November Signing Period and rules
College basketball Recruiting for Division I basketball teams is also closely followed by fans. Schools are limited to having 13 scholarship players in men's basketball and 15 in women's basketball. The formal NCAA rules and processes for recruiting and signing recruits are similar, but the identification and recruiting of talent differs from football in important ways. Whereas football players can only play in a very limited number of competitive games per year, summer camps and traveling AAU teams afford prospects the opportunity to play outside of the regular basketball season. As a result, while football players generally only come to the attention of college recruiters after excelling at the high school varsity level, top level basketball players may emerge as early as the 8th or 9th grade. Players may also consider their AAU team as their primary squad, which can make high school basketball coaches less influential in the recruiting process than high school football coaches. Another key difference in the recruiting cycle for college basketball, as opposed to that of football, is the time of signing: First, basketball, along with most other NCAA sports other than football, has two signing periods during which all athletes are allowed to sign letters of intent—one in the fall (autumn) and one in the spring. The early signing period starts on the second Wednesday in November and runs through the third Wednesday in November. (Although football has an early signing period in December and January, its use is restricted to junior-college transfers.) The regular signing period in basketball does not start until the third Wednesday in April, after high schools throughout the U.S. have completed their basketball seasons.
