Welcome to the modern world of basketball recruiting. Who knows how many social media accounts you're currently running, browsing, and consuming, but if you don't already have it, you're about to add another to the collection. Twitter/X is the resource for basketball recruiting for coaches and scouts. Here players promote themselves with clips of their play, stats and more, to slowly improve your name recognition amongst these decision-makers who are constantly looking for talent. Let's run through some tips to get you up and running so you can start building a name for yourself.
Create your account
First up, sign up and make yourself a profile.
- Make your handle some variation of your first and last name. Coaches need to be able to search this.
- Your profile picture should be one of you playing basketball in uniform.
- Your bio should include all relevant recruiting information — for example, your height, position, country, and GPA if appropriate (
6'4" SG, Australia, 2.7 GPA). - Under "Website" you should include a link to your highlight tape or a recruiting profile page if you have one.
Follow coaches
The next step is to follow as many coaches in your projected level as possible.
- The best way to find these is to seek schools at your level, find the team's basketball program page, find the roster, go to coaches and then search their name on Twitter/X and follow.
- e.g. for NCAA D2 → NCAA D2 Rankings → find a school → Bearcats Basketball Roster → find Head Coach and Assistant Coach (sometimes the AC is the priority over the HC) → search their name on Twitter/X and follow.
- Some other accounts to follow: AUSA Hoops, AUSA Hoops WBB, Verbal Commits, JUCO Advocate, JucoRecruiting, Prep Hoops.
Highlight tape
Post your highlight tape via YouTube link and write a post to describe what it is — maybe where the majority was filmed (a particular tournament, on an AAU tour, throughout rep season, etc.).
- Tag AUSA Hoops or AUSA Hoops WBB. That way we can retweet and help your video reach more coaches and scouts.
- Pin this post to your account.
Coach communication
If your video gets retweeted by a coach or another account, make sure to thank them in a tweet and follow their account.
- If any coach follows you back, you should directly introduce yourself.
- Getting every college coach to follow you on Twitter/X is time-consuming. However, you can update your Twitter/X account to receive DMs from people you aren't following. Depending on the phone you're using, either tap the gear icon in your "Me" tab, click on the navigation menu, or click on your profile icon. Select "Settings" and tap "Privacy and content." Next to "Receive Direct Messages from anyone", toggle the option on.
Other things you can do
- Posting highlights — even chopping up your highlight tape into small clips
- Workout clips
- Game clips
- Motivational quotes
- Congratulating teammates or retweeting their clips/accomplishments — shows you're a good teammate
- Retweeting pro athletes
- Posting academic achievements
In summary
Can Twitter/X help me? Yes. When used properly, players can use Twitter/X to increase their chances of being recruited by college coaches. Take initiative. Follow and interact with the accounts of the schools you are most interested in being recruited by. Remember, coaches monitor student-athlete tweets and use Twitter/X to communicate with recruits and share information about their program. NCAA Twitter/X rules allow coaches to reach out to recruits once their appropriate contact period begins. Be sure your account settings are ready to receive DMs from college coaches.