Indiana’s Tom Crean Throws Lots of Scholarship Offers Around for Few Spots

by Kent Sterling

Recruiting basketball players is a tough game for coaches, and there are different strategies for each program.  Some cast a wide net, and other are more specific in their targeting.

Over the last couple of weeks, media reports have featured news about Indiana coach Tom Crean offering scholarships to prep star after prep star at a rate that far outpaces availability.

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Weird thoughts like every kid calling simultaneously to accept start to creep into my head each time I read about Indiana offering another kid.  I know that the strategy Crean employs is not to have every player with an offer to attend, but with every offer it seems Indiana is like the host who invites everyone he knows to a party and hopes out of that group someone he really likes will show up.

Crean isn’t alone in exercising a plan to issue a lot of invitations for very few seats, but I wondered just how many coaches pursue players in the same way, and how many are a little more discriminating.  I put a pen to paper and counted the number of recruits that have reportedly been offered by every Big Ten men’s basketball program, and 10 others.  This took a considerable amount of time, and I’m still not sure exactly what the data means.

Here is a look at the number of scholarships each Big Ten program has offered in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 classes, and how many are available at those schools for those classes:

Scholarships offered in ’14, ’15, and ’16 with number available in each year in parentheses:

1. Indiana – 18 (1), 17 (1), 10 (4) = 45 (6)
2. Ohio State – 13 (1), 19 (5), and 5 (1) = 37 (7)
3. Minnesota – 26 (5), 9 (5), 1 (1) = 36 (11)
4. Purdue – 20 (4), 11 (0), 2 (4) = 33 (8)
5. Iowa – 21 (4), 9 (3), 3 (5) = 33 (12)
6. Illinois  14 (1), 12 (4), 3 (1) = 29 (6)
7. Nebraska – 14 (2), 9 (5), 1 (3) = 24 (10)
8. Penn State – 7 (0), 12 (2), 1 (3) = 20 (5)
9. Michigan State – 9 (3), 8 (4), 2 (3) = 19 (10)
10. Wisconsin – 7 (0), 8 (5), 2 (2) = 17 (7)
11. Northwestern – 11 (2), 4 (2), 1 (4) = 16 (8)
12. Michigan – 5 (1), 3 (1), 1 (6) = 9 (8)

Here’s a look at several other high-profile programs:

1. Arizona – 28 (2), 20 (2), 4 (3) = 52 (7)
2. UCLA – 29 (5), 15 (1), 5 (3) = 49 (9)
3. Kansas – 17 (1), 17 (1), 2 (4) = 36 (6)
4. Georgetown – 19 (0), 12 (6), 2 (3) = 33 (9)
5. Kentucky – 10 (2), 8 (0), 2 (2) = 20 (4)
6. Notre Dame – 9 (4), 8 (1), 0 (3) = 17 (8)
7. Syracuse – 7 (2), 7 (1), 2 (4) = 16 (7)
8. Butler – 11 (2), 5 (4), 0 (2) = 16 (8)
9. North Carolina – 4 (0), 7 (3), 2 (4) = 13 (7)
10. Duke – 8 (3), 4 (1), 1 (5) = 13 (9)

Obviously, not taken into account are the players who will choose to leave early to head to the NBA or transfer, and while the offers have been made to many and accepted by a few, until the letters of intent are signed, none of us really knows a thing.

The boys reporting to their high schools for the first time this week – the class of 2017 – are just too hard to keep track of, but Crean has reportedly offered a few of those too.  Why players, parents, or coaches would confirm those offers to the media is beyond my ability to comprehend.  Putting a target on a 14 year-old’s back is unnecessary and counter to the kid being able to enjoy fully his high school experience.  “When in doubt, stay quiet,” is a damn good rule.

The only programs that top Indiana in sheer volume of offers made are UCLA and Arizona.

Indiana and Michigan finished last season numbers one and two in the Big Ten regular season standings, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum in their philosophical approaches to recruiting.

Whether fishing for players with dynamite is fair and reasonable depends upon what’s communicated to the recruits’ families.  If Minnesota recruits in the 2014 high school class are aware that there are only five spots for 26 guys, and that the first to jump get spots, there’s nothing wrong with that.

If there are kids who have offers that can’t be fulfilled by a school and the coaches neglect to tell the player, that’s shady.

The metric for success in recruiting is who reports for duty each summer, and so far it’s impossible to argue with the quality of recruiting classes put together by either Crean or Michigan coach John Beilein.

Different strokes for different folks.