Hello all! I am sure like me you are clamouring for some Catamount related information. It has been a incredibly quiet offseason thus far. With no basketball camps the program is quietly going about getting ready for the upcoming season. On the recruiting front the lack of information is somewhat due to how the extra COVID year of eligibility is affecting roster construction. Next year's roster (including walk-ons) is at 18 players. 14 or 15 of those players are on scholarship. That leaves no wiggle room to offer scholarships for recruits in the 2022 class. After this COVID year teams will have to go back to only 16 total players and 13 scholarship players. So this year's recruiting trail is going to be pretty quiet. Also recruiting has fundamentally changed with the one time transfer rule. The April-May transfer period is going to be equally as significant for roster construction with players moving freely between teams. All in all there is probably not going to be a lot of news.
The big news right now is how the new Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) guidelines will affect college athletics. It is an absolutely a welcome and necessary change that has been a long time coming in college athletics. The amateurism model has been archaic for some time and it is about time it was modernised. This discussion around NIL gets very lopsided as attention gets focused on big deals for the most famous and high profile athletes and there will certainly be some big time money thrown around. However many of the students that are going to benefit from this are the ones with YouTube channels, big followings on Tik Tok or Instagram, and other tech/social media savvy athletes. Also sports like track where product endorsement is big, will greatly benefit athletes. For Vermont athletes specifically there will be ample opportunities to partner with local business as there will be no competition from pro sports or other colleges. It will be a very interesting part of being a fan this year as there will be many interesting stories of the creative and different was on which athletes choose to make money.
That is all for. Enjoy the Summer!
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