How You Can Get a Scholarship Offer to Play College Basketball

Everyone trying to play college basketball would love to secure a scholarship offer. Receiving a scholarship offers players a chance to save a lot of money that would otherwise go towards paying towards tuition and other related fees. Getting a scholarship can relieve financial pressure experienced by some families, as well as giving a lot of extra perks to the player during their college basketball career. In this article we will be going through all the different ways you can maximize your chances of receiving a scholarship offer.

BE ATHLETICALLY ON TOP OF YOUR GAME FOR YOUR SCHOOL YEAR

It kind of goes without saying, but this is the most important aspect of being recruited.  You need to be athletically impressive to gain the attention of college coaches and recruiters. If you are not standing out a mile from your peers why would they be interested in offering you a scholarship?

So, we’ve established that being physically impressive on the basketball court is key to getting the attention from college coaches but to really be on top of your game you have to also be eating a really healthy balanced diet to suit all the demands of your training, playing and recovery. This will vary from person to person but the main things to follow are to avoid highly processed food and fried foods. These food choices are likely to dehydrate you and offer very little nutrition towards your recovery not to mention they are loaded with sugars, a ton of salt and chemicals which can all hinder your performance and recovery.

NOTE: Examples of highly processed include but are not limited to: any fast food, store bought packaged foods like ready meals/chips/doughnuts etc. It is advised to avoid highly processed foods.

What you should take away from this is to make sure college coaches see you because you stand out for all the right reasons. You want them to see you and make a quick decision that you warrant a spot on their basketball team! Do this by eliminating your weaknesses, developing your strengths more and more, playing one one with players who can challenge you on the court and always, always, be learning from others. But, most importantly, never stop working hard.

START YOUR RECRUITMENT PROCESS EARLY

It might be a good idea to get going with your recruitment as early as you can (8th grade onward). If you start contacting college coaches early and stay on it, you’re more likely to get yourself on a high number of college coaches recruitment lists. Getting on a list early means coaches like what they see and want to track you. This can ultimately lead to an offer being made. In basketball. college coaches can make verbal offers to players before their junior year. When a college coach hears about you or sees your video or watches you play in person, they might reach out to your high school or club coach to get more information about you. This can lead to the coach setting up a call to speak with you.

NOTE: Even as a young prospective student-athlete, when you call a college the coach can always pick up, no matter how old you are!

If you have a good conversation with the coach they might ask you to send more videos, or email your transcripts so they can make a full evaluation on you.  Then, if the college coach is satisfied and has made his mind up that he’s all-in, this is when a college coach can extend a verbal scholarship offer to you.

NOTE: A verbal offer is a non-legally binding scholarship offer. College coaches can extend verbal offers to a recruit of any age. This is a way for the college coach to let the player know that they are reserving a spot on their team for them. But, because verbal offers aren’t legally binding, coaches and players alike can back out of them.

HAVE ALL YOUR BASKETBALL & EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION TOGETHER

If you are spending your time, energy and efforts on being in top condition, working on your skills and contacting college coaches don’t let yourself down by not having all your information together. If you get a college coach who contacts you and is interested, you don’t want to have all your information scattered. This means you could take too long to reply to the coach and he loses interest and moves on to another recruit. College coaches work on a tight schedule. You can make their job easier by having all your information together, ready and presentable.

Things you should have together and ready include: your high school transcripts, test scores, GPA, video highlight of your most recent, updated impressive plays etc. It’s also a good idea to have this already in a draft email that you can send out quickly with the links to your Facebook and X social media accounts.

STAY ON TOP OF YOUR GRADES

All college basketball coaches want their players to be strong academically as well as physically. You need to achieve as higher grades as you can and maintain it. Having a high gpa and great academics will open up more opportunities for you. You can even be eligible for academic scholarships depending on your situation and the school.

The entire goal of trying to secure yourself a basketball scholarship is basically about tipping the scales in your favor. Your grades are in your control. Focusing on your grades with the same intent and intensity as your basketball training will increase your chances of receiving a scholarship offer. To college coaches, if they can you see that you are achieving academically they conclude that you are capable of balancing the demands of your school work with the demands of basketball. This also shows a certain level of maturity and work ethic which is very desirable to college coaches.

NOTE: Players can take the SAT and/or ACT tests to raise your grades further. Click here to learn more about this.

If you take the SAT/ACT as early as you can, you create more opportunities to retake them if you decide you are not happy with your score and want to try and get a higher SAT/ACT score. The better score you get just helps to give you another way of standing out and gaining an edge when competing for a scholarship offer.

COMPETE AGAINST HIGH LEVEL COMPETITION

Every coach from all divisions and levels in college basketball have certain criteria they recruit against. This means they have certain things that they look for in potential recruits. Are you competing at the highest level you can, is on the top of their list. Why is this on the top of their list? Well, in order for a coach to precisely asses you as a prospective student athlete, he needs to see what you can do against tough competition. This allows him to make a correct decision when deciding if you have what it takes to play at the college level. Playing in varsity high school games, top AAU games, basketball camps and club basketball games can all help to demonstrate this. The last three (AAU, Camps & Club basketball games) are not required for you to get a scholarship offer. You can receive a scholarship offer without participating in these types of games and events.

BE PROACTIVE IN GETTING YOURSELF SEEN BY COLLEGE BASKETBALL COACHES

Even if you are the best standout player ever to have played high school basketball you are still going to have to be proactive in contacting college coaches. Like we mentioned before, college coaches are super busy people and they could quite easily miss you if you don’t make an effort to get yourself noticed. Nowadays there are so many different ways you can do this. You can use your social media accounts (Facebook, X) to initiate contact and draw college coaches attention to who you are and what you are doing. This is a very effective way and a way that is used by many college coaches from all divisions.

But don’t stop there. Yes social media is good but what about emailing or even calling college coaches. Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile. If you make sure you cover all bases then you will increase your chances of getting noticed, recruited and offered a scholarship. Just remember that there are certain periods when coaches can and can’t talk with recruits. To find out when these periods are you can CLICK HERE.

KNOW WHICH COLLEGE BASKETBALL COACHES ARE RECRUITING YOUR POSITION

NCAA Division 1 college coaches recruit early, as early middle school in some cases. If you are looking to secure yourself a Division 1 scholarship you need to be on a coaches radar before your junior year. College coaches have a limited number of scholarships and this makes them very selective when giving them out. You really need to find out which college coaches are recruiting which positions. This is an important aspect to successfully securing yourself a scholarship.

CREATE YOUR BEST HIGHLIGHT VIDEO AND KEEP IT UPDATED

The majority of the time, this is going to be your first impression to college coaches. For this reason you should really make sure you only include your most impressive plays. You also want to demonstrate all your different skills and abilities on the court. Your highlight video acts as a quick insight into you as player – coaches can quickly assess if you are at their level and have the necessary skills that they are looking for. We have a detailed article on how to create your best highlight video HERE if you need some help with this. So when you contact a college coach either by social media or by email and they see your video, if they are interested they will respond and either want to talk to you on the phone, find out where you’re playing next or have you go to the school for an in-person tryout. This means that you can get a lot out of having a great highlight video. Don’t half-heart it. Put serious time and effort in because this is your calling card for coaches to take notice and put you on their radar which may lead you to a scholarship offer.

CONCLUSION

Do not be discouraged by stats you may come across online. In order to succeed you must invest in yourself and take your chance. There are opportunities to get a basketball scholarship you just have to put the work in to find them and have them presented to you. The bottom line of how to attain a scholarship is this: you need to start early, you need to be good enough and you need to be actively seeking this everyday! The above information is to help you do this. Make sure you get yourself organized because organizing your time and strategy is the key to success.