Basketball recruiting: game film and highlight reels

Players in Idaho and much of the northwest (such as Wyoming, Montana, northern Nevada and eastern Oregon) suffer from the same problem – lack of exposure to college programs. Often the best players never get to be seen because they play in a small town or in an area that colleges never get a chance to make it to. This can make the basketball recruiting process very frustrating.

But there are ways to get your game in front of these coaches. One of them is as simple as it comes: game film and/or highlight reels.

Today, with DVD burners, the internet, email and digital camcorders, getting your game film in front of college coaches has never been more available. Here are a few tips, challenges and benefits of doing so.

Highlight clips vs. full game video – There are pros and cons to both. Highlight clips can take a lot more effort to create because you need multiple games and the ability to cut and paste the highlights together. And since you are just putting in your best plays, coaches know that they aren’t seeing a complete picture of the player. But, coaches may like it because they are shorter and can show off a particular strength of a player (great shooting, athletic, etc.). Roster spots are never given based on a highlight reel, but they can create interest and generate a follow up look. Plus, short 5-10 minute highlight clips can be easily uploaded to sharing sites such as YouTube, which is much easier than mailing out DVDs. Here’s a great example from an Idaho player that was offered 7 Division I scholarships. It shows a little bit of each part of his game.

Full uncut game film is usually easier for the player to get. Generally players can work with their coach or a parent that has filmed the game to get a copy. They also provide a better context for the college coach, which gives a more complete picture of the player. Plus, there is little editing needed. The downside is that a college coach will need to block an hour of his time to watch the game (most coaches have limited time for this) and sites like YouTube generally don’t let you upload more than 10-15 minutes of video (though you can break them up in to separate four quarter segments). That means that to get the full game to a coach in its entirety, a player would need to burn it to a DVD and then physically mail it to the college.

Ultimately, doing both a highlight reel and full game is great and gives coaches the option to choose whether they watch one or the other or (in a perfect world) both.

If you are going to send a full game DVD there are some basic pieces of information that you’ll need to include. Some are more obvious but all are important. Be sure to include your profile info like name, class, position, height, school, mailing address, email and phone number. Also, make sure you identify what your jersey number is and which team is yours. You’ll want to give a little context of the game like who you are playing and how good they are, when and where it was played and whether it’s a regular season game, tournament game or a championship game. And be honest. College coaches do this for a living so they will eventually find out if your aren’t being honest. Finally, the video should be good quality, not grainy or zoomed too far in or out.

Once you have your profile information and game DVD or highlight reel ready to go the next step is deciding where to send it. Keep in mind that you have limited resources to mail DVD, mostly money and time. To get the game film, burn a DVD, make copies of the DVD, package the DVD in protective mailers, address the mailers and then get them to the post office to mail can take dozens and dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars. But, the more you mail the more likely one or more of the schools will watch your DVD. And when that happens then the recruiting process really takes off!