This year's March Madness tournament is still very much underway, and the South Carolina Gamecocks will meet the TCU Horned Frogs Monday night to determine which team will make it to the Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona.
A lot of conversation this time of the year (and especially at the tournament, where so many coaches are together at once) is about the impact the NIL system has had on college basketball and parity up and down the sport. NIL payments have allowed schools and programs to adequately and appropriately compensate their athletes for the work they do on the floor, but that also means plenty of kids are willing to entertain conversations from any school that can provide the right amount of money.
NIL has changed how colleges recruit new players
That's a kind of quiet truth about college athletics in the NIL area; it's not something that is always spoken about openly. But South Carolina's head coach Dawn Staley has never shied away from pointing out the obvious, and she's not starting this year.
While speaking to reporters this week, Staley was asked how conversations with recruits have shifted the last few years. “How much is it going to cost us? That’s the conversation. You’ve got to lead with that,” Staley said ahead of the team's game with TCU. “Because you don’t really want to waste your time. You either are going to have enough to pay players, or you don’t. And you move on.”
As she also pointed out, a lot of players are very focused on the bottom line. “Because although you can promise a young person this or that, if your budget says otherwise — I don’t like to promise anything that isn’t available to us,” she added. “I don’t want to have to go out and get the money because you could be told no and then your back is against the wall.”
Staley also said that while questions about money aren't the first ones she asks, she makes sure to talk about it early on so that no one invovled feels like their time is being wasted. “I won’t say I lead with that question, but I get to it fairly quickly,” she said. “After the pleasantries are done, you have to get to the question so you’re not wasting your time and spinning your wheels on somebody that you can’t afford.”
It's also just as important to the program that their players gradudate and graduate well. Staley added that her team evaluates each player's transcript to make sure they'll have the time they need to get their credits and graduate on time, something that's crucial in women's basketball. Though the WNBA is expanding, there aren't always enough roster spots for the number of qualified players available each year.