{"id":860613,"date":"2026-10-16T19:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T19:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/860613\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T19:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T19:33:13","slug":"kevin-willard-passing-on-recruiting-high-school-players-is-it-the-right-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/860613\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Willard Passing On Recruiting High School Players: Is It The Right Move?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It is a new era of college basketball with the transfer portal and NIL becoming king.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This means coaches have to think differently as well, especially with the NCAA bringing in the new fifth-year rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Villanova\u2019s Kevin Willard has done this and that includes passing on recruiting high school players this year in hopes of bringing back his players eligible for a fifth year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWe\u2019re not recruiting a high school kid this year&#8230; just because of the fifth-year rule,\u201d Willard said at Big East Media Day. \u201cWe have six guys that can come back for a fifth year. So, I\u2019d much rather have one of my players come back, than bring in a high school kid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The new age-based model gives athletes five years of eligibility to play in five years. This window begins when the athlete begins college or during the academic year after they turn 19 years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI think moving forward, this kind of reminds me of what happened with COVID,\u201d Willard said. \u201cA lot of high school kids, a lot of high school players, got penalized, and it wasn\u2019t their fault. So I think after a year or two, this system will flush out and I think coaches will go back to recruiting high school players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It was a busy offseason for Willard and the Wildcats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">After losing the entire roster minus Tyler Perkins and Matt Hodge, Willard was tasked with retooling in hopes of competing in the Big East. Safe to say he did that in the transfer portal along with bringing in Adam Oumiddich from the high school ranks. When looking at the roster, led by Luigi Suigo and Kwame Evans Jr. in the frontcourt, it is clear that Villanova is set to compete this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Willard made it clear that this is not a longterm plan but with the way this team is built, it makes more sense to focus on the portal and re-recruiting his own players rather than hitting high schools. Unfortunately, this is the bed that the NCAA made \u2014 not Willard and Villanova.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It is important for the Wildcats to get back to winning and after year one, Willard as the team going in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a new era of college basketball with the transfer portal and NIL becoming king. This means&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,7141],"class_list":["post-860613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-villanova-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117452262797089471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}