Recruiting Guide

Recruiting is the most important (and arguably the most exciting) aspect of college basketball and the CJBL. Recruiting for the first time can be overwhelming. It does take a few seasons of recruiting to be able to perform it quickly and confidently, and to understand the impacts of each individual action.

Before reading this guide, click here to make sure you have read the Recruiting rules (Rules > Recruiting tab). This guide presumes knowledge of those rules. Thanks to Morgado for providing a lot of this information -- the initial version of this guide was based on his posts, particularly around the strategy aspect.

Ask for help!

Don't be afraid to ask other users for help (the best place is in the #help-and-tips channel on Slack). This guide is only one way to approach recruiting and other Athletic Directors have been successful doing other things. It will take a couple of seasons to feel totally comfortable, but even after that, there are still ways to have a great recruiting cycle without following this guide to the letter. Sometimes, all you need is luck!

0. Background to Recruiting

In the CJBL, the majority ofrecruiting takes place over the offseason for the upcoming year. At the start of the offseason, your senior players will graduate, giving you scholarships to offer. After this, some of your players might transfer (or you may offer transfers a scholarship). The scholarships you can offer in recruiting therefore depends on the number of scholarship players you have at this point. You can have a maximum of 13 scholarship players at once, and a minimum of 9. With walk-ons, your total roster size can be a maximum of 15 players, with a season-opening minimum of 12.

You can recruit senior high school players from over 1350 (real) schools in North America. Each of these schools has a full roster of players and statistics. Throughout the season, the prospects will play high school games and their statistics will update. At this time, the ranking of players can vary as it is based partially on statistics.

Players you recruit will play in the upcoming season. In the CJBL, only seniors that can immediately play can be recruited; teams do not currently recruit juniors for future years.

It is recommend to try and balance each classes with an equal number of recruits where possible. With 13 scholarships, you should aim to have 3-4 players in each class (Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior and Seniors). This might mean holding back a scholarship or two in one year in order to offer more the following year. In your first recruiting season, you will be inheriting a roster, so it will be difficult to balance the roster in this way, but it is a good guideline for the future.

Phase 0 (In-Season Recruiting): The Basics

Recruiting begins during the regular season with the introduction of Phase 0. This extended period is designed to allow you to conduct initial scouting, identify key targets, and express preliminary interest in the upcoming high school class long before the intensity of the offseason. Think of this phase as laying the groundwork for your entire recruiting cycle.

Key Features of Phase 0:

• Player Rankings: Initially, only the top 200 prospects (5-star and some 4-star players) are given a star rating. All other unranked players in the class are designated as 1-star. There are no 2-star or 3-star players visible at this stage; the full class will be re-ranked before Phase 1 begins, based in part on the interest shown by schools during Phase 0.
• Available Actions: The only actions you can perform during this phase are Scouting (up to Level 4) and Expressing Interest. You cannot make calls, conduct visits, or offer scholarships yet.
• Separate Budget: Each team receives a special $100,000 budget specifically for Phase 0, delivered in two $50,000 installments during the season. This budget does not affect your normal recruiting budget for Phases 1 through 10.
• Duration: Phase 0 opens midway through the regular season and remains open through the postseason and into the first week of the offseason, closing around the same time as the Coach Hiring period. This gives all ADs, including those who may change teams, ample time to participate.

If you take over a new program at the end of the season, you will start Phase 0 fresh. The actions of the previous AD will be wiped, and you will be given a new set of 30 "Express Interest" actions to use for your new team.

Strategy & Best Practices

Success in Phase 0 is about efficient information gathering and strategic positioning. How you use your limited resources here can give you a significant advantage when the traditional recruiting period begins.

Your entire $100,000 Phase 0 budget should be spent. Since this money does not roll over, any unspent funds are wasted. You will be given $50,000 in installments over the course of the season.

Focus Locally First: Your team receives "free" Level 1 scouting on all players within your designated recruiting region. Since scouting prospects closer to your school is cheaper, the most cost-effective strategy is to begin by thoroughly scouting your local talent pool.

Finding All Prospects: To see all available local players, you must change the recruiting filter from the default (4 & 5 stars) to show 1-star players. To scout outside your region, you can navigate to the High Schools page, click on a specific school, and view their roster to find prospects.

Use Your Budget Wisely: For lower-prestige schools, spending your budget on local talent is paramount. Higher-prestige programs may have the luxury of spending more to scout top-rated national talent outside their region. Remember that any scouting you complete in Phase 0 carries over, giving you a head start in Phase 1.

Think of this action as an initial, informal call to a recruit to let them know they are on your radar. It significantly increases the chance that a player will include you in their initial list of interested schools when Phase 1 begins.

You only have 30 of these actions for the entire duration of Phase 0, so use them wisely on players you are genuinely interested in. While it's best to use all of them, consider saving a few for later in the season, as player rankings and your own team needs may shift.

With thousands of prospects, organization is key. Use the built-in tagging system from the start to categorize players (e.g., "Top Target," "Potential Target," "Not Interested"). This will make it much easier to filter and focus on your priority list when the more intense phases of recruiting begin.

1. Recruiting actions

How to perform recruiting actions

The main recruiting screen can be found under the Recruiting Menu > Recruit Prospects.

On the default filters, this page shows you the top 200 players, plus 3 stars in your region. As the default filter is "Scouted", all of these players are scouted automatically. You can change the filters by changing the dropdowns. For example, if you change the "Min Rating" filter to 1*, and leave the rest as defaulted, you will see the top 200 players plus all other players in your region. There are many filters, so you can change these however you wish to view different types of players.

To perform a recruiting action, click on a player's name. This will bring you to their profile. Then click the "Recruiting" tab. The available buttons will range from Call, Scout, Head Coach Visit, Assistant Coach Visit, Offer Campus Visit and Offer Scholarship. Not all options are available in every Phase.

To add a player to a Watchlist, click the "Add To Watchlist" button in the header player page. You can also add a player to the Call List in the same way by clicking the Add To Call List.

These lists are viewable via the My Team > Recruiting or Recruting > My Prospects links (they both go to the same page). When you click on this page, you will see a list of Recruits you have performed actions on (whether you've called, scouted, offered, visited, offered etc). To view these players' ratings, click the Ratings tab. To view your Call List, click the Call List tab. To view your Watchlist, click the Watchlist tab.

Finally, there is one more view of prospects that is useful if you like to export information to spreadsheets. When you are in the My Team > Recruiting page, there is a link that says To see all automatically scouted players and ratings, click here." Clicking this link will bring you to a page that lists all of the players that are automatically scouted (top 200, plus regional players, and any other player you have scouted from there). Please note this takes a LONG time to load as it is scouting each player dynamically, so please be patient. You can then export that data to a spreadsheet if you wish.

Be warned - your team performing an action might be leaked on Swatter (the league's version of Twitter) as part of the CJBL Insider! Whether an action leaks is completely random, although weighted more towards the higher ranked players.

Use all of your actions every Phase where possible

Your actions replenish after each Phase. This means each Phase you will get:

• Allocated budget for that phase only. The early Phases have more budget allocated to them.
• 30 Calls (50 Calls in Phase 1 and 2)
• 7 Coach Visits (either Head Coach or Assistant Coach)
• 3 Campus Visits

Think of these actions as "time" with the recruit.

Calls are free, while coach and campus visits cost budget depending on how far you are from the recruit. You can also scout a player, which costs money depending on how close, and what scouting level you are currently at.

Some of these actions are chained. You can't visit a player with a coach until you call him. You can't offer a scholarship without a call either.

Note that the the remainder of your budget rolls over and is split amongst the remaining phases, but you should aim to spend as close to max as possible, especially in early phases. The actions however do NOT roll over each phase, and you should try to use them all if possible.

2. Identifying target recruits

Now you know how to perform actions, it's time to decide who to perform them on. This is probably the hardest part of the game to get to grips with quickly; as a new user, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of players and data available.

Your team identity

The balance for recruiting is spending your limited resources on the right players. It's easy to waste actions or your budget on players that don't fit the way you want to play.

The way to avoid this is to decide on a team identity after looking at your existing roster and Head Coach attributes. You must play your Head Coach's Philosophy, and this cannot be changed without firing your coach. The Philosophy dictates what kind of offense you will be playing, what plays will be run, and who will get the ball more (eg in Post Centric, your bigs will get the ball more). Accordingly, you should identify what sort of team you want to run based on the existing roster you have and what spots you need to fill. If you know ahead of time, for example, that you are unwilling to play a 6'8" center, do not waste time recruiting them. A big part of recruiting is deciding how to target your recruiting budget because you will not get information on every player out there.

Early Phases are for information gathering

The goal in the early Phases (Phase 1/2) is to get as much information as you can get, about as many players as you can. As you get more time in Phases 1 & 2 (Phase 1 generally goes for 72 hours, and Phase 2 for 48 hours), and can't offer scholarships, this is when you want to scout as much as possible. Each Scouting Level gets you closer to the "truth" of the player ratings; early on, some ratings will be missing and you won't be able to determine exactly the type of player he is without scouting further.

The closer the player is to your school by location, the cheaper the scouting, so preference local recruits first. If you are a higher prestige program and can afford to throw recruiting cash at "long shots" and chase talent wherever it is, then do that, but the recommendation is to start Local/Regional Distance and 3-4 stars (Not Committed).

Note that you can only scout a player a maximum of two times per phase. This means if you start with Scouting Level 1, you can receive Scouting Level 5 (the maximum) in Phase 2.

For lower ranked players (ie 3* and below), scouting a player may increase their interest slightly. This is because the player can become more interested once they know that a school is looking at them.

Calling reveals what a player values most

When you call a player for the first time, it will reveal their values. They will appear in the Recruiting tab under “Player Values”. These are: Prestige, Distance From Home, Academics, Playing Time, Team Success and Favoured Philosophy.

When you find players you want to go after - call them, at least to determine what their player values are. Sometimes after calling a player, you will determine that he cares about a particular thing (like distance, academics) and you can then prioritise those talking points on the next call. If you find out a player doesn't care about anything your program has, and you see two other programs going after him, that might give you a clue to cut losses and write him off rather than sinking in further resources into a losing fight. Calling doesn't cost anything, so it's another really nice piece of low cost information to go with what you see on Top Schools and what you see in the scouting returns.

Information about calls

To call a player, go to the Call List page, or click on the player’s profile and click Call Player Now.

You must add a player to the Call List manually.

If you click Call Player, it will use one of your 30 calls; regardless of whether you hang up immediately, this uses one of your 20 calls per phase. This is to stop “fishing” where you call the player to see if they match your team values, but abort the call before completing it.

You must call before offering a coaching visit. (It’s rude to turn up uninvited).

The answers and choices you make on the call do matter. Calling a player is how you stand out from the other teams. If you answer the wrong way, or emphasise the wrong point, or insult the player, a player may not be interested in your team any longer.

There are many different ways to address a player’s wants/needs and concerns. Some are more effective than others. A player’s personality plays into the success of each call: the same answer for a different player may have the opposite result.

If you're interested in a player, you should call them the maximum amount of times (3 times) or visit them as much possible. If you don’t call, or visit, they will likely knock you down when the phase runs and they reassess all options.

Currently, calling is manually and you must call each player individually. This is due to the variability of answers for each call, so it is unable to be automated at this time.

Target players that fit your philosophy

As above, you should be targeting players that fit your Philosophy. You cannot allocate your resources for every player who has good traits, so you will need to filter down the list fairly quickly. You should determine what your disqualifiers are and stick to them. For example, if you want to run and chuck it from deep and you decide "No guards on my team will be bricklayers," then any SG or SF you see with 12 or worse mid/outside shooting and self-creation/shoot off dribble might be auto-disqualifiers in your book. As soon as you see an under 10 rating in the first scouting spend, you may want to tag that player as Not Interested.

Role players are useful

Keep in mind that a player doesn't need to do everything well - the aim of this game is to add players who can play roles. If a guy is a decent three point shooter and defender, but not a great rebounder - ask yourself whether that will actually impact the way you are building your team.

It is likely you’ll need to make a decision to conceded some positions as more "role players" in your overall system, because in most cases you will be competing with bigger teams for the better players. For example, your PG might only need be a pure distributor. He might not need the greatest offensive stats, but just high in Playmaking, On Ball Perimeter Defense and Physicals. The other ratings may not be necessary for you, depending on your system. Similarly, you might be focused on a big’s defensive ability, rebounding and physicals, with good ratings in other areas as a bonus.

Get comfortable abandoning a player

Remember you only have a limited number of calls and visits at each stage, but other teams have the same limitation. When you see someone else committing their own calls and visits to a recruit, that's a signal that tells you who and how many other programs are "serious" about going after a guy. You only show up on the Top Schools list once you actually take an action like offering a campus visit or scholarship, so you can see how many other programs are legitimately taking steps to go after a player.

This means you might have to abandon a player early, even if you like him, because some bigger programs are going hard after him. Yes, that player might be perfect for what you want, but there's risk that you won’t be able to get him to commit and will drain a lot of resources. This is where you might want to switch to a slightly worse prospect that is unopposed, especially if you have scouted deeply in the early phases.

3. Narrowing the target list

After local scouting, target neighbouring regions

Eventually you will run out of local prospects you actually like. You can then move on to Neighbouring and Nearby regions, but because these scouting and visits are more expensive, you will have to be more discerning with your choices. Another thing to keep in mind is that you might lose a player to the closer-to-home schools in that region, so you may have to take into account how likely you are to beat those teams at their own local talent.

When looking at the "other" regions, many teams target second or third tier talent (starting in the 100-200 rankings) and move on if they see other programs investing into contacts in the Top Schools list. If a team has a full green Interest bar, they might be uncatchable, so you want to target players that are either unopposed or that the Top Schools don’t have full interest yet.

Use the call lists and tags

The call lists and tags are essential. There are so many players (over 11,000 players) and it is difficult to keep track of which player has what attributes. Being able to sort by clicking the column with tags will help sort the player and keep your recruiting organised. Some suggestions from users are:

"I use Top Target for a few, then a bunch more for Priority Targets of players I would actually like having and are not much worse than the Top Targets, and then Potential Targets to keep players on the radar even if they're not the best. Not Interested is my "push this guy to the bottom" tag and Backup/Wait and See are also "push to the bottom" tags I’ll use."

If you have time, you should tag every player you’ve viewed/scouted, so that you can filter the "Scouted" players to cut down on how many players you view at once. Each user is different however, and might use tags in a different way. You need to determine what system works for you.

Scout further to increase rating accuracy

As noted above, there are 5 scouting levels. Scouting precision narrows every time you scout a player more, and at least the first two or three levels of scouting locally and neighboring will be cheap. At first, you might now want to pump into higher precision scouting because you can get by with noisy approximations of what the players are. If you see a player who has 10 in Defensive Rebounding, even with the scouting fog there is no way he will appear to be an 18 rated Defensive Rebounder later. But if you see a player with a 14 On Ball Perimeter Defense and you’re happy with a 12-16, then you should scout the player further to determine a more accurate rating. Again, it might be worth scouting a player to Level 2 first before calling, to ensure you aren’t wasting one of your 30 calls.

4. Visits and promises

Use Coach & Campus visits judiciously

Coach and Campus visits are expensive, and will gain you immediate Player Interest, but this early in the process you probably don't need to do it unless you really have money to burn and you've already scouted everything you want. Unless you have plenty of recruiting budget, you are probably better off scouting as much as possible and not spending on visits yet. In the early phases, you are starting from (almost) zero information and this is the toughest position to be in.

If you find a player that you absolutely want to ensure you're going to get, that might be worth sending visits to, but coach visits may not move interest too greatly. What you're really trying to figure out is if you are even in the parking lot, much less the ballpark of what the player will go for. Calling and finding out that initial position is the big bar move for the first two or three stages if you're not going for the 5 stars. Once you know who you're going after on your shortlist and you’ve finished most of your initial scouting and determined your targets, that's when you really want to sink money into visits to beat off the rivals for the guys you want.

During the visit stage (Phase 2), you will see letters next to school names as they are revealed. These are the Prestige levels of each school, which gives you an indication of what other schools are interested in the player.

• Extremely High EH
• Very High VH
• High H
• Above Average AA
• Average A
• Below Average BA
• Low L
• Very Low VL
• Extremely Low EL

Information about Coach visits

Your coaches can visit up to 7 players per phase. This is total: you can have 7 head coach visits and 0 assistant visits, or 4 head coach visits and 3 assistant visits, etc.

A head coach visit has a higher chance of success and a lower chance of failure; an assistant coach visit has a lower chance of success and a higher chance of failure. An assistant coach visit costs less.

Coaching ratings factor into the visit. Relevant ratings including their “Coaching Type” ratings (Discipline, Motivation, Tactics, Technique, Rapport), their development ratings, and coaching particular positions, as well as their style. However, currently, coaches do not have a Recruiting rating. As the Athletic Director, you are responsible for recruiting -- not the coach!

If you choose to visit a player, the visit will occur immediately in that phase. You will receive feedback on whether the visit was successful or not.

Information about Campus visits

If you have offered a player a campus visit, once a player enters Deciding, they will attend your school in the following Phase. A player will generally only attend a campus visit when they are seriously considering the school.

You will get an instant increase when you offer a campus visit, as it shows the recruit you are serious about them.

A campus visit can go well, or it can go poorly.

A player can only visit 5 schools total during their recruitment. This makes a campus visit offer a highly valuable and competitive action, as you are competing for one of only five available slots.

5. Scholarship offers and commitments

Hard vs soft offers

There are two types of scholarship offers - Hard & Soft. A hard offer can only be made to one player. Think of a hard offer as a reservation: you are guaranteeing to that player that the spot will remain open for them (unless you revoke it) if they choose to come to your school.

A soft offer can be made to up to three players. You are indicating to the player that while there is a spot for them, if any of the other players offered the same scholarship accept before them, they will lose it. The player who accepts the scholarship first will be the player you get on this scholarship: you do not get an additional chance to choose the player.

This means that you will lose two of the three players you offer a soft scholarship to. The other two players who don't accept the soft offer will lose interest in you completely. This is by design. It means that you must be careful who you offer a soft offer to.

A player will treat a hard offer much more favourably when considering all teams at the end of the phase.

You can convert a soft offer to a hard offer. To do this, the player must have been already offered a soft offer. Click Convert to Soft Offer. You can choose an open scholarship to offer, or a soft offer. If you choose a soft offer, it will revoke the scholarship for any other players that have been offered that scholarship.

Revoking an offer

Calls and visits cannot be revoked or reversed. So be sure you want to perform that action when you click that button -- the budget will be removed and the action performed immediately!

You can revoke a scholarship offer that you make within the phase without any penalty. If you revoke a scholarship after the current phase, it will impact Recruiting Trust.

Once a player has moved into the Deciding phase (that is, he has eliminated other schools officially), you cannot revoke a scholarship. This is for competitive balance, as revoking at this stage would allow one team to control where a player commits and could impact other players at the same time.

Using promises and Recruiting Trust

Promises are controversial, because each team treats them differently. You must offer a minutes and role indication when on your third and final call. If you don't do this, the player will not consider your offer very highly unless you've already generated enough interest. A promise can be the difference between securing a player's commitment or losing them.

It is better to underpromise and overdeliver, as it puts less pressure on your rotations and expected player roles (status). If you offer every recruit Marquee Player and 32 minutes, it's going to be impossible to fulfil all promises if you manage to secure all of those commitments.

Breaking promises reduces your Recruiting Trust. Each AD (for each team) has a Recruiting Trust value. If you break a promise, which is assessed at the end of the season, future recruits may be less willing to commit to your school, as well as harm the locker room chemistry.

Pitches (aka Major Pitches)

Think of a pitch as your program's ultimate, all-in effort to secure a single player. While CJBL does not have NIL like in real life, it's the closest thing we have to it. It is an extremely powerful but highly limited resource that must be used strategically throughout the entire offseason, including for transfers and your own players.

Each team receives two (2) Major Pitches per offseason. These do not roll over to the next season, so you must decide when and how to best use them.

How Can Pitches Be Used?

Pitches are a versatile tool that can be deployed in several critical situations:

Convincing an Underclassman to Return: You can use a pitch to persuade one of your players who has declared for the draft to return to school. This action is guaranteed to succeed, but it is only available for players who are not projected as high draft picks. Ambitious players or those ranked highly will not be receptive to a pitch.

Retaining Your Own Transfer: During Phase 1 (Discussion) of the transfer portal, you can use a pitch to guarantee that a player removes their name from the portal and returns to your team. This has a 100% success rate. Note: You must choose to either "Discuss" or use the pitch; you cannot try to discuss first and then pitch if that fails.

Recruiting a Transfer: You can include a pitch as part of your offer to a player from another school in the transfer portal. Success is not guaranteed, but it is considered a very valuable part of an offer and will significantly boost your chances.

Recruiting a High School Prospect: A pitch can be attached to your scholarship offer to a high school recruit. As with transfers, success is not guaranteed, but it provides a major boost to the player's interest and is a powerful factor in their final decision.

Strategic Considerations & How They Work

Using your two pitches wisely is one of the most important strategic decisions you will make all offseason.

Pitches are Consumed on Use: For external targets (transfers from other schools and high school recruits), your pitch is considered "used" the moment you offer it, regardless of whether the player ultimately commits to your school or not.

Offers are Blind: You will not know if a competing school has also used one of their pitches on a recruit.

Pitches Enhance, Not Replace, a Good Offer: A pitch is not a substitute for a competitive promise. You still need to offer an appropriate role and playing time to win a recruiting battle. The pitch acts as a powerful thumb on the scale.

Prestige Matters: Not all pitches are created equal. The value and impact of your pitch are weighted by your school's Prestige. If multiple teams use a pitch on the same recruit, the player will view the pitch from the higher-prestige school as more valuable. However, a pitch can still help a lower-prestige school win a battle against a higher-prestige school that didn't use a pitch.

Opportunity Cost: This is the most critical factor. Using a pitch to guarantee the return of one of your own players means you will not have that pitch available to help you land a top-tier transfer or high school recruit. You must weigh the certainty of keeping a known asset against the possibility of landing a new one.

Player commitments

Players commit at different times. Pay close attention to when a player commits. A player who lists his Commit Phase as “Early” will likely go to Deciding in Phase 3/4 if they receive a scholarship offer that meets their interest sufficiently. Most 5* players are Early, as they will commit at the end of Phase 4. However, they can also commit Mid and Late if they so choose. A player who lists his Commit Phase as “Mid” will likely go to Deciding in Phases 5-7. A player who lists is Commit Phase as “Late” will likely go to Deciding in Phases 7-9.

Important: if you have many scholarships you need to fill, don't put all of the scholarship offers on "Early" committing players. By the time you hear from the "Early" players, it might be too late to pivot to the "Mid" players. This strategy depends on your school Prestige; if you're a lower Prestige team, and targeting lower ranked players, it is better to try and lock those players away before bigger schools come knocking in later phases. Bigger schools tend to use Mid/Late players as fallback options.

Note that if a player does not receive enough scholarship offers, they may defer their decision until they receive enough offers for them to make a decision.

A recruit has two "modes": Accepting New Offers and Deciding. Once a player enters Deciding (driven by their Commit Phase, see below), they will eliminate some teams. The following Phase this will be reduce to a Top 3, and the player will decide the Phase after.

In some cases, if a player does not receive enough offers, they may choose a Top 4 instead of Top 5 or a Top 2 instead of Top 3, or go right to a Top 3.

If a player is Deciding, no new teams can perform actions on that player. This means that once a player decides their Top Schools and eliminates all others, those teams are locked in. Those teams can still perform actions (scout, call, visit, offer campus and offer scholarship, if not already offered), but no other team can. This should ensure that teams that spend the time and effort building rapport with a player will no longer be "sniped" towards the end of recruiting. Some teams make it through to the Top 3/5 without offering a scholarship, with the player hoping the school will offer them, but this tends to be rare.

How does a player choose a school?

Based on your actions, a player will “compare” each team and their requirements, the success of the visits, calls and offers, and re-rank each team. This means that even though a team is at a particular ranking at the end of the Phase, it may change when the Phase is run.

It becomes harder to knock off a #1 team as the Phases progress for this reason.

Importantly, sometimes players do not always choose the top/favourite team, even if they have maximum interest. It is not completely random, but based on their recruiting factors and weights. However, the #1 school is not always guaranteed to get the player’s commitment. Making it into the Top 3 means that you have a shot at the player, even at #3. If the #1 team managed to secure the player every time, recruiting would be boring.

The player compares each of the final teams in its decision and decides which factors are the most important. The factor weights vary for each player, and will depending on how each of the final teams compare to each other, so each player's decision is unique. Factors like promised playing time and roles can have a big impact.

Treat this randomness as part of an 18-year-old's mindset in choosing a school. They might be chasing a girl, or they might like how they look in a team's colours for their social media posts. It is not always a logical decision.

The Recruiting Timeline

• Phase 0: In-season recruiting. You can scout and express interest in up to 30 players, but there are no other actions available.
• Phase 1: The Opening Salvo. You can perform Scouting, make up to 50 Calls, and conduct 7 Coach Visits. This phase is for information gathering and establishing initial interest.
• Phase 2: The Visit Phase. In addition to the actions from Phase 1, you can now offer 3 Campus Visits.
• Phase 3: Offers on the Table. Scholarship Offers become available for the first time.
• Phase 4: Early Decisions Loom. This is the phase where most "Early" deciders will narrow their lists down to a top 2 or 3.
• Phase 5: Hat Day/First Commitments. At the end of this phase, most "Early" deciders will make their final commitment. There typically will be a 'hat day' where players will make their decisions 'live'.
• Phase 6: Mid-Cycle Action. "Mid" deciders will now begin to narrow their lists.
• Phase 7: The Second Wave Commits. Most "Mid" deciders will make their commitment at the end of this phase.
• Phase 8: The Late Game. "Late" deciders begin to narrow their lists and commit.
• Phase 9: Final Major Commitments. Most "Late" deciders will make their commitment.
• Phase 10: Filling the Roster. This final phase is primarily for any teams with remaining open scholarships to fill out their rosters before the season begins.

6. Walk-ons

Walk-ons

At the end of recruiting, you'll have the opportunity to add walk-ons to your team. All walk-ons are freshmen.

As the minimum roster size is 12, if you have only 9, 10 or 11 players, you will be allocated a walk-on (whether you want one or not). You can add up to 3 walk-ons (to the maximum roster size of 15).

You can specify what positions you want for your walk-ons, but you can't try-out specific players. To specify these positions, go to your My Team > Scholarships page. Note that the option to pick walk-on positions is ONLY available after Recruiting ends.

After walk-on requests have been received, players will then be allocated. Your walk-ons are allocated from high schools in-region.

Walk-ons can only stay on your roster for 2 years (freshmen and sophomore years). Once a walk-on becomes a junior, they must be offered a scholarship or they will be automatically cut.

7. Other common questions and notes

How long is each Phase?

Typically, the breakdown is:

• Phase 1: 72 hours
• Phase 2: 48 hours
• Phases 3-10: 24 hours

This may differ depending on the Commissioner's schedule, but these are the minimum times in most cases. Please note that the Phase will not necessarily run exactly when the timer finishes, but this is the deadline and it may run any time after that.

How many scholarships can I offer? How do I get more scholarships?

You can have a maximum of 13 scholarship players at once, and a minimum of 9. Note that you can cut up to 4 scholarship players a year (before Transfers) which effects Recruiting Trust, Cohesion and Chemistry.

Why are some recruits automatically scouted?

As noted above, you will receive automatic scouting for the top 200 players, plus players in your region. This gives you a headstart on recruiting so you don't need to waste time on clicking every single player. Other teams wandering into your region will need to spend scouting cash to get the initial scouting level, which means you have an immediate advantage for local recruits. Think of this information as "local knowledge" which is gathered over the course of the high school year.

Why can't I offer a Campus Visit or Scholarship in Phase 1?

Some actions are not available in the earlier Phases. All actions are available in Phase 3.

What's the best way to export to Excel/CSV prospects and their ratings?

When you are in the My Team > Recruiting page, there is a link that says "To see all automatically scouted players and ratings, click here." Clicking this link will bring you to a page that lists all of the players that are automatically scouted (top 200, plus regional players, and any other additional players you have scouted). Please note this takes a LONG time to load as it is scouting each player dynamically, so please be patient. You can then export that data to a spreadsheet if you wish.

Why can't I see every single 1* player in the class in one view?

There are too many players for this view. To be able to scout that many players at once, it would cause the server to slow down if everyone did this. In addition, most of these players are not college quality. If you want to scout these players, you'll need to do it the "hard" way, and click on individual schools. Note that you can always see 1* players in your region, who are automatically scouted with Level 1 scouting.

Why do some seniors (or other players) not have any high school stats?

The players probably weren't good enough to hit the floor for their team. At the end of each season, graduating seniors are replaced by new generated players. Most of these are low-rated seniors, but there will also be juniors, sophomores and freshmen (the latter two being rarer). When the AI builds its rotations, it will preference the best players, regardless of the class of the player.

How is the initial interest (recruits' interest in my team) calculated?

Each player has a number of factors that they look at in determining their initial interest, including any relevant traits (like whether they have family nearby, or a girlfriend going to the school, etc). There is also a random element, which means that sometimes a player that is nearby and a perfect fit just doesn't want to go to your school. Sometimes players also have an initial shortlist of schools. While this isn't a guarantee of getting a commit, it does make it easier to build the initial interest.

Three (or more) teams are maxed out on interest for a player. Which team is leading?

It's important to remember that during the Phase, interest for each team can change as teams perform actions. However, teams aren't compared against each other until the Phase runs. This is because it would be unfair and inaccurate to re-rank teams while some teams haven't performed all their actions (users are in different timezones or may not have finished their recruiting for that Phase yet), and would also be confusing as teams would constantly get re-ranked against each other. When the Phase concludes, a player will compare each team to each other based on their favoured values and rank the teams. At the beginning of the Phase, the team ranking is the most accurate, as it is based on how the player views each team compared to another.

To use an example: Player X receives a call, visit and campus visit offers from three teams, as well as a scholarship offer during Phase 3. Each team manages to max out the interest bar. When Phase 3 ends, Player X will compare these three teams and re-rank them, so that their favoured team is #1. It will reduce its interest in the other teams slightly, so that when Phase 4 commences, the ranking displayed on the player profile is accurate as to how that player feels towards those teams at that moment.

Are the initial 'dream' schools in the player traits random?

Somewhat. Dream schools are weighted towards the higher prestige teams, but it is possible to have a player dream of attending a Low or Very Low Prestige school. The schools are also weighted towards schools closer to the recruit, but can be anywhere in the country.

Are traits taken into account when a player commits?

Yes. Traits impact the initial interest. The other time they are considered are at the final decision, as they give a slight final bonus. Accordingly, the presence of some traits may sway a recruit one way or another.

Is there a way I can filter players whose traits are relevant to my school (like players with girlfriends going to my school, or nearby family, or shortlisted)?

No. This is by design; you get rewarded for deep diving. In reality, you wouldn't know these players unless they reached out to you or you found out this information on a call or by scouting. With that said, players with dream schools or shortlists will always have higher initial interest in your team, so you might be able to determine these more quickly by sorting the player list by interest.

If I offer multiple players at the same position a scholarship, do the players weigh that in their decision?

There is a small chance that your offers "leak" to other players at the same position. The position that is included is their first listed position (so SG/SF will look at other SGs, etc.). If your offer leaks, it may reduce another player's interest in your school.

How much should I rely on star ratings when evaluating a recruit?

Star ratings are best used as a quick, initial filter rather than a definitive measure of a player's ability. They are a weighted sum of ratings (some visible, some hidden) based on the player's listed position. These ratings are deliberately "fogged" and that a player's individual skill ratings provide a much clearer picture. It's common to find 1-star recruits who, after scouting, show the college ability of a 4 or 5-star player; these are often called "gems." Experienced users often ignore star ratings almost entirely, using them only for initial sorting or as a tiebreaker between two otherwise similar players.

What are "hidden" ratings?

The simulation includes numerous hidden ratings to make players unique, such as Clutch, Big Game, Positioning, and Off/Def Awareness.

How important is Basketball IQ (BBIQ)

One of the most critical ratings is Basketball IQ (BBIQ), which is a small factor used in nearly every decision a player makes on the court. A low BBIQ can be debilitating to a player's performance. BBIQ is considered an innate "feel for the game" that doesn't improve significantly; a player might only gain 2-3 points in this rating over an entire four-year college career.

Do player ratings change when they transition from high school to college?

Yes. A "fog" exists on high school ratings because they are scaled relative to other high school players. When a recruit joins your college roster, their ratings are re-scaled to the college level, which typically results in a drop. A good rule of thumb is to expect ratings to decrease by about 2 points, although the drop can range from 0 to 5 points. It is important to note this is not changing the underlying ratings, just the way you view them.

What is the best strategy for a low-prestige school?

The primary goal is to gradually improve your roster's overall talent level. You will likely have to accept players with flaws, so the key is to identify which deficiencies you can work with. It's recommended to focus on building a roster of "decent basketball players" before getting too concerned with finding perfect fits for a complex system. In terms of offensive systems, "Balanced" and "Grit & Grind" are considered the easiest to recruit for at lower prestige levels, as they don't rely on highly specialized or "weird" player types to be effective.

How do recruiting actions like calls and visits work?

You are given a set number of actions (calls, coach visits, campus visits) that reset at the beginning of each recruiting phase. Actions performed in earlier phases have a greater impact on a recruit's interest than the same actions performed in later phases. Therefore, it is generally advised to use your scouting budget and actions early in the process.

What's the difference between a "Hard Offer" and a "Soft Offer"?

A Hard Offer is a scholarship offer made to a single player. A Soft Offer allows you to offer the same scholarship to multiple players simultaneously. The first player to accept the soft offer gets the scholarship, at which point the offer is automatically revoked for the other players, who will then lose all interest in your school. It is strongly recommended to avoid using soft offers until the very late phases of recruiting (e.g., Phase 9 or 10) when you might desperately need to fill a roster spot. Recruits view soft offers as less valuable than hard offers.

What are high school pipelines and how do they help?

Pipelines provide a small boost to the initial interest level of recruits from a specific high school. They are developed automatically by performing recruiting actions (calls, visits, and especially offers) on players from that school. Securing a commitment from a player is the most significant way to strengthen a pipeline.

What are the different recruiting promises and what do they mean?

• Marquee Player: Your team's designated "best" player. Expects 28-32+ minutes per game (MPG). Once a player is given this role, they expect to keep it for their entire career and are very likely to transfer if demoted.
• Important Player: Expects to start every game with at least 24 MPG.
• Starter: Expects to start every game with at least 20 MPG.
• Sixth Man: Expects to be the first player off the bench, playing 14-18 MPG.
• Future Starter: A promise that the player will become a starter in their sophomore season. The minute promise attached to this role is for their freshman year only.

What are the consequences of breaking a promise?

Breaking a promise results in the most significant hit to your Athletic Director (AD) Trust, which can negatively impact future recruiting. The penalty is the same whether you miss a minutes promise by a small or large margin. You cannot avoid the trust hit by cutting the player; it applies regardless. However, you are not penalized for failing to meet promises made by a previous AD who you took over for.

How should I handle walk-ons?

You do not get to choose your specific walk-on players. After the recruiting period ends, you select the positions you need to fill, and the game randomly assigns local, unrecruited players to your team. A walk-on must be offered a scholarship or cut from the team before their junior season. Cutting a walk-on does not use one of your four allowed scholarship player cuts for the offseason (that is, you can cut walkons every year if you choose without penalty).