Video: Megan Walker highlights
See the nation's No. 1 female basketball recruit in action.In both men's and women's basketball, Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of athletes staying in state. 73 percent of men's players and 74 percent of women's players stayed in-state to play their college ball. The data takes into account all players at NCAA D-1, D-2, D-3, or NAIA schools.
The high percentage in Pennsylvania is primarily due to the massive number of colleges in the state that have basketball teams. Over 90 four-year schools in the state have a basketball program. Compare those numbers to Arizona, for example, which has 7 NCAA or NAIA colleges with a men's basketball squad. As a result, the percentage of Arizona players that play college in-state is around 15 percent for both boys and girls basketball players looking to play at the next level.
A map of where college programs are located gives further insight into which states have the most basketball programs to begin with.
Along with the number of opportunities in-state, another major factor impacting the decision for many athletes is the out-of-state vs. in-state tuition costs. Our HS Athlete College Guide provides the tuition costs (in-state and out-of-state) for all 1,309 men's basketball programs and 1,327 women's basketball programs. It also includes the number of athletic scholarship limits imposed by the NCAA or NAIA for each school, and calculates the average athletic scholarship money that a player on any given roster can expect to receive. The differences between in-state and out-of-state are drastic in some cases - take, for example, University of North Carolina, where in-state tuition with room/board is around $24,000 while out-of-state is double that total at over $49,000.
The ability of college coaches to spend their recruiting budget dollars on traveling also plays into the in-state numbers. Many coaching staffs make a concerted effort to recruit locally to strengthen local pipelines, and to save money in their recruiting budget. The HS Athlete College Guide lists every college team that has players from your state (and who those players are), so that you can learn which college coaching staffs are most likely to recruit your area, or which college programs don't currently have recruiting pipelines in your state.
MaxPreps is teaming up with Lateral Sports to share college
recruiting-related insights, facts and research that has never been
available before. Lateral Sports tracks data for NCAA and NAIA
student-athletes with the goal of helping recruits make informed
decisions. Purchase your copy of the 2016-17 HS Athlete College Guide here.
