The recruiting in this game is awful.

[THE LOVER]

I'm playing with Kansas and regularly lose huge talent to Missouri Valley. Its really insane.

[HammerOfGod]

Couple tips...

1. You have to make sure you make a target list. If you don't have kids targeted in at least their junior years and talk to them every single week, they won't be interested in you come their senior seasons. Ideally, make your target list based on needs because if you're playing as a team like Kansas and say you have a stud Power Forward who is a junior. You're going to want to replace him after his senior year. Since you're Kansas, you can feel safe targeting a couple top PF's their junior year, and they'll naturally be intersted in you their senior seasons.

2. If you don't need to fill a position, a guy is slightly less likely to be highly interested in your school. Say you have 4 PG's on your roster already, a top PG will naturally be less interested. If you do need a PG, and you're recruiting two high caliber players, you better decide which one you want the most because often times, if you've offered both scholarships, once on commits to you, the other will likely decrease his interest level, so if you're running neck and neck with another school for a top kid, and you're number one on his board (even though both schools are at 100% interest), if you sign a higher rated player, that second guy is probably going to jump on the other schools offer.

3. You're only going to be able to go really hard after 4 guys at a time because you're going to have to visit the kids all 4 weeks before signing day if it's a tightly contested recruiting battle, and you only have enough recruiting points to go on 4 visits each week. If you have a big lead with a recruit, and you have more than 4 schollies to fill, you can be less aggressive with that kid and visit the ones who you're in a tight race for.

4. If you don't want to lose ground DO NOT SCHEDULE GAMES ON SUNDAYS prior to the early signing period. If games are scheduled on Sundays, YOU CAN'T SCHEDULE ANY VISITS during the week, and you're screwed from that point forward in a tight recruiting battle.

5. This ties into #1, but recruit years in advance. If I have 2 juniors, 4 sophomores and 3 freshmen on my team, I'm going to make a target list that consists of 4-5 juniors, 4 sophomores, and a couple freshmen (because targeting kids as freshmen isn't that important, unless you see some 6'5" freak small forward as just a freshman, whom you're sure is going to pan out). Plus of course have your seniors be your top targets since they are the ones who are actually signing during the current year.

6. Talk to every kid 4 stars and over during their freshman and sophomore years. You can't talk to them more than once, and after you do that, the only thing that effects their interest level until they are juniors is your programs prestige and whether they are targeted by you, since you can't call them every week. Keep an eye on the sophomore class because a bunch of new names pop up in the ranks between the freshman and sophomore years, so you can't just talk to that class as freshmen and think you're done looking at players for that class.

7. Lastly, keep an eye on what schools are recruiting a kid during their sophomore seasons. It tells you everything you need to know about how that kid is going to be rated when he's a senior. If you target a 5-star center during his freshman year, then he's a 4 star his sophomore year, go look at who is recruiting him. If you see the who's who of college basketball (kentucky, Duke, UNC, Louisville, Syracuse, etc.) you can rest assured this kid is going to pan out and be a top rated center when he's a senior. If you see schools like Pacific, San Diego, Bradley, Iona, you can just be happy dumping him from your target list.

I'll leave you with what I do as I play as North Carolina. Note: You need to have CPU assistance turned on in recruiting otherwise it can turn into a headache even if you're using these methods.

I look at how many juniors are on my roster, and I target that number +2 or 3 more kids because some of them aren't going to have you as their top school as a senior no matter how hard you recruit them.

So if I have 3 juniors, I'll target up to 6 kids in the junior class. Also, new names keep popping up all the way from freshmen through senior years, so you can always find a new kid that wasn't in the database before who might be highly rated and highly interested in you, so your target list can keep changing in regards to the sophs and juniors, but once you've zeroed in on the juniors you like, you need to stick with those guys the rest of the year.

Make sure to remove all the kids that sign with you from your target list, or they're just going to take up room you could add other players. Usually, I don't even add freshmen to the target list until I've signed my players for the season.

Once early signing period is over, that's when I request game tape from all the new sophomores and freshmen (all you have to do is be on their radar at this point, and since you're using Kansas, you'll be in pretty much everyones top ten prior to their junior years).

Once I've gotten word out to all the sophs and frosh, I finalize my list of 15 targets (try to have at least a couple freshmen) and I don't look at recruiting again until next season.

Hope this helps as you should be landing a top class every year with these methods.

[Brock]

Search Jukeman's "recruiting priorities."

[Brock]

Bumped for the good recruiting info above.

[waytofailself]

Quote: Originally Posted by THE LOVER

I'm playing with Kansas and regularly lose huge talent to Missouri Valley. Its really insane.

Advice above is solid, although I prefer to recruit manually instead of with assistance. Also, you're going to need to be more specific. How interested was the player in your school at the start? When did you offer him a scholarship? Were you crowded at his position? Did he want to play at a big time program, or was he more concerned with things like staying close to home or getting playing time.

Recruiting takes some practice, but this is not like other games. Just because you are a big school doesn't mean you're going to clean up and get everyone you want.

[Daryl1981]

The recruiting in this game can be frustrating at times, I like to think I've gotten pretty good at, I can pull good recruits AA's and top players at their position. Just recently I tried to create my own fab five if u will, I created 5 prospects as freshmen and and recruited them all through high school. By their senior year I was a top choice for all but ended up only getting one, the rest all went to one school! Just a curve ball that the recruiting will throw at u

[jwill_23]

Quote: Originally Posted by HammerOfGod

Couple tips... 1. You have to make sure you make a target list. If you don't have kids targeted in at least their junior years and talk to them every single week, they won't be interested in you come their senior seasons. Ideally, make your target list based on needs because if you're playing as a team like Kansas and say you have a stud Power Forward who is a junior. You're going to want to replace him after his senior year. Since you're Kansas, you can feel safe targeting a couple top PF's their junior year, and they'll naturally be intersted in you their senior seasons. 2. If you don't need to fill a position, a guy is slightly less likely to be highly interested in your school. Say you have 4 PG's on your roster already, a top PG will naturally be less interested. If you do need a PG, and you're recruiting two high caliber players, you better decide which one you want the most because often times, if you've offered both scholarships, once on commits to you, the other will likely decrease his interest level, so if you're running neck and neck with another school for a top kid, and you're number one on his board (even though both schools are at 100% interest), if you sign a higher rated player, that second guy is probably going to jump on the other schools offer. 3. You're only going to be able to go really hard after 4 guys at a time because you're going to have to visit the kids all 4 weeks before signing day if it's a tightly contested recruiting battle, and you only have enough recruiting points to go on 4 visits each week. If you have a big lead with a recruit, and you have more than 4 schollies to fill, you can be less aggressive with that kid and visit the ones who you're in a tight race for. 4. If you don't want to lose ground DO NOT SCHEDULE GAMES ON SUNDAYS prior to the early signing period. If games are scheduled on Sundays, YOU CAN'T SCHEDULE ANY VISITS during the week, and you're screwed from that point forward in a tight recruiting battle. 5. This ties into #1, but recruit years in advance. If I have 2 juniors, 4 sophomores and 3 freshmen on my team, I'm going to make a target list that consists of 4-5 juniors, 4 sophomores, and a couple freshmen (because targeting kids as freshmen isn't that important, unless you see some 6'5" freak small forward as just a freshman, whom you're sure is going to pan out). Plus of course have your seniors be your top targets since they are the ones who are actually signing during the current year. 6. Talk to every kid 4 stars and over during their freshman and sophomore years. You can't talk to them more than once, and after you do that, the only thing that effects their interest level until they are juniors is your programs prestige and whether they are targeted by you, since you can't call them every week. Keep an eye on the sophomore class because a bunch of new names pop up in the ranks between the freshman and sophomore years, so you can't just talk to that class as freshmen and think you're done looking at players for that class. 7. Lastly, keep an eye on what schools are recruiting a kid during their sophomore seasons. It tells you everything you need to know about how that kid is going to be rated when he's a senior. If you target a 5-star center during his freshman year, then he's a 4 star his sophomore year, go look at who is recruiting him. If you see the who's who of college basketball (kentucky, Duke, UNC, Louisville, Syracuse, etc.) you can rest assured this kid is going to pan out and be a top rated center when he's a senior. If you see schools like Pacific, San Diego, Bradley, Iona, you can just be happy dumping him from your target list. I'll leave you with what I do as I play as North Carolina. Note: You need to have CPU assistance turned on in recruiting otherwise it can turn into a headache even if you're using these methods. I look at how many juniors are on my roster, and I target that number +2 or 3 more kids because some of them aren't going to have you as their top school as a senior no matter how hard you recruit them. So if I have 3 juniors, I'll target up to 6 kids in the junior class. Also, new names keep popping up all the way from freshmen through senior years, so you can always find a new kid that wasn't in the database before who might be highly rated and highly interested in you, so your target list can keep changing in regards to the sophs and juniors, but once you've zeroed in on the juniors you like, you need to stick with those guys the rest of the year. Make sure to remove all the kids that sign with you from your target list, or they're just going to take up room you could add other players. Usually, I don't even add freshmen to the target list until I've signed my players for the season. Once early signing period is over, that's when I request game tape from all the new sophomores and freshmen (all you have to do is be on their radar at this point, and since you're using Kansas, you'll be in pretty much everyones top ten prior to their junior years). Once I've gotten word out to all the sophs and frosh, I finalize my list of 15 targets (try to have at least a couple freshmen) and I don't look at recruiting again until next season. Hope this helps as you should be landing a top class every year with these methods.

I have been playing this game since it first came out, and the above quote is an excellent resource for recruiting. Also pay attention to the kids priorities.

[wdtd31]

I think the recruiting is harder then NCAA 10 but I also like it more cause of how it works!