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U's Smith won't host 'elite camp'
By Marcus R. Fuller
Updated: 06/13/2009 11:41:56 PM CDT
Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith doesn't believe he needs to host an elite summer camp.
Smith, who held an elite or advanced skills camp for top prospects in his first two summers in Minnesota, has decided against hosting one in favor of a more conservative approach this year.
"There's been some concerns as coaches with kids that are traveling that far for a day or two-day elite camp," said Smith, the University of Minnesota's men's basketball coach. "We don't want anything to suggest that there's any type of (wrongdoing).
"But I think the best way to be is to be a guy that says we're going to do it this other way (to host only day, overnight and team camps). An elite camp is legal. I think guys are doing the right things, but there are some things that can look like they're not, so you have to be real careful."
There are NCAA rules against hosting invitation-only camps for top prospects, but that essentially is the definition of an elite camp. Their attendance is usually limited to the program's top 20 or so recruits.
"That's kind of where some of our institutions are getting into the crosshairs," NCAA associate director of enforcement LuAnn Humphrey said. "It's OK to invite your prospects or the kids you really want to attend, but you can't limit enrollment strictly to those individuals. We encourage our institutions not to call them elite camps. The membership has gone back and forth on whether you can use that term, but they should not be treated as elite camps."
Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State are the only three Big Ten Conference men's basketball programs that promoted hosting elite camps this year.
Wolverines coach John Beilein was chairman of an independent NCAA Division I basketball coaches ethics committee that addressed the proper way to run these camps during its first meeting in May.
"We want to clear up what is the right way to deal with those issues," Beilein said in a NCAA news article. "People can see how to exactly conduct their camps. They can develop the game in youth basketball without getting into the shadowy areas of recruiting."
Wisconsin assistant Greg Gard said Badgers basketball coach Bo Ryan's elite camps always have been "open for everyone."
"It's an opportunity for players to get better and play against quality competition," Gard said. "It isn't the only tool for evaluation, but it's one environment we can control the drills and the situations we run. It's just one piece of the puzzle. There have been years where there was nobody we thought could play at our level. There were years that we thought there were several kids."
A bylaw was passed in January to try to tighten NCAA restrictions on camps that deemed seventh- and eighth-graders recruitable. Some players were being invited to elite camps and even offered scholarships by college coaches as future blue-chippers. It previously had been illegal to conduct recruiting at camps with kids who were freshmen or older.
Smith wasn't in favor of the rule, but he understood it.
"It's going to be the best for basketball," he said. "Just like anything else, you can find loopholes in different areas. Getting kids into an all-star camp or an elite camp in the seventh and eighth grade, I think that's where it all started. Assistant coaches would go and work the camps and say they were just volunteering. Come on. So, that's where you have a lot of the breakdown."
Paying AAU or high school coaches to speak at camps was also a practice frowned upon by the NCAA, because schools were putting money into the hands of people who might be able to persuade top recruits to attend their camps.
Schools are allowed to pay those coaches to work at their camps, but they all have to be paid the same amount. Another bylaw passed in January also prevents those coaches from being employed as camp speakers.
"Coach Ryan has never operated that way," Gard said. "We're glad to see that come in, because I know that's been done. It levels the playing field."
Howard Pulley AAU basketball founder Rene Pulley, who has Gophers target and high-profile Ames High School (Iowa) senior wing Harrison Barnes in his program, said that paying summer league coaches to get their top kids to camps doesn't happen that often.
"You don't have to pay them." Pulley said. "Harrison Barnes, the No. 1-ranked player in the country, his mother pays his own way to go to these camps. It's a shot in the dark anyway to try to get a kid like that."
But it did happen.
"In the past, they would command a large fee to come and speak at a camp," Humphrey said. "You can't pay somebody based on the value they bring to your camp, because of their relationship with a prospect."
Smith said he's never paid an AAU coach to work at any of his summer camps. The former Kentucky coach also said he never hosted an elite camp until he came to Minnesota in 2007.
"When we first got here, we were new to the area," he said. "We had a lot of (local) kids slated in. We got two of those kids that came to the camp, with Royce (White) and Rodney (Williams), so it was very beneficial for us last year. It was one of the ways we could get them in here to watch them work out, for us to spend time with them and for them to see what practicing would be like here at the University of Minnesota. That was a real plus."
But Smith doesn't feel like he needs elite camps.
"We had been really good recruiting even without it," he said. "We were very fortunate that we had so many outstanding players last year in the region, so it worked out really well. Those that want to come and still be a part of our camps can come. It won't be as intense as an elite camp would be, where guys are competing against guys right at their level of play, but they'll have fun, learn to play basketball and be exposed to what our basketball program is all about."
Even with a struggling economy, Gophers director of basketball Joe Esposito said registration for Smith's camps increased nearly 200 kids from last year. Minnesota's first summer camp is June 22-25. The team camp, which runs from June 26-28, could have its most competitive field in recent years with about 30 high school teams, including Hopkins, Minnetonka, Benilde-St. Margaret's, St. Thomas Academy and Columbia Heights, which has the state's top senior, Jacob Thomas.
"Obviously, winning has something to do with it," said Esposito, referring to last season's 22-11 record and first NCAA tournament appearance since 2005. "In year's past, parents were taking their kids to a few camps a summer, but now, with the economic strain, they're choosing one camp. Our camp ends up winning out."
Pulley, who will take some of his AAU teams to Ryan's camp this month, said team camps should replace elite camps for some programs because they serve a similar purpose.
"You're going to get a lot of the good kids there anyway," he said, "So you don't have to have a separate camp."
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_12586369
Go Gophers!!
By Marcus R. Fuller
Updated: 06/13/2009 11:41:56 PM CDT
Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith doesn't believe he needs to host an elite summer camp.
Smith, who held an elite or advanced skills camp for top prospects in his first two summers in Minnesota, has decided against hosting one in favor of a more conservative approach this year.
"There's been some concerns as coaches with kids that are traveling that far for a day or two-day elite camp," said Smith, the University of Minnesota's men's basketball coach. "We don't want anything to suggest that there's any type of (wrongdoing).
"But I think the best way to be is to be a guy that says we're going to do it this other way (to host only day, overnight and team camps). An elite camp is legal. I think guys are doing the right things, but there are some things that can look like they're not, so you have to be real careful."
There are NCAA rules against hosting invitation-only camps for top prospects, but that essentially is the definition of an elite camp. Their attendance is usually limited to the program's top 20 or so recruits.
"That's kind of where some of our institutions are getting into the crosshairs," NCAA associate director of enforcement LuAnn Humphrey said. "It's OK to invite your prospects or the kids you really want to attend, but you can't limit enrollment strictly to those individuals. We encourage our institutions not to call them elite camps. The membership has gone back and forth on whether you can use that term, but they should not be treated as elite camps."
Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State are the only three Big Ten Conference men's basketball programs that promoted hosting elite camps this year.
Wolverines coach John Beilein was chairman of an independent NCAA Division I basketball coaches ethics committee that addressed the proper way to run these camps during its first meeting in May.
"We want to clear up what is the right way to deal with those issues," Beilein said in a NCAA news article. "People can see how to exactly conduct their camps. They can develop the game in youth basketball without getting into the shadowy areas of recruiting."
Wisconsin assistant Greg Gard said Badgers basketball coach Bo Ryan's elite camps always have been "open for everyone."
"It's an opportunity for players to get better and play against quality competition," Gard said. "It isn't the only tool for evaluation, but it's one environment we can control the drills and the situations we run. It's just one piece of the puzzle. There have been years where there was nobody we thought could play at our level. There were years that we thought there were several kids."
A bylaw was passed in January to try to tighten NCAA restrictions on camps that deemed seventh- and eighth-graders recruitable. Some players were being invited to elite camps and even offered scholarships by college coaches as future blue-chippers. It previously had been illegal to conduct recruiting at camps with kids who were freshmen or older.
Smith wasn't in favor of the rule, but he understood it.
"It's going to be the best for basketball," he said. "Just like anything else, you can find loopholes in different areas. Getting kids into an all-star camp or an elite camp in the seventh and eighth grade, I think that's where it all started. Assistant coaches would go and work the camps and say they were just volunteering. Come on. So, that's where you have a lot of the breakdown."
Paying AAU or high school coaches to speak at camps was also a practice frowned upon by the NCAA, because schools were putting money into the hands of people who might be able to persuade top recruits to attend their camps.
Schools are allowed to pay those coaches to work at their camps, but they all have to be paid the same amount. Another bylaw passed in January also prevents those coaches from being employed as camp speakers.
"Coach Ryan has never operated that way," Gard said. "We're glad to see that come in, because I know that's been done. It levels the playing field."
Howard Pulley AAU basketball founder Rene Pulley, who has Gophers target and high-profile Ames High School (Iowa) senior wing Harrison Barnes in his program, said that paying summer league coaches to get their top kids to camps doesn't happen that often.
"You don't have to pay them." Pulley said. "Harrison Barnes, the No. 1-ranked player in the country, his mother pays his own way to go to these camps. It's a shot in the dark anyway to try to get a kid like that."
But it did happen.
"In the past, they would command a large fee to come and speak at a camp," Humphrey said. "You can't pay somebody based on the value they bring to your camp, because of their relationship with a prospect."
Smith said he's never paid an AAU coach to work at any of his summer camps. The former Kentucky coach also said he never hosted an elite camp until he came to Minnesota in 2007.
"When we first got here, we were new to the area," he said. "We had a lot of (local) kids slated in. We got two of those kids that came to the camp, with Royce (White) and Rodney (Williams), so it was very beneficial for us last year. It was one of the ways we could get them in here to watch them work out, for us to spend time with them and for them to see what practicing would be like here at the University of Minnesota. That was a real plus."
But Smith doesn't feel like he needs elite camps.
"We had been really good recruiting even without it," he said. "We were very fortunate that we had so many outstanding players last year in the region, so it worked out really well. Those that want to come and still be a part of our camps can come. It won't be as intense as an elite camp would be, where guys are competing against guys right at their level of play, but they'll have fun, learn to play basketball and be exposed to what our basketball program is all about."
Even with a struggling economy, Gophers director of basketball Joe Esposito said registration for Smith's camps increased nearly 200 kids from last year. Minnesota's first summer camp is June 22-25. The team camp, which runs from June 26-28, could have its most competitive field in recent years with about 30 high school teams, including Hopkins, Minnetonka, Benilde-St. Margaret's, St. Thomas Academy and Columbia Heights, which has the state's top senior, Jacob Thomas.
"Obviously, winning has something to do with it," said Esposito, referring to last season's 22-11 record and first NCAA tournament appearance since 2005. "In year's past, parents were taking their kids to a few camps a summer, but now, with the economic strain, they're choosing one camp. Our camp ends up winning out."
Pulley, who will take some of his AAU teams to Ryan's camp this month, said team camps should replace elite camps for some programs because they serve a similar purpose.
"You're going to get a lot of the good kids there anyway," he said, "So you don't have to have a separate camp."
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_12586369
Go Gophers!!
