Every year talented high school basketball players who are seniors end up not getting recruited, or receiving a scholarship. Due to several factors, players have and continue to go under the radar of many colleges. The factors taken into consideration for why this occurs are: grades, character, height, a team’s record, and connections.
Excluding height and connections, players control of most of the factors that colleges take into consideration when recruiting them. When recruiting or getting ready to offer a scholarship to a player colleges check a player’s athleticism, grades, character, and team record to make sure they are all in good standing.
When recruiting or possibly offering a player a scholarship Miami Dade College’s Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach Ward Griffith says, “When I’m looking for a player to potentially offer a scholarship to, I like to make sure that he’s a well-rounded person. First thing is, what is his character like? What is he doing on the court? How is he interacting with his teammates, his coaches, with the referees, with the fans? We do background checks, we talk to principles, and we talk to people who know him in the community. We check grades; academics of course is a big deal. Sometimes guys don’t take care of business when they’re coming to junior college, so we like to teach them the right way. But we like to have at least the foundation there. … really we want an all-around player, we want the guy who’s going to be the type of person we want on the court and off the court.”
Players must take care of all of their responsibilities on, and off the court. Neglecting one responsibility can create repercussions that include becoming ineligible to attend a 4-year college, schools losing interest, and colleges rescinding a scholarship offer.
Fortunate to attend a junior college on a full-ride scholarship, Keaton Simmons a freshman on the Miami Dade College Men’s Basketball team, is familiar with what can happen if you let your grades slip.
Reflecting on his recruitment during his senior year in high school Simmons says, “I expected to get a little bit of D-1 offers, but I knew that my grades played a big role in it. My coach always told me that grades were more important. And that came down on the decision between two good players. One GPA was better than the other, so you know – commonly they will pick the one with the better GPA … .”
Throughout the country college’s recruit hundreds of players who have similar skill sets, however they only offer scholarships to players who have skills, grades, and character. The full package.