By Jeromy Corrigan

Recruiting

UNBC facing more difficult challenges recruiting during pandemic

Jun 3, 2020 | 4:26 PM

Recruiting for the teams at UNBC can difficult.

Toss in a worldwide pandemic and now all four teams face a brand new challenge.

For the Men’s Basketball team they have been filling out their roster for the 2020-2021 season, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many tools which they use to help evaluate and recruit new players were not at their disposal.

“Given that we’re, compared to other Canada West schools, we are a little bit removed geographically in a lot of ways. So the campus visits are such a huge tool for us in most years when it comes to recruiting,” explained Head Coach of the Men’s Basketball team Todd Jordan.

“We were planning on having an ID camp the last weekend of March and that all got shut down and obviously we haven’t been able to get in the gym or have guys come into town for visits. It made things quite challenging when trying to evaluate guys.”

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As a result, most of their recruitment has been through zoom calls, emails, and over the phone. However, despite the challenges they have been able to lock down some good recruits.

“We have a couple of commitments that have been released and we have a couple of more that will be coming and a lot of those have been through watching film and communicating with the kids. It’s not as good a situation as you would have in a normal year, but how I am dealing with that is we are going to carry a few extra guys this year,” added Jordan.

This will create a more competitive practice atmosphere around the club and should help with the development of young players. However, when it comes to the uncertainty of next season, Jordan is telling his team to prepare like any other year.

“What our coaches have tried to do with the team is to try to model what we think the guys will be doing day by and day and concentrating on the process and understanding that there is a chance that we will be practicing fairly normally in September, but there is a chance that it won’t be normal. We still don’t have all the answers. Canada West is still trying to figure that out and we are being honest with the guys about that. Our message to the guys is to stay ready so you don’t have to get ready last minute.”