Thoughts regarding portal versus high school recruiting.

Mar 10, 2025, 11:44 AM

Obviously NIL has changed the recruiting landscape. In the cases where money is the only factor, selling a program's culture (family like atmosphere, etc.) is irrelevant as the number of dollars will carry the day. In other cases, it is money and (fill in the blank). Here is my question: how is recruiting high school athletes different than recruiting portal athletes? Again, I am only interested in the ones where money is not the only factor.

Clearly, this past weekend serves as another piece of evidence that Dabo is one of the top two or three recruiters in the nation with high school athletes. That seems to be an unassailable argument based on his success. However, when you switch gears to recruiting the portal, I think there is significant evidence to suggest that Dabo is not in the top 10. My question is why the difference? Maybe Dabo's prior attitude toward the portal is still used against us in portal recruiting.

In a hypothetical if there was a portal athlete and he had three offers all within 10% on the money side. What is the difference between that and high school recruiting as far as selling the program beyond the money piece?

On the basketball side BB seems to be a very good portal recruiter but not to the same level of success with high school players.

I'm just trying to understand the difference. It seems outside of the money piece recruiting should be recruiting.

Message was edited by: revmarkg®

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With portal recruiting, many more of the players agents are

I agree. Not saying it doesn't happen, but you seldom hear of a portal

Re: Thoughts regarding portal versus high school recruiting.

I don't think you can say that Dabo is not a good portal recruiter. My reasoning is this off season was the first time he was serious about using the portal and did very well.

I don't think you can say CBB is not a good HS recruiter as he signed a great class in 25 and has the same for 26. Obviously the first years of his tenure were difficult as he did not have proven credentials on the major level, crappy facilities and unknown assistants.

As for the differences between recruiting the two, I believe most portal players have different goals. Things like the depth chart/playing time and a chance to play on a bigger stage have more impact than all the things we sell to HS players (paw journey as an example).

Guys in the portal are Free Agents while guys coming out of high school are

Thoughts regarding portal versus high school recruiting.

With portal recruiting, many more of the players agents are

I agree. Not saying it doesn't happen, but you seldom hear of a portal

Re: Thoughts regarding portal versus high school recruiting.

Guys in the portal are Free Agents while guys coming out of high school are

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