're going to revisit.
We'll get we'll so we'll talk about that.
I appreciate you tabling it for a moment.
I went to two prep schools actually.
I'm very blessed and very lucky to have had that opportunity.
so for one, if you can get to a real prep school, you're just going to get seen by morecoaches.
You're going to get more recruitment.
Your recruitment is going to start earlier.
It's easy as that.
The other end of it is just be patient.

(07:49):
It comes.
It will come.
It might take a long time.
It might take longer than it's supposed to.
That's okay.
But if you work hard, you stay calm, you do the right things, and most importantly, stayon top of your classes.
Like already Canadian transcripts are
tougher to deal with because you're going from a foreign country.
Stay on top of your classes.
Don't leave it to be like, oh, we have to go to the clearing house to make sure if you'regoing to be a quality.

(08:13):
No, just, just, just get straight B pluses, get, get, get B pluses at least.
I'd rather you get A's, but I can live with B pluses so that we don't have to worry aboutif you're a qualifier.
We don't have to worry if your transfer, your credits, your credits will transfer.
Take that, take that issue off the table right away with that.
Then we're going to talk about, Hey, let's talk.
Let's start reaching out to schools.

(08:33):
you're at a prep school that's had players get recruited to these schools.
Let's talk to those schools.
we, say you're from, you know, you're from Gatineau.
There is an assistant coach from Gatineau at a division one school.
Let's reach out to him.
you're from Montreal.
Let's find the division one assistants from Montreal or whoever Montreal background.
Do we have anyone else?

(08:53):
Is there anything else about you that we can find?
Oh, we've got someone else.
Is there anything about you?
that we can find as a connection to a random college coach, something to make you standout ahead of them.
Or even if it's, hey, your family loved going to Buffalo basketball games when you weregrowing up.
That's an easy, that's honestly one of my favorite ones.

(09:15):
you're from a basketball family.
Your dad used to take you to all these games.
Your dad, know, like, remember when I was growing up, I was lucky.
We did a trip down to Michigan and we watched the Michigan Wolverines play.
It was the most amazing experience ever.
Now, I wouldn't recommend trying to use this trick on Michigan because they are an amazingschool, but if it's...
You know, if it's a low to mid, Oh yeah.

(09:37):
A power form with a top 10 top 20 budget.
Yeah.
Let's start with, let's start with somewhere in the mid.
Let's start with a low major to a mid major.
How about you go to a Vermont game?
You know, you go to Vermont games your entire life.
Once a year you go to Vermont game with your dad.
You want to reach out to the Vermont staff say, Hey, I grew up going to all the Vermontgames.
That's a great connection that you can leverage that.
Look, it's not going to help you get recruited if you stink, but

(09:58):
It might be the piece that gets these coaches to look at your film a little bit extra.
It might be what gets these coaches to say, hey, it's more likely this kid fits.
He knows what we're about.
He's seen us play.
He's seen who we are.
He knows what Vermont is.
Let's check him out a little extra.
And so for me, I try to find those connections because I think they get you extra time ofday with coaches in their brain.

(10:20):
So picking up on that connection standpoint.
If I'm just looking at your experience with IMG objectively, and for our listeners thatdon't know IMG high school in Florida specializes in developing high level athletes, not
just in basketball, across the spectrum of sports.

(10:41):
To me, in my experience coaching, the value of a high school like IMG is they have a morebuilt in network because of the reputation of IMG that precedes it.
The flip, and this is what I really want to pick your brain about,
is of course you know that information so every kid wants to play at IMG.

(11:01):
I do not think the average kid, very similar to the average kid saying, yeah, I can be aD1 athlete.
I don't think the average kid is actually prepared for what the athletic experience at ahigh school like that looks like.
I would love it if you were open to doing so, John, if you could walk me through like whatwas it actually like to be a basketball player at IMG?

(11:23):
Obviously it prepared you for college, but you know, is that experience for everybody?
I'm trying to think of the best way to take this.
Look, so when I showed up at IMG, didn't...
So I did two summer camps at IMG before I wound up going there.

(11:44):
Very lucky, very lucky for that.
To be quite frank, getting to IMG is the easy part.
There's something called money and you can exchange that for goods and services.
And look, basketball is still a business.
If you want to pay, can get on IMG.

(12:06):
IMG's got great revenue.
They got a ton of students in.
That's how they have these crazy facilities with all these coaches and all these people.
Money exchange for goods and services.
But to go to somewhere of that high level and stand out, that's the tough part.
That's the part that a lot of players really struggle with.

(12:27):
You might be good, but when you look at their top team, their top team is incredible.
Darius Akuff is a top 10 player in the country and people think he's underrated.
He's like number six or seven in the country and people argue he's underrated.
You're not even just dealing with players that work hard anymore.
You're dealing with players that are top 1 % physical athletes that also work incrediblyhard.

(12:52):
The difference between the best player like a Darius Acuff versus I don't know, uh someonewho's not doing as well on that team is how hard Darius works.
went, I got to meet, I got to watch Kareem Stagg workout because I was down there for ashowcase and coach Sean McElhoun is one of my guys.
He was there when I was there, so I'm still tight with him.

(13:13):
He's a great guy.
I got to speak to him and while I was speaking to him, they were just working out Kareemand I'm watching him just for one, this young man is.
built like a Mack truck.
He's like six, nine, two 60.
I need his, I need his chest day.
I'm like, what are you, how are you?
It was very impressive watching him get up there.
Flying up for big dunks looked like I would never want to meet that man in the post ever.

(13:37):
And so I'm just talking to Coach Chonabub about that, but I'm looking, I'm watching howhard Kareem works out.
And I know how hard someone like Darius works out.
I'll tell a story.
When I was at
I got really lucky with the first prep school.
went to a Tilton school in New Hampshire.
It wasn't a great fit for me off the court, which I think a lot of people really underratewhen looking at their college and prep school.

(13:59):
Um, that's something we could talk about a little more later, but one of the bigadvantages I got on the court was I got to work out with a guy named Marcus Sikorowski.
You might remember the name.
He played at Creighton for three years was Big East, all freshmen, Big East, second team,then Big East first team.
After that, he got drafted to the NBA 49th overall to the Brooklyn Nets.
And he did all of this as about us just barely six foot tall guard.

(14:24):
He was the hardest worker I've ever seen in my life bar none.
And I've shared the court with at least three multi-contract NBA players and a bunch of GLeague guys and a bunch of fringe guys and a bunch of pros at various levels.
No one worked as hard as Marcus.
So when I showed up in my first at Tilton, I thought I was a hard worker.

(14:45):
And then I saw Marcus work and
I understand stood that, you know, okay, they say, NBA players work out four hours a dayor something like that, just on the court, just basketball, no warmup, no cool down, four
hours of work.
And I was able to do that.
That was easy.
But then I watched Marcus workout and I understood there was a different level to it.

(15:05):
Yeah, you can put in the hours.
You have to work out at such a high level to be good enough.
There's just a level of hard work that the average person doesn't understand that they cando.
that a lot of these absolute top players are able to get to.
And that's how you get the most from an experience like IMG, from an experience likeTilton.
That's, if you're someone that can work that hard, it makes more sense to go to a realprep school somewhere where you have full access to a gym, full access to nutrition, full

(15:32):
access to a weight room, because you're going to get so much more out of thoseexperiences.
It's why I'm such a big believer in the NEPP SAC.
It's why I'm such a big believer in IMG.
It's why I'm such a big believer in a lot of these real prep schools.
So this is an interesting thing.
I want to bring up a data point.
um This is from my research now.

(15:55):
My research, I think, is a little bit more skewed to the women's side than the men's side.
But I asked how important it was to the college coaches that the kid played for aprestigious high school team.
And let's, you know, I'm very familiar with the NEPSAC coaching most of my life in theNortheast.
So let's use the NEPSAC as a target.
I sort of assume
that all of the college coaches on the men's and women's side were gonna be like, yeah,this is a 10 out of 10.

(16:18):
I want these kids to be prepared.
What I was sort of shocked by in my research and then in my follow-up conversations withcoaches were their statement is, if that's what prepares them, then that's what they need.
We just want the kids prepared.
How they get prepared was not as important to us.
And I was really surprised by how low their preference of high school was.

(16:40):
So my question for you, kind of with that piece of information in mind, excuse me, iswould you say based on your interactions with men's coaches that you feel like it's the
same?
Where like, by any means necessary, however you get yourself ready for college sports,that's what we care about.
Or do you really feel like a lot of these scouts at mid-major, high-mid-major and beyondare really scoping out what the prep scene looks like first and foremost?

(17:07):
Um, so the first thing I want to say is, uh, I want to reference a Greek quote by HenryFord, the founder of the Ford Motor Company.
he said, if people asked, if I asked people what they wanted, then they would have askedme to make a faster horse.
And the point of that is people don't know what they want.

(17:28):
People don't know what they want.
And, and I think there's, you know, they say like, I don't really care what school they goto.
They do.
They do.
I've, I've.
I've had enough players, I've worked beside enough players that go to the absolute worsthigh schools, the worst prep schools, the kind of prep schools, I mean, I had a player

(17:50):
whose coach got arrested for fraud.
I've had some crazy stories of like, I worked with the player to get him out of there, bythe way, just for helping him out.
figured as much, I'm happy you said that for the sake of future business.
not put him at the prep school where there was fraud.
is not- I didn't even put that out there for the world.
That is not- I hope post can clear this up really nicely.

(18:14):
You just for the sake of your own self security, you already gave that impression, but I'mhappy that it's now out.
They needed to make sure.
Yes, I did not introduce, did not send the player to a school where they were indicted forfraud.
Or I'm not indicted, just charged.
All I'll say is, I've worked with some really rough background schools.

(18:37):
Some players that go to really tough schools, really undesirable schools, really...
You know who gets recruited?
The kid that goes to Blair.
The kid that goes to Worcester.
the kid that goes to Newman, the kid that goes to Perky Yeoman, the kid that goes to thenice Knapsack, they do again and again, again and again.

(18:58):
When you're 50-50 on a kid and you've got a kid who's got, when you're 50-50 on a playerand you've got one player who's got all the nice background, has all the right coaches
vouching for him, and you've got someone like Coach Joe Mantegna, I really wish I couldpronounce his name better, my Italian needs some work, vouching for him.
on my podcast last season, so I'm with you.

(19:18):
Yeah, you've got someone like that vouching for a player.
You take the player and if you need proof of it, go look at go look at Eric Michaels, EricIhuqaba on American who had very little recruitment and they were telling everyone, no,
no, Eric's good, Eric's good, Eric's good.
And he was amazing for American.
Help them make help them make the NCAA tournament.

(19:41):
There's a reason why you go with the kids that are on these prep schools and you do now.
Look, everyone wants to say that they don't.
Everyone in the end of the day, yes, it is whoever's prepared.
It is.
It is about who's prepared.
is about, but when 99 % of the players that are more prepared are also the ones that go tothese schools, you you look at the Venn diagram, there's a huge amount of overlap.

(20:02):
You can say, I only want the players that are prepared and you'll recruit anyone who'sprepared, but most of those players happen to be at these schools already.
there's a huge component of what you just said that sort of stands out to me asnetworking, which is one of the things that you talked about earlier on in the interview.
Is there some credence to when you get to one of these more elite prep programs, if you'reable to have the talent to sustain a roster spot on those prep programs, that you're just

(20:30):
automatically in with people where their word is taken more seriously by college coaches?
Is that, that's kind of what I'm hearing from you?
Yeah, mean, definitely.
I want to be careful with how I phrase this.
The way I would put it is you go to a really high level, a real, when I say like a realprep school, I mean somewhere where they own the campus, they own the gym, they own the

(20:59):
dorms.
You know, you're, you've got a cafeteria that feeds you.
This isn't okay.
We're, you know, all right, everyone, we bought 15 chicken breasts for dinner.
Everyone line up.
We're cooking 15 chicken breasts.
about what the Americans would call or 60 Minutes would call the basketball factory.
We're talking about real established schools with proper mentors.
Exactly.
There better be AP classes, classes are in person, all that.

(21:22):
You go to somewhere like that.
Even if it's not necessary, the one you're buying the coaches network, but two, you'rebuying all the evaluators network.
When you go to a better school, you get seen by more people.
Recruitment isn't made, it's stolen.
Recruitment isn't made, it's stolen.
You need to play against other people that are getting recruited to steal theirrecruitment.

(21:44):
Steal.
Multiply.
like that phrase.
We play defense in our sport.
like, so actually, as you just said that sentence, like Sylvester looking at Tweety andseeing dollar signs in his eyes.
I was like, that's a real, that's a real what you just said.
I would agree completely.
How many times do we see a kid who's under the radar and they go just get in a Herald andRecruits jock for 40 minutes.

(22:13):
Just, I'm not letting you score and I'm gonna dominate you.
And all of a sudden, the coach on the sidelines is like, well, I'm supposed to be watchingthis kid, but, that's a thing.
I agree with you completely.
It's the only way.
It's basically 95 at least percent of recruitment is I watched this one player beat up ona player that I was recruiting.
I watched this one player beat up on a player that Creighton was recruiting.

(22:35):
That's how Marcus got his offer.
Marcus Sigurasku, who I referenced earlier, got his Creighton offer because he beat up ona Creighton recruit.
He had like 30 or something in a double in an OT win, if I'm remembering right.
Or he had a game winner at the end of regulation.
I don't know.
It's been quite a few years.
I'm sorry, my photographic memory isn't on point, but you need to beat the recruits to getthe recruitment.

(22:57):
You can go average 50, but if you don't play anyone that's getting recruited Division 1,you're probably not gonna get recruited Division 1.
Now, if you're averaging 50, maybe.
I'll be honest.
Maybe, maybe something will come, but you still, that's the 5%.
For 95 % of recruitment, you need to go into a gym with other people that are gettingrecruited.

(23:18):
and steal that recruitment.
You need coaches that are watching one player to also watch you and say, we want torecruit him too.
We want to recruit him instead.
We want to recruit him and the other guy.
Maybe we want them as a package.
Who knows?
I think that that's extremely valid and something that I've talked to a lot of coachesabout that really resonates to me as you share this is when you are on the recruiting

(23:39):
trail as a high school athlete, there's really three or four different things that we cansuccinctly evaluate aside from the way you play, right?
We can evaluate your inner inner circle, your mentors, your family.
We can evaluate your attitude and like how we project.
your level of resilience.

(23:59):
And then let's say you have a bad game.
We can still evaluate your motor.
Right.
When you have a good game, I think the thing that a lot of kids don't realize is the veryfirst question we ask, we're all cynical is, well, who are they playing against?
And I think that is what you're talking about.
If you don't bring it against the best competition, you can look at it be like, yeah, Imean, they were really good.

(24:22):
I was kind of mentally rattled.
Well, my response to that would be like, yeah, but when you get to college,
Everyone is really good.
That's sort of the deal.
So I, no, I think and
really good, they're much older than you.
They're so much, it's, cause it's usually these 17 year olds that are saying it.
You don't hear it a lot from the 19 year old post grads that are like, oh, I wasn't ready.

(24:43):
It's always the 17 year olds that are like, man, they were so big and physical and tough.
I wasn't ready for it.
Yeah, what's going to happen when you play a 24 year old?
Like.
comment, John, that comment to me is an awesome place to segue into talking about theportal.
Because so I have tried to explain this and you know, a huge introduction for me to my newclients has been, I've been talking to a lot of AAU programs that I used to recruit from,

(25:09):
right?
And I talk to their teams and I'm like, listen, I want to tell you what I'm looking forwhen I recruit you, right?
And
Not a lot of coaches can be as raw and as detailed as I'm being because they have to worryabout the school that's on the front of their logo.
I can tell you everything.
And the first thing that I'm going to tell you is that right now, the thing that you don'thave is experience playing college basketball and it's advanced and it's probably going to

(25:39):
shock you upon arrival.
And because of that, college coaches are reaching into the portal and grabbing kids thatalready get it.
and already have the experience.
So my first question for you is, I feel like the men's side has been a little bit ahead ofthe women's side.
The portal was much more prevalent much earlier on the men's side.

(26:00):
How does it look right now?
And do you think that trend is on brand?
I've already heard some high major men's coaches being like, not even talking to highschool kids right now.
What does that look like to you?
think that a lot of coaches are still having figured it out.
And now that we're getting some stuff about how Florida won their national championship,there's a little more info going out.

(26:27):
when you hear it, I mean, I love the Florida program.
I know pretty much everyone there.
They're great people.
was a huge Thomas.
I'm still trying to find my tweet where I call Thomas Ha, top 50 recruit back in highschool.
um
They're great.
They're great people top to bottom there.
They use analytics.
They went in there, they found the players that analytically stood out.

(26:49):
They brought them in kid players that had the right mental makeup, toughness.
mean, that was Thomas Hall was uber tough, uber skilled, would play in a role, would playout of a role, would do whatever you needed.
And it's like, yeah, this is the kind of kid I want on my team.
And now guess what?
He's a national champion.
And if he doesn't get a first round pick, if no one will give him a first round promise,then I'm going to

(27:09):
You know, I'm going to be yelling at a few NBA teams to give him the first round promisethat kids he's he's more than good enough.
A lot of times people are still just throwing an aisle out there.
They don't know what they're supposed to be, what they haven't figured out.
OK, these are the positions, positions we should be gambling on.
These aren't the positions we should be gambling on.
A lot of stuff like that, coaches are still figuring out.

(27:30):
But it's a lot safer to just go all portal.
It is you're just more likely to get people that one have lost their ego when you're onyour third school.
When you're on your third school in like four years, because your first school didn't workout, your second school went pretty well.
And now you're looking for that third school, you've been beat down, you understand howgood you are, you understand how good other players are, you know what it takes to win.

(27:53):
You got me two years left, you want to make a little bit money, you want to look reallygood, you want to prepare yourself for a pro career or just for your future.
Honestly, I think there's a whole other interesting discussion to be had there of nowthere is so much more money in NIL than pro.
where it makes more sense to just maximize NIL money and then get a real job after, butthat's a whole other discussion.
But for a lot of these kids, they just, understand it.

(28:15):
Whereas you bring in a high schooler, they don't.
They don't understand how to win.
They still have an ego.
They still get mad when they're not hitting shots.
And it's like, dude, I don't care if you shoot over 10-1 game.
I need you shooting your open threes.
If you are open in the corner and you don't shoot it, we're in more trouble than if youdo.
And a freshman doesn't get that.
of the possession because you were on one.

(28:35):
Yeah.
is you're feel bad.
And you know what, if you're scared, I'm going to pull you in, I'm not going to play you.
And now you're going to cry and I'm going lose you for the rest of the year and you'redone.
It's why would you recruit freshmen when that is the downside of it?
And that also all goes back to the point we made earlier about the value of going to areal prep school.
You go to somewhere like you go to a school like in the NEPP SAC, you're getting coachedby someone who could be a division one assistant.

(28:59):
Pretty much every head coach, every head coach of a good
good NepSAC school either was or could be a Division I assistant in the next three to fiveyears.
much like the way you and I would talk about D3 based on our experience.
I'm a literal former D3 acting associate head coach that became a first assistant at theD1 level.

(29:23):
I did that.
So like we, and I think you always want to surround yourself with people that have thatlevel of perspective and experience.
Yeah.
And it's that level of perspective experience, that level of drive, but also just thattalent.
Like you have to be good at your job to be a D1 assistant.
It's not that easy.

(29:43):
It's not easy to be a D1 assistant.
It's not easy to be someone who gets to these high levels of coaching.
Learn from them.
And that's one of the big things that a lot of players can get is learning from thesecoaches.
Why are we gambling only on freshmen that went to prep schools?
Because they got real coaching.
because they are ready.
you take someone who's been running the Princeton offense all year and knows eightdifferent variations on it and all the different ways to score on it, and they know three

(30:11):
different defensive packages, they're gonna show up and be ready to go.
I could talk about a player, you know what, I am.
I'm gonna talk about a player named Kurt Tang who got recruited to Michigan State to playfor Tom Izzo.
And one of the things that when I was talking with uh the Michigan State coaches aboutKurt,
and why they were recruiting him is because his team ran floppy, his high school team andhis AAU team run a ton of floppy, and they run a ton of floppy.

(30:40):
yeah, he's running the same sets we see.
We don't have to think about it.
don't have to reteach you your reads as you're curling off a screen coming on thebaseline.
Right.
Okay.
running this for years.
Kerr, you've been running this for four or five years.
You know floppy like the back of your head.
You probably know floppy better than some of the seniors on this team.
Yeah, we're gonna recruit you and you're gonna figure it out and you're gonna be reallygood here one day.

(31:02):
It's It's fit.
So this is really, really interesting to me, John.
Because what I'm hearing is we can reach for experience and we can reach for people thatwe think are going to be the correct fit.
And right now we're having an easier time finding that in the portal.

(31:22):
On the flip, we have, I guess, you know, it's almost like Brett Farve.
Brett Farve...
you know, set a lot of NFL records, but he also set a lot of NFL records for futilitybecause he just threw the ball the most.
So right now, because we have so many kids in the portal, we're also seeing some bigproblems.
The biggest problem I'm seeing is what I would call transferring to the portal.

(31:46):
People impulsively get in the portal.
They don't really have a network.
They don't have good mentors.
They don't have a plan and then they're stuck.
What's going wrong in your estimation that's getting them stuck and how do we unstuckthem?
for lack of a better way of putting it.
Sorry, timed cough right there.
um My biggest issue with lot of these Portal players is they don't have a plan.

(32:13):
Now, some players just don't get a plan.
They walk into coach's office for the end of season meeting, coach looks at him and says,you're gone, and they got to figure it out.
There's a lot of players that don't get the luxury of having a plan.
But on the flip side, there's a lot of players that have the luxury of building a plan.
They have the luxury of...
figuring it out.
They have mentors, they have people they can speak to, they've got a network, they'vepeople who love them, and they got people like me that know what's going on, people like

(32:40):
you that know what's going on, that they can come and just be like, hey, tell me how itis.
You need to make a plan.
Sending out your film is not a plan.
Okay?
The amount of players that are sending out their film and getting recruited from theportal is not a lot.
It's not a lot.
Now, sometimes for transfer downs it is.

(33:02):
Like you're going down, you're going from a D1 to a D2 to a D3 or a D3 or a Juco or an NA.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, they'll go through your film.
you're trying to, you're a Division One player trying to stay at the Division One level.
I don't know a lot of coaches that are
How about this?
I don't have any coaches this year that have told me that they've started recruiting aplayer because the player sent them film.

(33:24):
Now you.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, this is some great practice film you've got here.
Wow.
Thank you for sending it to me.
You know, like it's just, it's just hard to evaluate.
It's almost impossible to evaluate practice film.
I was on the phone with a coach this year and he's like, I got this kid's practice film.
I was like, wow, this kid might be too good for us to take.
He's so good.
And then guess what?

(33:45):
He went to another school.
didn't go to their school and he was awful.
He couldn't play.
He played less than half the season because he couldn't get minutes.
They were like, you are killing us.
You're not good, but you look great in practice.
You can't evaluate practice film.
You said something really important to me and I'm going to put you on the spot.
I'm going to promise you that no matter how hard you try, you can't hurt my feelings.

(34:07):
I'm a big strong boy.
Okay, John.
Okay, thank you.
Hearing that in advance really makes me even more courageous.
So I want you to evaluate my plan.
You said you said you need to have a plan.
I'm going to tell you how I have been advising some of my transfers who reached out to mebefore they got in the portal.
No, because I think that's that's where the plan starts.

(34:29):
need to start by reaching out before the portal.
my goodness, I cannot say it enough.
What are you doing waiting until you're in the portal to start talking to people?
Talk to someone before so they can get some sort of idea of what's going on.
Okay, this is fancy.
Okay, so you already like part one of my plan.
I feel even more secure now, John.
This is great.
All right.
So, so part one, you've reached out to somebody in advance.

(34:52):
Part two, you have assessed what your market will be.
You've gotten an objective eval of your game.
Part three, you've made targeted outreach to those schools, explaining a couple really keythings.
Why you're in the portal, why you think you're going to be a good fit.
and not looking to immediately just be like, offer me please, but I want to set up aconversation with your coaching staff so that I can get a sense of whether or not we'll be

(35:19):
the right fit.
Then after you start talking to coaches, you can funnel it the way you would in atraditional recruiting process.
Assess that.
How do you feel about what I just laid out for you?
The first question I'm gonna ask is are you transferring up or transferring down?
So the reason I didn't share that is because I think the objective person that is givingyou your assessment is going to help you make that decision.

(35:42):
I'm facilitating both right now.
I'm going to say that for a transfer down, that is a hundred percent the way you do it.
Transfer down.
is no, no exception.
I think that's the right way to do it.
Yes.
You, you, you understand that you have an objective evaluation.
You understand what you've got going on.
You have someone else who can sit there and tell you, and you trust them to be honest.
Hey man, you don't have the resume to stay D1.

(36:05):
Hey, you don't have the resume to stay D2.
Hey, you're going to have to go to a Juco, probably a Juco in this region.
Hey, you're probably going have to go to an NAIA.
Hey, you're probably going have to go back home.
You know, do go to a D3 at home or go to a do an NAIA at home, whatever it is.
Hey, you need to figure this out, but I'm with you.
Yes, you do need you.
I think that that's the exact way to do it as a transfer down.
My thing, I think for transfer and my, my thought process on transfer ups has changed alot recently because I have made some good friendships with, um, with an eight, with, um,

(36:37):
with, with agents, talk to them about how they make their business work.
And I've, you know, had a lot more players get
trying to figure out the PC, the proper way to say this, not PC, just proper.
I've had a lot of players get um robbed, I guess, in the portal or lied to, just not getwhat they promised.

(36:57):
you saw my content.
I'm literally posting content about kids that have just been led completely astray in theportal and they don't understand what it actually looks like to be recruited.
Yeah.
players, like for one, I've had players think that they're getting recruited to theseschools on these offer number amounts.
It was so funny.
said, like, yeah, I'm getting recruited to these three schools at these offer amounts.

(37:19):
And then I called the schools and they were like, nope, we filled that spot.
Nope, we're that spot tomorrow.
We might have something.
And it's like, okay, so you went from three schools to one in about 30 minutes, man.
Like, come on, let's slow it down.
ah And that's why I'm a big believer in having an agent.
someone who is making those calls for you to go out there and find them.
That's why I'm a believer in having an agent.

(37:39):
Cause I've had another story for why I believe in agents.
I had a player receive 10 or I heard about a player.
He wasn't a player that worked with me, but I heard about him who received 10 % of the NILthat he was promised.
That's a small amount.
Yeah.
And again, no regulation right now.
So how do you actually enforce that?
It's crazy out there.
Right.

(37:59):
you have an agent who one people are scared of and has an iron tight contract and da da dada and all the stuff, you can't enforce it.
That's why there's so much more value in having a real good agent.
I know plenty if anyone listening to this needs a recommendation on a real agent becauseyou are transferring up, transferring up, very important.
If you are transferring up and need an agent recommendation, you can hit me, I'm happy tohelp out.

(38:21):
I'm not an agent, I don't wanna be an agent, but I'm happy to help out with that.
Quick interruption, I'm asking you this on the record.
Do I have your permission to put your information in terms of your site and your site'semail address in the podcast description so people can just look down and grab it?
First, you can put my personal email address in there because my website email has notbeen doing great.
so yes.
I had the same thing.

(38:42):
People just started finding my cell phone number and after a while of not getting businessemails, I was like, yeah, my cell phone works.
Here we go, I'm with you.
exactly.
So I need to sort that out.
So we're gonna give up my personal email because it's worth it.
But yeah, if you're transferring up and, you know, send me your ESPN stats and I'll tellyou if you can transfer up.
I'm happy to make some connections, happy to help out because I think that having an agentthroughout the transfer process is so important because you need to one, have someone that

(39:07):
knows the market.
You need to have someone who cares about your fit.
And I think you need someone who is incentivized as much as you are to find the rightschool for you.
And if you've got someone and you know, you and me are great.
We're great, but we don't get paid when you get paid.
So as much as I, you got it.
You got kids, correct?

(39:29):
I listen.
I listen to you speak.
You got a kid.
I'm 26.
I have my own life as much as I can.
I can care.
I can't care as much as someone who legitimately would get paid for finding you a school.
I I'm not able to, there's just a level of incentivization that people
You know, now that I'm old and I understand it, if the incentives don't line up, if theincentives line up, people are gonna work harder.

(39:52):
Find someone whose incentives line up with yours.
Find an agent who wants the same things you do.
Money, role, opportunity, all these things.
So that's why I'm a big believer in having an agent.
I think that there was a lot of agents that are really scummy and they make a really badname for agents.
So you need to find someone who is big, has a massive network, has a ton, a ton, not five,not six, a ton.

(40:17):
of placements up to this point.
Massive.
Because there's so many people that will take 20 % and do nothing.
I had a player who found an agent on his own after he got in the portal, signed with thisagent, the agent was supposed to take 20 % of his contract.
One, he sent me that contract, I'm like, this contract is garbage.
Like this contract on fire, this is totally not legally enforceable, there's no piece ofthis that's legally enforceable.

(40:40):
I brought it to a lawyer, the lawyer looked at it and said, what is this garbage you'reshowing me?
So for one, even the agent can't get them
can't take themselves seriously enough to hire a lawyer to write out a real contract.
And then they're take 20 % on your NIL.
The agent didn't call any schools for him.
All that happened is the player would get reached out, would receive recruitment from aschool and then send the agent to talk to them.

(41:00):
The agent did nothing and wanted 20%.
That's insane.
I had a player work with an agent this year.
The agent called about 100 tools for him, trying to find the right spot for him.
Oh, now we found one.
Now we found one that's paying him a bunch.
It's great.
A good agent is worth every penny, in my opinion, you just need to find a good agent.

(41:21):
a so I mean, obviously the average listener is not going to have access to the, you know,rundown that I sent you via email, but I'm willing to share this because you just hit on
something that I feel and I'm comfortable sharing this publicly.
uh know, having been a lifelong American citizen, I'm a little cynical about the waycertain things in America work.

(41:41):
I believe with every every fiber of my being that right now part of the reason why thereis no
actual legislation or guidance or quote unquote best practices for NIL and collectives andfor the transfer portal is because the NCAA wants it to break.
I believe that the NCAA thinks it's in their best interest to watch it go wrong and thenfive years from now swoop in and be like, see, we told you this wouldn't work.

(42:10):
Now give us the power to enforce it our way.
I think that the people that are paying
for the total lack of regulation the most are current college athletes and current highschool students.
That's my take.
Now, I don't want you to put yourself out there and give that opinion, but what I do wantto ask you is this.

(42:35):
We are in a situation now where if a kid doesn't get as much information as they need,they can easily, way more easily than five or six years ago.
put themselves in a horrible situation.
To that kid who, you you need to talk off the proverbial ledge right now, to that junioror senior in high school that you know is winding up to do the wrong thing, what's your

(43:03):
elevator pitch to that kid to get him off the ledge?
You know what?
don't even, I'm not gonna give an elevator pitch.
I'm gonna just tell them exact, cause I'm, I don't have the time for that.
What I would do is I would tell them exactly, here's what you need to know.
First things first is you need to find someone who has done this before.

(43:23):
Okay?
Your uncle is awesome.
I love your uncle.
He's very nice.
Your uncle's a very nice guy.
He loves you very much and he cares about you very much.
He hasn't negotiated an IL deal.
He's half employed right now.
He's probably not the person to trust with anything regarding your recruitment.
As nice as he is, as much as he loves you, as much as he was a great basketball player inhis own right.

(43:44):
You know who is worth trusting?
That AAU coach that has about thousand kids in college right now.
A thousand kids in college over last 10 years.
ah How about the other AAU coach that has three All-Americans?
How about this other AAU program that has eight teams?
one on a shoe circuit, one on HGSL, one on another circuit, one on another circuit.

(44:09):
All their players work really hard.
All their players have high GPAs.
All their players are high academic and all their players go to top academic schools orget recruited to really good programs that fit their desires.
Look at those people.
They're probably not gonna lie to you as much.
How about this?
They might lie to you, but...

(44:30):
I would rather be lied to than just get plain old bad information.
Maybe they'll lie to you, but it's very likely that if you are playing for them, you'reincentivized to want the same thing.
They're not going to lie to you.
If your goal is to go to college, they're more likely to help you with that than youruncle that doesn't know anything.
They're not going to lie to you about college.
Look, they might tell you that you're your God's gift to Earth to try to get you to playfor their team.

(44:53):
And to that, I would be I would be honest with them when you walk in.
I don't care if you think I'm all I want is for you to think that I can play in college.
If you think I'm a Division III player, that's fine.
If you think I'm Division II player, that's fine.
you think I'm an NAIA player, that's fine.
If you don't think I'm a college player, let me go play for someone that thinks I'm acollege player.
But don't just go to the coach that says like, yeah, I'm a division one, you're a divisionone superstar, all that.

(45:13):
Find somewhere that's gonna actually push you.
Find them and trust them.
Listen to what they say.
Find a reputable AAU program with a ton of history.
Play for them, listen to those people.
Listen to people that have done it before.
Find mentors that you can trust.
Don't just rely on your uncle.
Don't just rely on these randoms.
That's why we talk about finding an agent with a huge track record.
Because they know what's going on.

(45:37):
They've done this enough times.
They can help you.
And like, really, the only lying that they're gonna do is saying, yeah, I'm sure we canget you, I'm sure you're a superstar and then you're just all right.
That's the worst lie that they're gonna tell you.
I know I said, that's the worst lie that they're gonna tell you.
So if you walk in there and you say, hey, I don't need you to say I'm God's gift to Earth.
I don't need you to say I'm a division one superstar.

(45:57):
Just tell me your honest opinion.
One, they're gonna coach you better.
They're gonna coach you harder.
They're gonna make you a better player.
You're gonna get better insight.
You're gonna get better guidance.
You're gonna get everything.
And then they have no reason to lie to you.
You've taken the lies off the table.
You're set.
You've now got mentors that can actually help you through these really weird and changingtimes in college recruitment.
Consistent threat that I've heard through a lot of your responses is the need formentorship seeking out experienced mentors and What I'm hearing and I want to put words in

(46:27):
your mouth, but kind of what I'm sort of hearing is on the men's side especiallyespecially You're seeing the best mentorship in these established private leagues with
that where the schools are real where the prep schools are real not basketball factoriesBut real prep schools with real mentorship
And if you're not in a situation where you can do that, then you have to align yourselfwith a club or AAU program that has experienced coaches that for sure know how to get you

(46:55):
where you want to go.
Is that what I'm hearing?
yes, you are.
And you know what I'll add to it actually, because a lot of these pop up programs aregetting better and better because they're being ran by coaches that former division one
coaches that just want to retire to places like Florida.
So you're getting a lot of like, I'll give the example of two one two Academy and LakeviewBasketball Academy ran by coach John Mahoney, former Michigan guy and coach Doug Leischer,

(47:17):
former main guy, you've got division one coaching at a pop up prep.
That's awesome.
It's affordable.
It's great.
And you get a real mentor from that.
Now, that's not to say it's anything compared to, you I don't even think that theyconsider themselves a comparison to these NEPSAC schools, but you need to find mentors.
You need people that have done this a bunch of times that can teach you what you'remissing.

(47:40):
Ignorance, what's the quote?
You can pay, you can either, you can either work through ignorance or you can pay throughignorance, something like that.
I'm definitely not getting this quote right.
It's from Alex Hormozi, business guy.
I think everyone that's in basketball needs to watch more business content, by the way,because there's really good business content out there and a lot of it applies very

(48:04):
directly to being a better basketball player, how you need to approach working onbasketball and all that stuff.
I've been a big proponent of that and I should really do more videos on that.
two favorite books on coaching are not books on coaching, they're books on leadingorganizational change in businesses.
I think that every coach needs to win, read how to win friends and influence people byDale Carnegie, a book from what 1910 or something.

(48:26):
I'm reading this and I'm like, I use these strategies when I talk to players about theirgame and they'll play better.
I've had players completely change their games, go, they look like superstars after usingthree techniques from that book.
It took me less than 30 in a less than 30 minute conversation.
I completely changed how players played it just from.
Small techniques like that.
I'm a big believer in a lot of business content applying to basketball.

(48:50):
ah Where were we going with this?
We got lost in some great stuff there.
making sure you address your ignorance somehow.
That's kind of where I left you off.
Yeah.
can either pay for it.
can either, you can either find a mentor.
You can find coaches.
You can find people that, and you know, it costs something to be on these good teams.
It does.
It costs something to be on a good, on a good, on a good strong AAU team.

(49:13):
It costs something to be on a good, on a good strong prep school team, or you need to bean absolute monster.
Absolute monster.
There's no free lunch to get to a good prep school.
If you're just all right, even, you know what?
I've seen players that are ranked be paying for high school.
Nate Amet is my number one player in the upcoming class.

(49:35):
He's my current number one pick in the 2026 NBA draft.
He pays to go to high school.
Why shouldn't you?
You think you can get away with not paying?
When literally the player that I think as a experienced NBA and NCAA evaluator
who's done the draft, who's done all this stuff, who's got ties to all these NBA teams,who's helped out, whose opinion matters, thinks that NATO med is gonna go number one in

(49:59):
the draft.
That guy pays for school.
You think you don't have to?
Excuse me?
It's crazy.
So you need to find a mentor somehow and it might cost you something.
That sucks.
Unless you're a freak, unless you're freak level athlete, freak level talent, it'sdefinitely gonna cost you something.
It's tough.
That's how life goes.
Figure it out, because it's that or you're going to play it.
You're going to run through the ignorance yourself.

(50:20):
You have to make a ton of mistakes and learn on your own.
By the time you are 17 of working through it entirely on your own, someone who is 15 isprobably just as good as you because they've been paying for the best trainers, good
trainers.
They've been paying for the right teams.
They've been on all these programs.
They've been getting all this work.
They've been getting mentors that taught them how to avoid the pitfalls that will thatthey will hit.

(50:45):
By the way, that's not to say that that path, choice B of not paying your way doesn'twork, but that path looks an awful lot different right now with the transfer portal in the
background.
need to, if you're going to take that path, you need to be smart.
You need to understand where you're going.
You can't just go to the first prep school that you find.
You need to find somewhere that actually cares about you and has value.
need to find like, you need to find there's plenty of great free programs in the city.

(51:08):
I'm not trying to try to dump on free programs in any way, shape or form, but don't justgo to the first free program you find where the coach is some guy that couldn't even make
his college team, but he enjoyed training players.
And it's like, dude, what's your deal?
Like you didn't play, didn't, you weren't a manager, you didn't play, you didn't coachanywhere.
Now you're just coaching players.
That's nice of you.
Happy for the gym access.

(51:29):
Find someone who's like, yeah, I have a coaching background this many years at thisschool.
I coached high school for 15 years.
I coached division two for this many years.
I coach here, I coach there.
I have some background.
There's a reason I do.
I'm doing this for free because I want to give back to people.
Find those people.
Don't find the people that are just doing it for free because they don't know how else todo it.

(51:50):
I love it.
you've already my final question, which is my question for everybody.
no, I appreciate that.
You've you've covered everything.
This has been this has been great.
My final question, you've actually already mostly covered.
I already know based on what you said, how you would address it.
But I still want to share this figure with you just to get a agree or disagree.

(52:14):
So I asked 50 college coaches.
How?
they were that the average high school kid they were recruiting actually understood thescope and magnitude of day-to-day being a college athlete.
The average response from the 50 college coaches and by the way scholarship versusnon-scholarship did not matter for this response.

(52:36):
They all answered the same way 3.5 out of 10.
Are you surprised?
of them.
Wow, that's very generous.
3.5?
I'd go even lower.
Most, most former players that I talked to told me the same thing.
I can't believe it wasn't lower.
So especially given what we're talking about, you agree with that?

(52:57):
And I'm also, um I'm not a pessimist.
I'm a strategic pessimist.
I'm a pessimist when being a pessimist is the better option.
Every other situation, I'm an optimist.
I would rather be a pessimist on assuming how college ready my freshmen are gonna be.
Okay, one of them is gonna wind up spending too much time with his girlfriend.

(53:17):
Okay, one of them is gonna wind up trying to party a little too much.
Okay, like I'm ready for this.
That's just how it's gonna go.
Everyone's gonna, every one of them is gonna do one thing that just makes no sense, iscompletely stupid.
And they don't know why they're doing it.
They're 18, 19, 20.
They don't know what they're doing.
They're kids!
They're kids.
I'm 26 and I still do stupid stuff way too often, okay?
Like it's how it works when you're young.

(53:39):
Young people make mistakes.
That's how they learn.
You can't have a mentor teach you everything.
That's just how life is.
So three and a half is, it's a nice figure.
It actually makes me feel pretty good that these coaches, they're finding that it's betterthan I would expect.
which is very nice and I guess it shows a lot for these young athletes.
I'm curious if there's a peaks and valleys, if there's a, you you get three freshmen thatare tens and then two freshmen that are zeros.

(54:06):
and then they just gotta average this out.
Yeah.
Well, it's so funny you say that, because I actually think this is a great place to end,given the conversation we've had.
We've talked a lot about the mentorship piece, the learning piece, the understanding whatthis actually looks like.
The one piece we didn't really account for is each coaching staff has a different riskthreshold, right?
So like a lot of coaching staffs are willing to sort of address this shortfall by justgrabbing the kids with the best motors and being like, I can, whenever you don't know,

(54:35):
you've got an engine and we can teach you and you'll work through it versus sometimesthey're passing on the most skilled kids if it looks and I'm referencing back to what you
said earlier like the kids confidence will wane and all of a sudden they'll stop doing thething that they're good at.
And there's so many great philosophies that I've heard over how to recruit players.
um Some of it is we just want the absolute toughest guys and we just want to be thetoughest guys.

(54:59):
We don't want anyone to want to come to play us.
We'll figure out the skill thing later.
We're just going to be absolutely tough as nails and make you never want to come play us.
Some people are, you know, there was a great conversation between Dan Hurley and GinoOriyama from uh Yukon head coach is talking about.
I'm just going to get the best offensive players.
And we'll figure it out.

(55:20):
You know, we'll figure it out when they're here.
There's another great quote from Dan Hurley where he talks about, oh we'll turn down alevel talent because we're concerned about other, other problems.
We're concerned that they're not tough enough.
We're concerned that they're, they've, they've got off court issues.
We're concerned that they're not ready to handle adversity.
And really, I think being able to handle adversity, you know, in my generation, becauseI'm still in this generation, I'll fight, I'll fight, fight it.

(55:46):
I'm still part of this generation.
I'm not that old.
My generation, were really, we are really soft.
We are not tough.
We are not ready for adversity.
And so being someone who's able to handle adversity is like doubling your points.
If you are someone that can get knocked down and pick back, that gets knocked over and youcan step stood up every single time.

(56:11):
You're going to do better.
I've had lots of players get a ton of recruitment.
This kid's no good.
I'm watching them play and they're like, this player is no good, but I know his AAU coachMFs him every single day.
I know his high school coach MFs him every day.
I know he works his butt off every single day.
He goes through the absolute wringer.

(56:32):
This kid is ready to be tough at the next level.
He is ready for it.
He is built for it.
He's a tough SOB.
He'll figure it out.
And so when that matters.
so much for a lot of these college coaches.
And look, there's just different philosophies of different programs.
But in the end of the day, you're never going to regret being tougher.

(56:53):
You're never going to regret learning to handle adversity.
And you're never going to regret just being, you're never going to regret working harder.
That's the thing I've talked to a lot of players about.
You're never going to regret working harder.
You're never going to regret telling your coach that you can work harder.
You're never going to regret telling your coach to coach you harder.
If you, a lot of coaches are getting scared to coach players harder.

(57:13):
I'm actually become a big proponent for telling coach like,
Hey, like you can tell me I stink.
You can tell me I'm a loser.
You can tell me, you can call me every mean word in the book.
I'm fine with it.
I think that was one of the things that I was really good for when I was in high school.
I was not very good, but I was tough and you could tell me I'm the worst human to everlive.
And I'm just going to keep going.

(57:34):
I'm going to take it right off the chin, look a little confused and just keep going.
And I think that that's something, an attitude that a lot of coaches are scared to bring.
And I think that.
making sure your coach knows you're comfortable with that will help you.
One, it'll help your coach be ready to coach you a little harder, which means that you cannow learn more from him.
Two, it's just building a skill set that, hey, maybe you wind up with a coach that lovesthat.

(57:58):
Maybe you never wind up with a coach that loves to coach like that.
I'm personally a believer you don't need to coach kids.
Actually, I'm not even gonna that.
Some people think you need to coach kids too hard.
Some people don't think you need to.
I don't know.
I think there's a nice little middle ground, but it's good to build that skill.
Everything's about building skills and I don't know why you would risk not building askill.

(58:20):
resilience and I'm so happy I ended up asking you that last question because we gotanother reel my Sylvester cat eyes went off again.
aside from everything I just learned, oh 100 % yeah, oh yeah 100 % and aside fromeverything I learned and how good that conversation was the biggest thing I take home is
you
The NCAA and the transfer portal and recruiting is gonna get even messier and you'll be agreat person as long as you're open to it to have back to continue helping me unpack that

(58:48):
mess in future seasons.
I would love to transfer portals always, always changing.
Um, you know what?
I just want to give one thing to the players right here, right now, while I'm here aboutthe transfer portal.
I think that the worst DMS that I consistently get are players telling me, Oh,everything's so weird now with the transfer portal, dude, the transfer polls existed since

(59:11):
what?
2020 now, 2019, the, like the instant transfer portal.
We're used to it now.
We're used to it.
How are you not?
What do you mean it's weird because you're the transfer for you?
Don't say that anymore.
That's not an excuse anymore.
Get with the times.
You need to learn where you benefit from the transfer portal.

(59:31):
And there are ways that high school players will benefit from the transfer portal.
I think that there's a huge, huge gap in the market for getting in at these low to midmajors at these strong D2s.
m
going to a junior college and look, if you are a three, five, three, two and above GPAplayer, make sure you're going to a junior college that has good academics uh or even just

(59:56):
going, I had a player, I had a player, he's a friend of mine because I played with him incollege at Brandeis University who just Division Three, who just transferred to Iona and
had offers to other high level schools.
He's gonna get paid NIL where he's been paying to go to college for the last four years.
whatever level you go, if you are good enough, you will be found now.

(01:00:18):
Like I have a division two player who's transferring up right now and he's going to get avery nice NIL bag.
If you can play, you will be found now.
That's the oh advantage of the transfer portal.
So now you don't need to, you don't need to over worry.
I need to go to Auburn to start my career.
And even if it takes me three years to play, okay, I'll eventually I'll be good enough toplay at Auburn.

(01:00:42):
No, go somewhere where you'll be happy off the court.
Go to somewhere where you'll get a good education in case something goes wrong and youdon't become the best basketball player.
Go somewhere you're going to be happy.
I'm a big believer in D3.
I'm a big believer in Patriot League.
I'm a big high academic, big believer in going somewhere high academic because it givesyou a great floor for the rest of your life.

(01:01:02):
You get a great education.
You learn a lot.
You get a very strong degree.
You can go to grad school with that afterwards.
And you need to have that backup in case and now you can do that.
You don't need to go to uh East Northwestern State in Wyoming because they're a mid majordivision one and they're the only mid major offer you have and you want to play mid major

(01:01:24):
basketball.
You can go to any school in the country now and work your way up, go somewhere thatactually fits who you are because you're going to play better basketball if you're happy.
If you go somewhere that you fit in on campus, you're going to play better basketball,you're going to be happier, everything's going to work out better for you.
I love it.
John, can't thank you enough.

(01:01:45):
Stay here for one second.
We'll talk after we wrap, but thank you so much.
We'll see you again soon.
Thank you, Joe.