LeVelle Moton lamented on the adverse effects caused by the changing landscape of amateur athletics.
The longtime North Carolina Central coach suggested NIL has turned recruiting into primarily a financially-motivated decision instead of a basketball one.
“We no longer are living in an age where it’s OK to just come up and see a successful basketball program, a successful football program, and a successful fan base,” Moton said during MEAC media day. “The NIL has taken all of that away.
“So now kids come up and say, ‘OK, that’s nice, but how much money y’all going to give [me]?’
“That’s the first question, literally. No one cares about the history of football or No one cares about the fan base or any of that. That’s the first conversation they want to have.”
Moton said NIL “makes it a little more difficult” to recruit for non-Power Five schools, including HBCUs.
“And unfortunately, we’re going to get the short end of the sticks, low majors, mid-majors, and so forth,” he said.
“A lot of high majors just recruit of our teams.
It’s always hurtful, to be honest, to invest in a kid who didn’t have any scholarship offers. You find them as a diamond in the rough, you mold them and try to develop them. They have successful years and they leave you for greener pastures.”
Even with the success the program has enjoyed in recent years, NC Central was not immune to losing players to larger programs. The Eagles leading scorer from last season, two-time All-MEAC performer Justin Wright, transferred to Loyola-Marymount.
The Eagles coach went on to say that college basketball has lost its “spirit” and sense of morality.
“So it’s like, whoa, the moral compass, the value system it’s no longer in the game of basketball,” Moton said. “It’s a straight business now. And so we’ve become general managers instead of coaches. It’s taking the spirit out of college basketball.
“So you [have]to re-recruit your entire team every year and then you got to re-recruit your best players because they have tampering [from other schools].”
