How will FBI bombshell change basketball recruiting?

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What many have long suspected but never had the means to prove about college basketball, recruiting, agents, financial advisors, shoe companies and how they can all work together was brought into the public eye by the revelation of an FBI investigation on Tuesday.

Now that we know the federal government has made at least 10 arrests spanning all levels of college and grassroots basketball, and is still in the midst of what appears to be an ongoing, massive investigation, what happens next?

Though it’s going to be awhile before we see the true fallout of the federal investigation into college corruption, it’s reasonable to expect that recruiting as we know it is going to see some changes.

So, what could reasonably happen?

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For years, many have pointed to the grassroots basketball circuit and the involvement of shoe companies as the breeding ground for many of college basketball’s perceived problems.

Perhaps some of it has been overblown; perhaps some of it hasn’t. But, with public reports from federal investigators now available exposing meetings among coaches, runners and others to discuss cheating for players during events, nobody can deny that corruption there exists.

Since I began working in this business nearly 20 years ago, the NCAA has become progressively more involved with monitoring the grassroots circuits. It has instituted background checks for coaches and many other measures for clearing the people involved with grassroots basketball – at least for those events that college coaches are able to attend.

Currently, those “live” events that coaches can attend during April and July are run by independent operators who get NCAA approval. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see the NCAA eventually move to a system where those live period events are either done in-house or run through an entity such as USA Basketball in an effort to gain as much control as possible.

After the way federal investigators threatened coaches during their press conference on Tuesday, I have to believe that 2018 will end up being one of the cleanest recruiting cycles we’ve ever seen.

Perhaps I’m being naïve here, but given the number of phone calls I took from college coaches over the last 24 hours who are scrambling for information or just scared of what could happen, I can’t believe anybody in their right mind is going to color outside of the lines of the recruiting rules.

People are losing jobs, people are going to jail and people are facing very real prison time right now. To still want to cheat with all that is going on, a coach would have to be beyond reckless.

So far, Adidas is looking really bad during this investigation. Surely, Nike and Under Armour are out there hoping that they don’t get dragged into the public fray. The reality for all involved is that the general public doesn’t really differentiate between brands; they just see shoe companies and more and more they think bad things.

However, I’m most interested to see what Adidas does here. With their director of global marketing, Jim Gatto, being one of the people that has been arrested, changes are going to have to happen.

Do I see Adidas pulling out of the grassroots basketball game completely? That seems like a stretch. But, I can’t help but see the company making changes to a system that currently includes its “Gauntlet” series of tournaments that features 96 teams between gold and silver divisions, its Adidas Nations camp programs and the trips it has taken players on to Italy and Aruba.

Could there be changes at Nike and Under Armour, too? We’ll see and there’s no doubt that what changes the NCAA decides to make could play a big part in their future direction.

Not every big-time recruitment is run by a handler, a summer coach or a high school coach, and not every handler or youth coach is looking to get paid. There are still many families who are in complete control of their child's recruiting process and there are also some family-run recruitments where they might be looking for a little extra.

With that out of the way, more information than ever is now available to parents and guardians about the recruiting process and I think we’ll see many more families looking to be hands-on in the recruiting process. I know it seems strange to think that every parent isn’t completely hands-on, but the fact is that not all of them are and for many there’s simply not enough education available from sources looking to do anything other than help them in the process.

I would love to see the NCAA set up some type of initiative with high schools, high school coaches, summer coaches and the shoe companies to truly educate parents and guardians about the recruiting process. At the end of the day, knowledge is going to be power and if we want to see things cleaned up it’s going to have to start with the families and players knowing as much as possible when the recruiting process starts.