One aspect of the conference mayhem that has been somewhat forgotten about is recruiting.
After moving from the Big 12 to the Pac-12 in 2011, Colorado men’s basketball has been able to recruit the Los Angeles area far easier with road games coming against USC and UCLA. That advantage has helped the Buffs sign big-time Southern California recruits such as Evan Battey and KJ Simpson, but with the Trojans and Bruins Big Ten-bound in 2024, Tad Boyle will have to adjust.
Fortunately, the recent breakthrough of NIL in college athletics could become a savior of sorts. Here’s what Colorado’s veteran head coach told Buffzone’s Pat Rooney in a recent article:
It helps if you do (play in L.A.), there’s no doubt about that. But, to me, with the onset of NIL, it’s not as big a deal. Players now are able to hopefully make enough money for their parents to fly out for games. If a kid from LA wants to go eastward, with NIL it’s going to be easier for them to do that. I think it offsets itself a little bit in that regard.
Only time will tell, but we’ll find that out as we go along. We have made some great inroads with LA recruiting and it is a very important area for us, without a doubt. We’re not going to stop recruiting there.
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