Seventeen-year-olds are going on official visits to schools nationwide and hoping for big pitches and bigger money, only to get half-answers and wait-and-sees from coaching staffs. That's not what was happening the past three Septembers. We're two weeks from October and just six of the top 50 players in the country have committed. Expand that out to the top 100 prospects and it's a mere 20 names, with November's signing period less than two months out.
The reasons are three-fold:
1. With the exception of 10-or-so five-star freshmen, older players acquired via the portal are considered better assets than first-year guys, so a high-major transfer's value has skyrocketed since 2021
2. The mandates of revenue sharing have inarguably ebbed the market, which is creating friction between players (and their agents) and the coaches and general managers trying to find common ground on value in 2025 vs. what it's been the past two or three cycles
3. The high school class of 2026 is, on the whole, considered much weaker than the ones from the past few years
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Another reason for the lag is some schools know how much money they have and others do not. That inconsistency and uncertainty is contributing to delay tactics nationwide. Why don't certain schools know? Spin tactics from athletic directors, some of whom are still struggling to grapple with a drastically different budgetary environment than what they worked in as recently as three years ago.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/college-basketball-commitments-plummet-amid-big-changes-in-recruiting-nobody-knows-what-to-do-right-now/ 
on September 15, 2025, 18:47:20
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