Guide
When can a college basketball coach contact my child, and what do the recruiting periods mean?
Division I men's basketball has four named recruiting periods — recruiting, evaluation, quiet, and dead — and each one sets different limits on when and how a coach may make in-person contact with your player.
Updated Sep 19, 2026
The four periods, in plain English
The NCAA calendar for Division I men's basketball divides the year into four types of periods. During a recruiting period, a coach may make in-person, off-campus contact with your player. During an evaluation period, a coach may watch your player play or practice off campus, but may not make in-person, off-campus contact. During a quiet period, a coach may make in-person contact only on the college's own campus. During a dead period, a coach may not make in-person contact with your player anywhere — on or off campus — and your player may not make an official or unofficial visit to that campus. The calendar assigns each week of the year to one of these four periods. The specific dates change each year, so check the NCAA's current recruiting calendar rather than relying on last year's dates.
What 'contact' means
The NCAA defines a contact as any face-to-face encounter between a coach (or a booster) and your player, or your player's relatives or legal guardians, during which any dialogue occurs beyond a simple greeting. A face-to-face encounter that is prearranged, or that takes place at your player's school or at a competition or practice site, counts as a contact even if no conversation happens.
What 'evaluation' means
An evaluation is any off-campus activity designed to assess your player's academic qualifications or athletic ability. That includes visiting your player's school — even if no conversation takes place — or watching your player in any practice or competition. During an evaluation period, coaches may do this but may not speak with your player off campus.
Division II works differently
Division II has its own rules. For a four-year high school player, off-campus recruiting contacts are permitted after June 15 immediately preceding the player's junior year in high school. The sources do not publish a full Division II period calendar equivalent to the Division I calendar, so check with the specific school's compliance office for details.
What our data shows about where players land
The recruiting period rules are the same for every Division I program, but not every family has equal access to that pipeline. In our database of 39,620 high-school players tracked to the college level, 77% of players from the top 10% of high schools — ranked by their record of sending players on — reached Division I. Among players from high schools in the bottom 25% by that same measure, only 8% reached Division I, while 13% reached Division II and 78% reached Division III. The rules on when coaches can call do not explain that gap on their own, but knowing which period you are in matters most when coaches are already paying attention.
What the sources do not tell us
The sources define each period and show the shape of the 2026-27 calendar, but the calendar document does not make every specific start and end date readable in a plain text format. We have not printed specific dates for that reason — a wrong date could send your family to a coach during a dead period, which creates a violation. Go directly to the NCAA's current recruiting calendar PDF to confirm exact dates for any given week. The sources also do not address how many contacts are permitted within a recruiting period.
What this page is based on
Every rule stated above was read from one of these documents, not from memory. Open them and check us.
- 2026-27 DI Men's Basketball Recruiting Calendar
NCAA · the body that sets the rule · read Aug 31, 2026
- 2026-27 DII Recruiting Guide
NCAA · the body that sets the rule · read Aug 31, 2026
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