There's a fundamental disconnect in the college basketball recruiting process: student-athletes are recruited by specific coaches, but once they sign a formal Letter of Intent (LOI), they're bound to the school.
That's a subtle -- but important -- distinction.
Let's say you're an elite player like Xavier Henry or John Wall. You've been recruited by John Calipari. You want to play for Cal -- you like the style of offense he runs, you felt comfortable with him and his staff during your recruiting visits, you believe he can help you become a pro like Derrick Rose or Tyreke Evans. So you sign a letter of intent to play for Memphis.
And then Cal takes the job at Kentucky.
That letter of intent binds you to Memphis. You can ask for a release, but releases aren't always granted. There's a chance you could be stuck playing for a coach you've never even met.
This happens often enough that, in recent years, top recruits like Henry have insisted on add-ons to their letters of intent, giving them an out if the coach takes a new job. When Calipari left for Kentucky, Henry was released from his commitment and eventually signed to play for Bill Self at Kansas.
Apparently that's too much flexibility for the NCAA to allow.
The National Letter of Intent Policy and Review Committee of the Collegiate Commissioners Association has established a new policy, stating that any letter of intent that includes advance agreements to release players in the event of a coaching change will be declared null and void, Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News reports. Players who want a release will have to go through the formal process of requesting one... but those requests are not always granted.
How will this affect the recruiting game? As Weiss rightly points out, we'll probably see more top recruits waiting as long as possible before signing on the dotted line. My guess is, we'll also see recruits shy away from up-and-coming coaches who seem ready to move on to their next gig... which could really hurt mid-majors like Xavier or Western Kentucky -- schools that seem to do an excellent job of finding coaches on the rise.
In a perfect world, the LOI would bind players to a combination of coach and school, and releases would automatically be granted if the coach leaves or there's some major change to the school's status -- if the school was placed on NCAA probation and banned from postseason play, for example.
But then, the NCAA has never been accused of perfection.
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