Episode #179: Kevin Clifford on Recruiting

🏀 Kevin Clifford’s 6 Rules of Recruiting | Significant Recruiting Ep. 179 

On Part II of the Significant Recruiting Podcast, Matt Rogers is joined by Kevin Clifford to break down the realities of college basketball recruiting, NCAA Division II athletics, scholarships, player development, and what recruits and families truly need to understand during the recruiting process.

Coach Clifford shares honest insight from years of coaching and rebuilding collegiate programs, including leading Roberts Wesleyan University to its first NCAA Division II Tournament Sweet 16 appearance.

Topics include:

•  What college coaches really evaluate 
•  NCAA Division II vs Division I vs Division III 
•  Scholarship realities 
•  Leadership and culture 
•  Mental health and player support 
•  What recruits misunderstand about recruiting 
•  The importance of fit over labels 
•  How families should approach the recruiting process 
•  Player development in today’s game 

If you’re a recruit, parent, coach, or athletic director, this episode provides outstanding perspective on navigating modern college athletics.

🎧 Listen to the podcast:
 coachmattrogers.com/podcast

▶️ Watch more episodes:
 Coach Matt Rogers YouTube Channel

Suggested Chapters

00:00 Introduction
 01:45 What Coaches Really Look For in Recruits
 06:20 NCAA D1 vs D2 vs D3 Basketball
 11:15 Scholarship Realities Explained
 16:10 Recruiting Mistakes Families Make
 21:30 Player Development in College Basketball
 26:00 Mental Health & Athlete Support
 31:40 Why Fit Matters More Than Labels
 36:10 Leadership & Team Culture
 41:00 Final Recruiting Advice

Transcript

0:09

On the latest edition of the Significant Coaching Podcast, a recruiting presentation of the Coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel, available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcasts. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. This week, I'm joined once again by Kevin Clifford, head women's basketball coach at Roberts Wesleyan University, and a member of the NCAA Division II East Coast Conference. A couple of things to listen for in this episode that I believe will be significant to recruits, parents, and coaches alike are Coach Clifford's six Rs of recruiting philosophy and his perspective that recruiting is really about evaluation and relationships and not sales. I thought both topics gave a really honest look into how college recruiting actually works behind the scenes. Before we jump in, don't forget to schedule your free recruit or parent or coach or athletic director strategy session, and check out all of our recruiting resources, blogs, and podcasts at coachmattrogers.com. So sit back and enjoy part two of my conversation with Kevin Clifford Coach DJ One Clifford. Love our first conversation, segment one. We got into your DJ history. Coach, we're gonna roll into recruiting a little bit there's coaches out there, they hear the word recruiting and it feels like the world just landed on their shoulders. They stress out, they panic. It's hard for them. And then there's coaches that they hear recruiting and they're like, "That's like air to me. If I'm not recruiting, I'm not breathing." Where are you at when you hear recruiting? Yeah. I go by Coach Cliff, but I like the DJ one. Yeah, the you know what recruiting, some people think I don't want... I'm not a cheesy salesperson, right? Like- my wife thinks I'd be great at selling cars, but I think there's some people that are really that might lie to you and things like that. I try to be really genuine. I try to ch- to tell them the facts and the truth sometimes we don't have all that. We will try to put a package together. I give them an estimate, but I really try to be honest with them, right? I'm at a stage where I love recruiting. When I go to the gym, I'm in there, w- we went to Ohio the other day, Matt, and our assistant coach and I. God bless him, Coach Esposito. He drove, I offered to drive. He drove six hours from... He drove from Rochester to Buffalo. Drove from Ro- Buffalo to Ohio, Cincinnati. We stopped in between, but that's about six hours. Then we stayed Friday night. Saturday morning, we got up at 7:00, drove to the gym about half an hour. From 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM we watched all the basketball. Now, we took a break here and there, lunch, but we're watching game to game, court to court. We're going together, we're splitting up. He gets a half, I get a half or he goes for a court and I go to a court. And then the next morning we went to dinner, watched the Knick game. The next morning we got up from 8:00 to 12:00, we watched another four hours of basketball, and then we, he drove from basically went to Ohio State to check out the football stadium real quick, and then we drove from there to Buffalo, and then he dropped me off, and then w- he drove from Buffalo to Rochester. He got home like 8:00 o'clock at night. So it was a whole weekend, but we love it, so I'm at a s- I know some coaches get out of recruiting because of the time, the travel. Division II is a little different than Division I. Division III was really, I loved it, Matt, but you could go out all the time. I had no life. I was going out all, every weekend. Every weekend there's an event, right? But I love recruiting, I love evaluating. I think it's a the evaluation. People think recruiting is, it's the evaluation and then it's the phone call, the text message, the relationship, and then the visit, right? And we'll talk about that later, but I love it. I think the relationship piece is really important and I just love watching basketball, especially when it's good basketball. And Matt, I'll give you an interesting story. When I go out and watch a game, I have referees in Buffalo be like, "What are you doing here?" And I'm like, there might be a younger player we might like." That we have a JV developmental program, so my eyes are, like, looking at all divisions, right? We're looking at maybe Division III players, we're looking at Division II players. Maybe low D1 type of players that would be good for our program. And what happens is, Matt, I meet you and then you go, "Hey, Coach Cliff, I have a player-" they could have just called me, but it's like out of sight, out of mind. But now they're talking to me, and then they see me, and then they tell me about a player. Yeah. And that's, that, that's always helped. Or I go watch you play, Matt, and I see someone else I like. Yeah, exactly. And that's the real fun part of recruiting for me, is the relationships. It's making friends with you. I remember being a 26, 27-year-old head coach for the first time, and I'm at this, one of those big gyms that you and I go to where there's 20, 30, 40 courts. And I sit down, and freaking Bill Self sits next to me. And we start talking. I go, "Coach, who you recruiting?" and he goes, we're not really recruiting anybody. That kid's already committed to us here. We're just here to support him." and it was great just talking to him about evaluating and what he looks for and what he sees, and that was a great f- kind of first step for me to understand that there's not much difference in how we recruit at the levels. It comes down to, like you said, it's what kind of evaluator you are for what you wanna do, right? Yeah. And then can you close the deal? Yeah. Can you get those kids in that, that you're looking for? I know you've got your six Rs. Talk a little bit about where that started and what those six Rs are for you. Yeah. You just triggered something, Matt, real quick. ABC, always be closing. Yeah. Andy Stanfield taught me this. Glengarry Glen Ross is a movie, a car movie. Yeah. I keep relating back to cars, but closing the deal it's a great line. You gotta watch it. He showed me it when I was 28 years old. I had no idea what I was watching. I've seen it many times. Yeah. And I share it with all our assistants now, but I... When he showed me it, I was like, "What's this guy showing me?" And I live by ABC, always be closing. I'll give some tips real quick for the younger coaches, Matt. When I was a younger coach, I would go out and watch, and then I would just go home. Yeah. And that's not really, that's like evaluating, that's not really recruiting. That's not really- Go talk to the high school coach. You might not be able to talk to the player. Talk to the player and families if you can. There's different periods and a lot of rules but try to talk to them. Sometimes parents don't realize this but w- if we're in a contact period, we could contact them. If we're in evaluation period, we could only go watch and go home. We can't talk to them. We might be able to call them on the phone. But I think when I was a younger coach, I would go watch a game and go home, and I wouldn't talk to the coaches. And my buddy Anthony Alfaro, really good at it, he goes and h- he talks to the coach before. Go early, go watch warmups, right? I'll give you an interesting story. I was at City College, and I really needed to bring in a lot of just good players just good grades. We had we had six players. We had people that couldn't dribble, Matt. Like I just I was all over the place. Just, I just wanted to bring in basketball players. I went to winning programs, and I go to St. Agnes and I'm watching the game, and I see a player there, and a college coach tells me, "Oh, she's r- she's com- she's coming to us, so she's committed." And I wouldn't believe everybody, 'cause I believed him, right? And I was walking out, and I really liked her. She would've helped us. And the father goes, "Hey, Kevin, how you doing? I see you and your brother play all the time." they knew us, the father. And I go, "Oh, congratulations. I heard your daughter's going to, to school." And he goes, "No, she's not committed yet." I go, "Really?" And then we end up talking, and because of that relationship, he s- used to, he used to watch us play in in Maspeth in the park, in Maurice Park, and he knew my brothers and myself. He, and he, I met the guy, but I, he j- he ended up sending his daughter to me 'cause he trusted me and he knew that we were good basketball players, but he also knew that she could learn the game from us and stuff like that. So it was amazing by going out to that event and recruiting. But anyway, ABC. CAT, and we use acronyms. CAT, Matt, this is for the parents and the recruits. CAT. C is character. A is academics and T is talent. Now, Coach Felicia Jack, I saw, has CAB, character, academics, basketball. So I never heard that before. So CAB or CAT. I like that. We like CAT. So C is character. Are you a good person? Are you a good teammate? Are you a great person? Are you a great teammate? Are you a great student? We call professors, we call guidance counselors, we call coaches, AU coaches. We f- the circle of trust we call. We try to find out. We might call your grandmother, your aunt. You meet them on the visits. A is academics, and then T is talent. So what that means, man, is say we have player A and player B, right? They're a good player, good person. This person has a 95 average and this person has 85. We'll probably offer this person first. Now, if they say no, then maybe we offer this person, right? But if they're It's like getting a job, right? If you're close. So we go by those three things, character, academics, talent. Now, the six Rs are research the school All right? It's like going for a job and going for a job; you wanna research the company. So research the school. Is Roberts Wesleyan a good fit, fit? F-I-T. It's a good fit for you. Send a personable email, Matt. A lot of people just put, "Dear Coach." That means you're copy and pasting probably, right? I get over 100 emails a day, Matt. I don't know about anybody else, I get a lot, all right? Yep. Not surprising. And, yeah, and we- we're getting Twitter messages, WhatsApp, international. It's it's a lot. And I have part-time assistants, so it's like it fall, a lot of it falls on me, and I try to watch them, respond and, but it's hard. Especially with your regular life, right? So- So research the school. Respond. All right? Coaches too, but players, respond. I reach out to people and they might ghost you or you never know you might transfer. You might come back to us, we had a player, I was recruiting at Buff State in the fall, who was really good, got back to me. The coach got back to me, but they told me they want an athletic scholarship. They had an NAIA school and Roberts Wesleyan, Matt. I'm recruiting him at Buff State. I get the job that summer, a, or that f, August, and I start in September, and the player that I was recruiting at Buff State, she's at Roberts now. Imagine, imagine they they were disrespectful to me. Imagine they di- they they didn't get back to me. I would've had a certain feeling to them, right? Or vice versa. So it was really good that I already knew them kinda coming into, when I walked into the first day of the job. So research, respond. So if a coach reaches out to you, just say, "Hey, Coach. Thank you for your interest." Maybe it might be Division II school but you wanna go Division I, just say... But sometimes they don't know what to say, Matt, too, I think, to, to- Yeah the athletes. So research, respond. Reach out. Reach out to coaches. And do it individually, Matt. Sh- do a short email, "Dear Coach Clifford." The subject line's really important. Grab my attention. When they put Roberts Wesleyan in there, I love it. When I was at Mount Saint Vincent, Matt, a, a recruit put Mount Saint Mary's. They were the archrival. We were like... Some coaches are gonna say, "That's a red flag because, you know-" They're the garbage, right? Yeah. Yeah. One time they spelled my name wrong, Matt, and Clifford's not really a hard name to spell wr- so Coach Jasiewicz I could see you spell that wrong. But Coach Clifford- I get Ro- probably every third kid that reaches out to me spells my la- name, last name wrong. Yeah. So yeah, one year they put Clifford, they put a T. And again, maybe it was an accent thing or something, yeah. But anyway, so research- reply Respond, r- reach out Yeah, reply, respond, reach out. That's three. Four is the relationships. All right? And there's no particular order. Relationships. Yeah. So for example, relationships with the coaches, relationships with the AU coaches, relationships with all the... And it goes both ways, not this is not for the recruits, the parents, right? Knowing each other. And so f- a couple years ago when I first got the job at Roberts, a coach called me about a player, and then his daughter was on the team too, and he started talking about her later on, but that's how we got her, right? So relationships are really important. If someone calls me up about a player, Matt, and I know, oh, I know that school, I know the coach there, right? So the relationships really go a long way. And then relationships with your professors, relationships with your coaches, your AU coaches, your high school coaches. Some coaches coach both. I have this guy in New York City, he coached AU and coached high school. It was really good, 'cause I knew him and he would send me his schedule, send me his players. And Matt, we do really well. We go out to tournaments and things, but we could probably just sit at home and check emails and have people I could call coaches and they could call me- Right and recommend players. So coaches, if you have players, reach out to us and and let us know if it's a good fit, right? We're high academics, we're known for nursing. And then the f- the fifth R is recruiting visits, Matt. And I feel like the transfer portal, Matt, last time I checked, 5,500 on the men's side in the transfer portal, 2,500 on the women's side. So I feel bad for the high school students because they are, some are recruiting them, but they are really waiting, using that money for the transfer portal. So start early. And I learned this from Jay Butler. St- for coaches, start early and stay on them late. Stay on them, get on them early, stay on them late. So I try to get on them I see them early and then I try to go to the games and then follow up with them. Yeah. All right, so recruiting visits, Matt. There's different ones. So we do a call, we do a FaceTime tour, we do a Zoom. All right? Then there's unofficial visit, there's an official visit, and then an overnight visit. And I, since COVID, I really feel like people... Just offer. Can you, I want you to offer our kid. Do you want to offer him? And I want to build a relationship. They need to come see the school. Will you buy a house, Matt? Will you buy a house without looking at it inside? I did buy one house, but my wife was the one that bought it and looked at it first. So I was outvoted. Yeah, all right. But, y- no, I g- Yeah I'm teasing, but that- Yeah that's one of my pet peeves. Don't pick a school because the coach made you an offer. Don't be g- don't pick a school because it's free. Yeah. Pick a school because you went and you loved it, right? Yeah. I, so I'm 100% with you with the visits. Yeah, house and car, I'm gonna test ride it, check it out, make sure it's good. Yeah. And I think you need to do the same thing with the school. Now, it's hard to do that, right? So narrow down a list. Make a list, three to five schools. Some people go 10, 15 schools. Man, I don't know how they have the time or the money or y- that's right. So three to five schools, make a list, and then F-I-T, fit. The Jerry Boye at Buff State used to say this to all the time. He used to speak to all the parents and recruits when he could, and he used to talk about that fit academically, athletically. For us, it could be spiritually socially. Is it a safe campus? You drive around the campus when you leave, right? Check it out. You wanna make sure. That's what I would do, right? So- Yeah But I think so I'll give you a story, Matt. A, and a coach emailed me last year, sent me a video. I watched it, s- write back to him right away w- within 24 hours, and I said, "I really like the player." He goes, "You gonna offer her?" She coulda been in, walking by my h- my room, my office, Matt. I wouldn't even know who she was. I was like- You offer her I, yeah, I was like, "Yo yeah, I liked her, but I does she like us? Does she want us?" the best ones, Matt, are the ones that want us and we want them, because that's- it's like a, it's like a marriage. It's dating, right? So recruiting visits. So since COVID, I feel like some schools do not do the overnight visit. Now they are visiting but we do FaceTime tours. We do for the international players, sometimes we can't get them on campus, so I've been doing that. And sometimes I do a FaceTime tour and they like it, and then they come for the official visit too, right? Yeah. But unofficial visits, official visits. Division II is a lot of workouts, Matt. You're allowed one workout. The the thing with that is you need a physical within six months and you need sickle cell test results now. It used to be a waiver, so it's a little harder. But we like doing that working out the player. Obviously, there's rules. They can't be in season and things like that. But I like I, imagine a player came up, visited go to lunch, and then meet the team or meet the coaching staff, and then I, you get to work... I get to work them out. I could see if they're coachable. They could see how I coach. So we really love that aspect. I do too Division III, we really, it couldn't do it and we didn't really do it, so they just came for a tour. Yeah. But those are the five Rs, Matt. Research, respond reach out Recruiting visits, relationships- Relationships relationships, and the sixth one means all those five things will equal results. I love that. And what that means is then you'll probably get an offer, then you'll probably get a scholarship. But academics is so important for us to so I think hitting the books and really being a good student. I was not a smartest person, Matt, but I handed my assignments in early. I sat in the first two rows. Bob Segave is really big on that. He had a place in the first two rows. Cause in the back, back row you might fall asleep or something, right? There's some stats here, Matt, I'm gonna just read them off to you real quick. So division one, 1% get a chance to play. Division two, 1% get a chance to play, get a scholarship. Division three, 1.5%. 7% or less play college basketball, NAIA, junior college, 7%. 70% quit youth basketball, as we talked about that, which is a scary stat. So basically, it's like winning the lotto, getting a scholarship. And there's- Yeah a lot of factors you gotta get lucky too, but you gotta be there. One of my favorite tips, Matt, is when you go to an AU tournament, parents, go, if you can, say for example, we're in Ohio. So my nephew's from Canada. He went to Ohio, Matt, to a tournament recently like this past weekend. They sent me pictures. They went to Ohio State. They were in the locker rooms, they were on the court. They loved it. Now, can they play there? I don't know. Maybe they could walk on there, maybe. But they, but now they get to see, "Hey, I love this si- this campus. This is huge. Oh, this is too big for me", right? So any chance you can go on an AU tournament, 'cause every weekend, if you're going to play AU in club tournaments, how are you visiting schools, right? Unless you're going during the week and you're missing class, and if you're going in the summertime the students aren't there, right? I like going in the fall, Matt, right? I- in August, September, October for me, for us, just so they get to see the school and it's exciting, but they get to meet the s- the players that they're gonna be playing with, right? We could put on a show for an hour. The great thing about Roberts is they, what with us is it's real. Like it's five, six hour tour five or s- three, an hour tour, but like a three or four hour you spend time with us, and you really get to know us, and I get to know them. But I think going to visit schools is really important. Love it. It's such great information, Coach and thank you for promoting my book without promoting my book, 'cause so much of what you've been talking about I've put in Significant Recruiting, and you've hit a lot of the points that I stress. And we call it a little different things, but I love it. I wanna talk about film, 'cause I think a lot of parents, and especially a lot of young men and young women don't understand really what we're looking for when we watch film. 'Cause as much as you love to get out and watch games, a lot of what we do starts with that film. Is this kid even worth my time? Tell me about when you're watching a three-minute highlight film, what are the things that you want to see that get you excited about a kid? Yeah, great. So Matt, I agree. So get Matt's book, 'cause it's gonna be really helpful for you. I bought Method to the Madness years ago, and I don't think it's available anymore. It was a yellow binder. Do you remember? It was white binder with the black- yeah, I do. Yeah yeah, but this was yellow. But it had itineraries from Rick Pitino. It had football itineraries. But I used all that and made it my own, right? But really research and read on it. But I think I think I what's your question again, Matt? Sorry. Breaking down film, Coach. What- Oh yeah What are you looking for? Yeah. What do you hope it's in there that- Yeah, sorry, I drew a brain freeze there. So make the f- the highlight video two to three minutes, right? Not 10 minutes, 'cause think about it, if you send me five, five recruits sending a 10-minute vid, that's 50 minutes. I'm gonna watch it, but a lot of coaches My number o- my goal the last three years, Matt, is to watch the video to the end. Yeah. 'Cause sometimes I watch half and I just turn it off. A couple things we look for before the video, defense. Is there a p- you make an unbelievable play, like diving on the floor put that in there, right? I had a player that put the last play was unbelievable, man, a behind the back pass, but they did it at the end. Maybe put that at the f- beginning, just to kinda grab someone's attention. It's like a movie, right? Like- movies with me, like I gotta get attached right away to get me s- sucked in. The ending might be great, but if the beginning's not good, I might not make it to the end. So I think defense, the intangibles, Matt their IQ. Are they high-fiving their teammates? Do they have passion? You can see some of that stuff in a video. Like they score- Yeah and they go like that, right? But I think I call it CTC, control the controllables, right? Yeah. How's your body language? Now on a video it's a little harder to see, that's why I like to see live. Live is really good to on campus or at an event or a high school game or even a practice. Coaches, go watch a practice. A game you can see a game, but in practice you get to see them really what's their effort like, what's their attitude like. But on the video, two to three minutes, Matt, and really make Like the other day, someone sent me a video, it was blurry, I couldn't see it. I like the ones where they actually I show, I try to show my wife sometimes- Oh, yeah where they circle the person. Yeah, me too. My wife's my wife's Who you watching?" Cause sometimes th- they might be making a pass and I'm watching the person scoring thinking it's them, right? So I think if they could get a professionally done video or do it themselves, make it personal, send an email to the coach with the high- and have them do it. Parents, you don't do it. Have the child do it and ha- help them, but have them do it and send the video. But again, in the video, defense. What's their strength, right? Are they a good shooter? Have, show a couple shots. I wouldn't just... I've been seeing a lot of repeats, Matt, like a video that I saw at the beginning, like a highlight I've been seeing that at the end. Show the same clips again. Yeah, show the same clips. I've been seeing that a little bit. I don't know I try to do a double take and say it looks similar anyway but I think your attitude, are are you clapping are you cheering, are you a good teammate? That's hard to see on the video, but I think just the intangibles. Show a little bit of everything, right? Diversity, passing, dribbling but show what you do well. All right? And then be honest with your stats and your height and all those things. All right? But I, I think just making the video compact. We like game film too, Matt, so if you could send a highlight video and a game film now. The full game? Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I like that too. Yeah, they... It's time-consuming for a coach, but it does help us. But then also send us your schedule so we can check you out live open gyms and practices. I really... I try to do it like on my way home from Rochester to Buffalo, I'll go to a... there's a facility here, and a- again, based on the rules, a- as long as I could go, I go and try to watch an hour or two hours workouts. And it was shocking. I went in a couple years ago and the coach goes, "Oh, that player was on the portal." Oh, I didn't know. I didn't check the portal today and now I know- because I was there, right? So never miss a coaching opportunity or never miss... Players, if you get invited to a camp, now you can't go to every camp, but if it's personable and they invite you to camp, never miss an opportunity, 'cause you never know. You might go to the camp and they might like you and they might offer you. They might not but so be very selective with that. But the video, make it t- two, three minutes. Make it good vision, good good quality. Make sure we know who it is. Be careful with the music. Some people send curses in the music, Matt, and that could be a touchy subject but we're a Christian private school, so you just gotta be smart about those things. And I saw a video someone sent a couple years ago. Usually you never miss in the video, right? A highlight reel. This player missed a lot of shots in the video, and I wouldn't send that, but I think what they were sending was they missed a shot and they were hustling back on the defense. Yeah. I... You could show that, right? It's funny when the- Show the resilience. Yeah. Y- it's funny now when you see a b- nice move and then it gets cut off. That means they didn't miss. But I wanna see that missed shot, right? Yeah. But I wanna see what they do next, and again, that's hard in the video. That's more live. But I, but again, I think defense, rebounding m- maybe send us your best rival game, like someone, like a good, like not a fluke, like- Playing against good talent Yeah. Yeah. But I think the intangibles, right? Like basketball IQ, do you move without the ball shooting off the dribble y- you don't wanna just show 10 clips of just catch and shoot, right? Show- Yeah show variety. I like to see variety, but I like something like what's the it factor? That person got it. What's the wow factor? Coach Rosati, he was retired a couple years ago, Matt, or he didn't retire, but he coached with us. He would watch full game. He would go check their stats. He would go, He was like a d- detective. He would go find out all this information. But he looked at this: your GPA, he looked at your points per game, but then he looked at your free throw percentage, your shooting percentage, your assists, the turnover. Yeah. That's why we saying make sure that's accurate. But he would really watch it, look at... But he wanted, he loved the way we play, we wanna see can you play inside and out, yeah. Can can you play fast paced? Can you shoot transition threes 'cause of our tempo? So for us, you wanna send us things that we're gonna like too, because it's a fit for our style, right? So you gotta really know if someone doesn't like fancy stuff, you might not wanna s- show them a s- behind the back pass, right? They might not like that. But Coach Rosati was really good at watching stuff, but if he saw something, like he saw a player rip the ball out of a girl's hand, Matt, he was like he was like, "She's tough. She's strong", so- There's something there. Yeah. Yeah. There's that junkyard dog. Yeah. Oh, he... That's why he uses that word, that junkyard dog. Yeah. That's what I was always looking for. I always tell families, Coach, and you tell me what you think about this. You gotta think like a coach. For me, the things that frustrated me the most when I got a freshman were they didn't know how to play o- off-the-ball defense. They didn't know where to be two passes away, one pass away. I if they weren't consistently taught how to block out every time the shot goes up, and hit, drive their man, I knew I was gonna have to teach that, and you don't teach that in three weeks. It probably takes you six to 12 months to teach that habit. Is that important for you when you're watching film or watching live, that when the shot goes up, maybe you're not watching the shooter as much as who's blocking out and where their defensive position is? Is that valuable for you to see on film? Yeah, I agree. I think some parents don't know what we're looking for, Matt, so- Yeah I think n- number one, parents, we're recruiting you, too, and the families. Yes. Is your child looking at you during a game in timeout? That's, that, that's a no-no. That, you want to tell him at home something, you wanna tell him after the game, that's on you. But during the game, you really gotta let the coach. Just because they gotta listen to us and we only got 30 seconds in a timeout, Matt, right? Yeah. And I get it, they care and they mean but I think we recruit the parents, right? Are you yelling at referees? Are you yelling at coaches? Are you bashing the coaches? 'Cause you're gonna do the same thing to us, right? So we recruit the parents as well. I think, Matt, when I go live, I wanna see, oh, that kid boxed out. Now, she, if she can do something at a D2 level, like really well, now can we teach her the other things, right? Coach Lozada's really good at this, where he would like- What's she gonna be like in six months? What's she gonna be like in in, in a year? Some coaches right now look o- she... Some people might be an impact player, but not everybody's gonna be... We had a player international, she played a little bit each year, Matt, and then senior year she started and she developed what we thought she was gonna be, right? But I think we look for the little things. You box out. Are you in help defense? Are you talking on defense, right? We look at all those little things because if you're doing it already, now we could take it to the next level and we don't have to... We'll refresh it and we'll go over it, but- but m- Matt, it's amazing how many people can't play off the ball. Geno talks about it, right? You only have the ball 3% of the game really I think it is or something, right? So think about it. Even if you have the ball a lot, you're only having it a little bit because other people have it. So learn how to play off the ball. Watch people. Watch Steph Curry, watch Rip Hamilton, watch even Caitlin Clark. She has the ball a lot, too, but how's she getting open when they're denying her the ball, right? I watch all, I watch off the ball. The best advice I got, Matt, I coached with this guy Tommy Margeaux Sr. in high school, and Larry, who was a really legendary coach at Saint Francis Prep, Margeaux Sr. told these kids, and it... And I was, like, 20-something, so he was kinda tea- teaching me, too. He said, "Go home, watch college basketball, turn off the announcer, and watch off the ball." And I'm telling you, for me, no one told me that, and I was, like, 20 some- 25, 26 years old, and I really learned more of how to get open. And I'm not the fastest guy, so I had to learn how to come off screens and the timing. That's right. So I think watch basketball, Matt. I think a lot of them go to trainers, and I think parents are spending money on that, but how's your AU coaches? How's the high school coaches? Are they teaching them the youth coaches? It's really important. You can play zone, I know there's some discrepancy about it, but teach them man to man. Teach them how to play player to player. That's right. Teach them how off the ball, on the line. Some players are really good with the ball, Matt, and I had some great players on the ball defense and with the ball. Off the ball, on offense and defense, they were off. That's right. Yeah it... And it's gonna take you forever to teach that and the kid's gonna probably get frustrated. So a lot of coaches, if they see that on film that you don't know how to defend off the ball or they don't see that on your film- now all of a sudden you're lower down on that pecking order than you should be, 'cause you didn't show it. So I love all that. I agree. Matt, I got a couple tips real quick. I don't know if you wanna write these down. Parents, be proactive. The ch- the recruit, boy or girl, the child, take ownership of it, right? Let them take ownership of it. Help them, help them- H- how early do you want a kid to reach out to you? At what age? Yeah, the next one was start early, especially now. So Matt, technically up to June 15th juniors and seniors, we can meet with them in person, but now they changed the rules a couple years ago where, So I could contact a freshman or sophomore. Division III is different. Division I'm not too sure about, but Division II, they could reach out to us, Matt. So I would say high school. I think, I think- Freshman, sophomore year? Yeah, freshman, sophomore, junior, seniors can reach out to us. But are you cool with a freshman reach out to you, say, "Hey, I'm interested in you. I'd like to get some feedback. I'd like to know where I can get better," are you cool with that? We're starting to get that. So we get 26s, 27s, 28s. We haven't really got any 29s yet, but we don't wanna hear from m- middle schools kids right now. Middle schoolers, yeah. Yeah. But I think high school, again, now we might not do much with it, Matt, like I put it in a folder I mark it, I watch the video. I have my own system. We have some of our databases that we have to do per the school, but I have my own system to keep track of it, to be organized. Yeah. But they, the earlier, the better, especially with the transfer portal now and reclassifying. Junior college, Matt, people aren't even talking about, people are only talking about transfer portal. Couple years ago we brought in 10 players, Matt; six freshmen, one transfer off the portal, and three junior college international players- Oh that went to schools in the state, though, which helped- Yeah because they had the visas and they, it was a little smoother transition. So you got prep schools, you got reclassifying, some people are reclassifying twice. Junior college, you got transfer portal, the fifth year rule might be coming into effect, so there's a lot of factors, parents. So I think just start early, take ownership, make it personable. Make it personal. Put, "Dear Coach Clifford," make sure you proofread, and I would keep it to one or two paragraphs. If you Google how to recr- send an email to a college coach, Matt there's samples, you know- Yeah on there for the parents. Because a lot of times I think the players don't know what to say, right? And also recruits, if you go somewhere, call us up and just say, "Hey, thank you for everything," and we should do the same. It's hard, right? If we're recruiting 30, 40 people. But I used to try to, say, "Hey, we're full right now." It's hard, it's really hard to do that, but I think instead of leaving people hanging, I think it's a good thing to do, and I've made some mistakes over the years with that stuff, so I've learned to be better with that. Communication, Matt, and starting early, but making it personable. Really, you know- Two research me, my bio. "Hey, Coach Clifford, we went, came to your game." Some of them are doing that. Some are saying, "Hey," I was impressed, "Coach Clifford, we came to your game. We love your physicality. We watch your game online," yeah. Coach Clifford I saw you on the Significant Coaching podcast and I loved your energy. I loved your passion for the game. Those things go a long way. Yeah. Even if you get on your li- on your website, you guys have great stories about your season and about each game and you get to hear interviews with you and see, hear quotes from you and your players. Just give it a little snippet that, hey, I saw this, I read this was important to me. I wanna get to know your program more. I agree. Matt, we have Hager Productions. They do... We're the only Division II school in Rochester, right? And we're also NCCA Division I, National Christians. I forgot to mention that. That's right. But Hager Productions does a great job with interviews with players. It feels like it's D1 after the games. I'm mic'd up during the games. Yeah. We had a player at the beginning of the year, she's a really good player she didn't do interviews with Hager Productions. She was really nervous. And sh- after a couple times, they finally... I was watching the video. I didn't even know. I watched the video and she was on there. I was like, "Oh, this is awesome," so- Great but they could go online, Matt. YouTube, if you YouTube Roberts Wesleyan senior night, we'll have videos and clips. Matt, you guys see we got a new scoreboard. They shut the lights off, they turn these red lights on- Awesome and they announce with... Jay Trainer's our announcer. I'm telling you, you feel like you're at at a pro a professional event. That's awesome. Coach, I cannot thank you enough for your time. You know I love your passion. I'm such a big fan of yours. I'm so happy that you reached out to me and started this friendship, and I'm so thankful that you're in my life. And if anybody's watching this or listening to it, and I know a lot of people are, this is coaching. Coach Cliff is what coaching's all about. He loves it. He lives it. Raising great kids and making sure you're getting them ready for their adult life is such a big part of your future and who you are and I'm thankful for you. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Parents, teachers, coaches, they have a tough job, Matt and our job is to make them better people, right? Yeah. I had great coaches in my life and I had... I didn't have a lot, but I had a few CYO, high school, college. Yeah. And then I had great bosses that really taught me. So I think being a great person, being kind, being a good neighbor that's what Roberts is all about. But thanks for having me on. I had a lot of fun. I'd love to talk about hoops. Stay in touch. And anybody wants to reach out about recruiting, again, it's KClifford123 on Twitter. My email is clifford_kevin@roberts.edu, and you could email me, and would love to come check you out. Go Red Hawks. Thanks, coach. All right. Thanks, Matt. And that's a wrap for part two of this week's recruiting presentation of the Significant Coaching podcast with Kevin Clifford. Coach, thank you so much for your time, your energy, and your willingness to teach, share knowledge, and pull back the curtain on the realities of college recruiting and coaching. Conversations like this are incredibly valuable for recruits, parents, coaches, and ADs alike, and I truly appreciate you being a part of the show. And to everyone listening or watching, thank you for continuing to support the podcast. Don't forget to favorite, like, subscribe, and share the show so you never miss an episode of the Significant Coaching podcast. Available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcasts and on the Coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel. And if you're looking for direction on your recruiting journey, no matter which side of the evaluation process you're on, make sure you schedule your free coaching or recruiting session at coachmattrogers.com until next time, stay focused on what you can control, stay humble, and keep chasing significance