Everybody associates November with Thanksgiving, but over the last few years November has been more Christmas-like for the Kansas basketball program.
It’s a fact the majority of scholarship players on the Jayhawks’ roster – including Danny manning – have taken advantage of the NCAA’s early signing period…mainly so they wouldn’t be harassed by recruiters during their final high school seasons.
Example: Of the nine freshmen Kansas has signed over the last two seasons, only one – guard Kevin Pritchard – waited until the traditional April period before making a college commitment.
Kansas hasn’t been alone in harvesting a November bounty, either.
“During the last three or four years, the bulk of the Top 100 have signed early,” says KU assistant coach Alvin Gentry. “I’d guess about 80 percent of them have, mainly so they can have fun their senior years.”
So strong has the trend become that I wouldn’t be surprised if some basketball fans actually thought November was for signing high school players while April was strictly for penning juco transfers.
Thus, with the first day of the week-long November signing period only a week from today, fans all over the country can’t wait for this year’s November haul.
Trouble is, few, if any, will sign.
…and not just at Kansas.
“The trend this year is a lot of kids won’t sign early,” Gentry pointed out. “A bunch of the better players aren’t signing.”
Why? Because the NCAA has taken steps to protect high school players from incessant recruiting attention by limiting the dates college coaches can legally contact them. One of those periods was Sept. 17 to Oct. 7.
In other words, it’s currently closed season for college basketball recruiters. Thus, if a player decides to sign next week, his decision will be based almost solely on his experiences during that three-week open season.
“By now we had usually been in a lot of homes twice,” Gentry pointed out. “Now mostly we’ve been to the home once and to the school once.” The next contact period runs from Dec. 11-31 – too late for the November signing period, of course – then there’s another closure from Jan. 1 to Feb. 8. After that, everyone’s fair game through the April signing date.
“A lot of that is positive,” Gentry noted, “because the kids don’t have as much pressure on them. if they don’t sign, they’ll have those (closed) dates to protect them. But for us it’s tough. What we try to do is make a lot of phone calls.”
In some cases, November certainly is too early…for the athelte and the recruiters. That’s because of NCAA Proposition 48. Kansas, as you know, signed two high school seniors last November who didn’t qualify for scholarships.
In effect, it was a crap shoot. Kansas was gambling that Antoine Lewis and Ricky Butler would make it because it was better to have a bird in the hand in November than have two in the bush come April.
“It’s gotten better,” Gentry says of the Proposition 48 screeining. “Most of the kids have had two years to get their priorities in order. Kids now know about the area of core curriculum, but test scores are still a major struggle because inner city kids struggle in the verbal area and suburban kids do well.”
Ll in all, though, Gentry feels the system is solid. One change he’d like to see, however, is an open-ended extension of the autumn signing period.
“Eventually, I think they should allow a kid to sign any time after the November period,” he said. “Like if he decides in December, let him sign. That’s what everybody kind of wants…to make it go from November to April.”
By “everybody,” Gentry ostensibly means college coaches because such legislation may be more dream than hope. For sure, open signing is not on the horizon.
“I think we’re talking some years away,” Gentry conceded. “I mean, I don’t think you’ll see it at the next NCAA convention.”
