As I zoom through twitter on an hourly basis over this evaluation period for men's basketball I see that basically every single prospect has gotten at least one scholarship offer from multiple schools. They aren't all true. Many of the recruiting "experts" have very little direct knowledge of true scholarship offers from schools (there are many that are really in tuned as well).
These recruiting "experts" get most of their information directly from the kids being recruited. These are the same kids that say they have a 3.6 GPA and in reality have a 2.9 GPA. How many 16 and 17 year old males will give you exactly the same information that they just heard? Unless they forward a screen shot of a direct message or text from a head coach about a scholarship offer, then I would search a little further for a true offer.
I read these highly regarded scouting services including Espn.com, Scout.com, Rivals.com, and 247sports.com on a daily basis. I see quite a few guys with a lot of interest from Michigan and quite a few that report offers from Michigan. They will not get an offer from Michigan until they have visited for a full academic tour. So, anytime I read that article stating that an athlete has received an offer from them without visiting I know that the athlete is hearing what they want to hear in regards to phone calls and text messages. An example of this is from this zagsblog.com article.
Like I've said before, a phone call, a letter, or a text message does not mean a scholarship offer. A true scholarship offer comes directly from the head coach of a program. Are there times when an assistant offers a prospect? I'd say so, but the head coach oversees the whole program and I would rely on him a little more than an assistant for that offer.
The assistant's job is to make sure you hear what you want to hear. Examples of this are "we could see you playing 20 minutes a game next year." "We think you could replace the senior that we are losing." Notice that none of what was said actually says, "You will." Very rarely are you guaranteed anything except a chance to compete.
As you move from D1 (all full ride scholarships) to D2 (some full and some partial) there are some differences. D2's can offer a full basketball scholarship but most will try to get creative with the scholarships because some are limited in total scholarships (10 is limit but not all are fully funded, 13 is the limit for D1). An example would be, "We will make sure you are on a full scholarship total. The school is working on the academic side and we will fill in the rest." Let's say an athlete gets $22,000 in academic money and then the basketball program will fill in the rest of the $20,000 to make sure all $42,000 will cover tuition and room and board.
Another way to make it all work is to add the Pell Grant. If the athlete qualifies for a full Pell ($5,500), the school could tell them to use that money to cover the remainder or part of the cost of the school. Like I said last blog, not everyone qualifies for full Pell but if that becomes an option, coaches could try and use it to their advantage to make sure they still have scholarship money left over for another athlete.
For many D2's the end of the year means they have extremely limited money to offer to athletes. This could mean that they only offer an athlete $500 per year or books. They could also tell you that they will give you that much for your freshmen year and after that it could go up based off of production. The schools that are fully funded, that is definitely possible but schools that aren't, it becomes extremely difficult to give more money because they need that money to give incoming recruits.
Now, some programs believe that would rather give more money to their current players because they have actually produced at the college level while the recruits have done nothing (my wife's team does this for cross country, track and field). Each program is different.
Here is a good article in regards to the scholarship situation for the local D2 conference, the NSIC.
http://www.sctimes.com/story/sports/college/2014/04/26/college-sports-look-nsic-basketball-scholarships/8234147/
Again, I hope this was helpful. If anyone has anymore questions feel free to email me at cwhop03@yahoo.com.
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