Walking on in D3 Basketball

CTDad-classof2022
Sun, 01 Aug 2021 21:53:49 +0000

Mwfan1921:

Lastly, there IS significant overlap in terms of player talent in the various NCAA, NAIA, and JUCO divisions. There are student-athletes at the better NCAA D3 programs that were being recruited by DI schools (not power 5 but by conferences like the Patriot and Ivy leagues). Right now with many DI schools not needing players due to the impact of the extra covid year, very good players are falling thru to D3. Some might choose JUCOs, some might choose D2, but it is not a progression talent wise from best to worst going from D1-2-3, to JUCO.

I know basketball pretty well, and this is not an accurate statement. A middle of the pack team from a mid-major league like the MAC or even a low major like the NEC would destroy just about any D3 team they played. These games would be 50+ point blowouts. If there was so much overlap, you would see more D2 to D1 transfers, but those are rare. That said, there are some very good D2 talents, but there are actually many more D1 walk-ons that end up earning scholarships than there are D2 to D1 transfers.

JUCOs are all over the map because a lot of players got there because of grades, and there are some that didn’t get the college offer they wanted and they see JUCO as a path to a better program.

Once you get past schools giving scholarships, there is a big dropoff. As I have mentioned in other posts, there are so many ways for people, and especially young men, to play basketball, that committing to a non-scholarship team is often just not worth it. There are plenty of men’s leagues around cities that are very good without the time commitment, and most players can play pickup any time they want. I would expect that many of the better academic D3 schools have quite a few students that just play for fun rather than play for the school team because they have other priorities. Also, a lot of D3 schools are expensive and many of the same young men that would be good enough to play at those schools simply can’t afford to go to them, so they often go to a State U campus and just play pickup.