Before he embarked on a coaching career, Tad Boyle\u00a0spent his first post-college decade pursuing a career in finance.<\/p>\n
Business and economics remain a couple of Boyle\u2019s non-basketball passions. And so, while college basketball recruiting has evolved alongside the proliferation of the transfer portal and the start of the NIL\/revenue sharing era, the new economics of recruiting are in many ways in Boyle\u2019s wheelhouse.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an economy expanding its global reach.<\/p>\n
This past summer, the CU men\u2019s basketball team picked up the final two pieces of a seven-player freshman class, Leonardo Van Elswyk and Alon Michaeli, from overseas, following a trend bringing more international prospects into college basketball. With coaches now allowed to carry up to 15 scholarships and the lure of a piece of the $20.5 million (per school) revenue sharing pie making college basketball in America a more worthwhile proposition financially, the overseas focus is likely to keep growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecruiting has become a value proposition,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cEvery decision that we make in recruiting, there\u2019s a value component to it. In the past, that value proposition wasn\u2019t part of the equation, because we could all offer room, board, tuition, fees, books. Well now, everybody\u2019s got revenue sharing money. It may not be the same amount of revenue sharing money. But they\u2019ve all got it. And now it becomes not, \u2018Is this kid good enough to play here? Good enough to help us win?\u2019 But, \u2018At what price?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When discussing international recruiting recently, Boyle brought up Thomas Akyazili, a guard from Belgium who joined the Buffs a decade ago, as an example of the typical route once followed by international recruits in college basketball.<\/p>\n
Akyazili joined the Buffs with the 2016-17 Derrick White-led team. While players like former CU star Tristan da Silva, a native of Germany, used college basketball to pursue their professional dreams all the way into the NBA Draft, players like Akyazili eventually see the writing on the wall and exchange study halls for professional contracts back home.<\/p>\n
Michaeli is emblematic of a sort of mirror image of that experience. The 6-foot-9 forward from Israel is two years removed from his country\u2019s equivalent of high school, and he spent the past two years playing professionally, appearing in 22 games last season for Bnei Hertzeliya in Israel\u2019s premier league. But players like Michaeli can now make more in college basketball than as a low-level reserve back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery decision we make becomes a value proposition,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cWith the foreign kids \u2014 like Leo, like Alon \u2014 they in the past, might have stayed over and make money there rather than come to college and just get an education and play college basketball. Well now, they can come to college and get an education and play college basketball, and make money. And maybe make more money than they were making where they were.\u201d<\/p>\n