Offseason hectic time for coaches
The dry erase board adjacent to Skip Prosser’s office is low on white space these days. Scrawled out in a rainbow of colors, Prosser’s detailed blueprint charts the future of his Wake Forest basketball program.
A matrix of dates, events and targeted recruits blur together in chaotic fashion. And yet everything must fit neatly into the day planners of the Demon Deacons coaching staff.
Right now Prosser and his assistants — Dino Gaudio, Jeff Battle and Pat Kelsey — are in the middle of the craziest recruiting period college basketball has to offer. The marquee events are all over the country. So are the blue-chip prospects who can make all the difference between a Final Four run and a second-tier finish in the ACC.
Prosser’s itinerary for this month includes stops in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Akron, Ohio, North Augusta, S.C., Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. He will be shadowed every step of the way by nearly every other major Division I coach in the country.
“July is July,” Prosser said. “It’s literally a scramble.”
A dead period from July 16-21 is sandwiched between two high activity 10-day periods that will whisk recruits and the coaches who want them from AAU tournaments to skill-development camps and back again.
The craziest stretch takes place late this month in Las Vegas. Three shoe company-sponsored events overlap from July 22-26, causing coaching staffs to spend 95 percent of their waking hours in one of two places: in the bleachers of a local gym or in the driver’s seat of a rental car.
One hour it’s the Main Event put on by Nike. The next it’s the Reebok Championship or adidas Super 64.
“You’d be lost without NeverLost,” Prosser said. “If I didn’t have the GPS system in the car, I’d be done.”
With literally hundreds of teams and thousands of players competing all over the desert, coaching staffs must meet regularly to plot out their plans of attack. Out come the schedules, the road maps and the car keys.
“It’s incredible the number of miles you can put on an automobile,” Prosser said.
Evaluation process
The strategy with rising juniors and rising seniors is quite different. In looking at the Class of 2009, it’s all about evaluation right now. In that vein, the Wake coaches hit the road armed with a checklist of yes-or-no questions.
“Are they good enough players,” Prosser said. “Are they good enough academically? And are they good enough people?”
Once those questions have answers and the process becomes more advanced a year later, the approach changes to the point where Prosser says, “you’re no longer evaluating, you’re recruiting.”
In other words, with those players Wake has had previous contact with, the Demon Deacon staff is no longer scrutinizing footwork on the low block or box-out fundamentals.
“It’s about them seeing you seeing them,” Prosser said.
As for those Sin City temptations? Prosser says he can’t afford to see a show or play a hand of blackjack while there. He’s strictly on a business trip. Which is why he makes sure every year to stay in a hotel a little bit away from the strip. With no casino.
“Just some place that is easy in and easy out as much as possible,” Prosser said. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to stay in one of the big theme hotels that would be anathema to me. I just want to have my own little world. I’m probably four or five blocks from the strip where if you turn one way, you’re going to the strip, but I never turn that direction. I head right for the interstate.”
And right for the games that will begin at 9 a.m. and not end most nights until close to midnight.
“It can be grueling,” Prosser said. “But like I always say, if your backside is sore from sitting all day, you probably have a pretty good job.”
Changing camps
The dynamics of the July recruiting binge have changed somewhat this summer. In an effort to scale back on competition and advance fundamentals, a handful of once prestigious camps and tournaments have been abolished or transformed into skills academies.
The Nike All-American Camp in Indianapolis, for example, has been replaced this year by the LeBron James U.S. Skills Academy, which wrapped up Monday in Akron. Similarly, the long renowned ABCD Camp in Teaneck, N.J., has given way to the Rbk U event in Philadelphia. Adidas’ All-American camp in Atlanta is also gone with the shoe giant now running its It Takes 5ive Classic in Cincinnati.
Comparing classes
By most accounts, the Class of 2008 is lower on eye-popping talent than were the Classes of 2006 (which produced the likes of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant) or 2007 (O.J. Mayo, Eric Gordon, Kevin Love and Kyle Singler.) The top prospect in the rising senior class, according to PrepStars.com is 7-foot center Greg Monroe, who still has Duke on his short list along with LSU, Kansas, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Florida and Georgetown.
Several of the top players in the Class of 2009 currently have their eyes on Tobacco Road schools. Lance Stepheson, a wing guard from Brooklyn, N.Y., and rated No. 3 by Prep Stars, is eyeing North Carolina. The same goes for center DeMarcus Cousins, rated No. 8. Duke is in the running for guard Kenny Boynton (No. 2) out of Florida. Jordan Hamilton, a wing forward from California rated No. 6, has N.C. State on his list along with Texas, Syracuse, Arizona and Southern California.
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