DETROIT – Two weeks ago, the NCAA announced a moratorium on all on-campus and off-campus recruiting through April 15th. Oakland University’s Head Men’s Basketball Coach Greg Kampe said that makes it really tough to get players for next season.
“This is when we really log our miles,” Kampe said. “But mostly, this is when we bring players to our campus to show them around.”
Thanks to the moratorium on all recruiting, that is not in the cards for any coach or any players, so Kampe said he and his staff have been thinking outside the box.
“I talked with our media people at Oakland about putting together virtual tours of the campus,” Kampe said. “We even have a virtual game where you can walk through the tunnel, there’s a crowd of people there. We’re trying to get them to envision life at Oakland University while they’re sitting in their living room.
Coach Kampe is allowed to talk to players by phone or by video chat and he has been doing that a lot. He has four sports to fill for next season and the timeline is getting tight.
“I’m pretty sure the NCAA is going to meet and extend that moratorium,” Kampe said. “We start summer school on July 1 or 2nd and usually we get players on campus for orientation around the 25th of June. We have four openings. If this moratorium goes into mid-May, which it very well could, we would have a two-week period to get everything done and get them here. If [the moratorium] goes into June, I don’t know what we are going to do.”
On a lighter note, Coach told me he is playing a lot of online card games to pass the time and spending a lot of time with his new dog, eight-month-old Rookie.
After Rookie made an appearance, I made sure she met my five-month-old cat, Charlie. Seeing both animals on the screen gave us both a laugh. Kampe said having a pet during these trying times helps a lot.
You can watch the full interview above.
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