USC adds to their basketball staff

[Russ Smith]

In a move that surprised nobody since it had been rumored for 2 weeks, USC officially confirmed they have a new Director of Basketball Operations, Dwayne Polee.

If the name sounds familiar it should, his son, Dwayne Jr. is a soph to be in HS and verballed to USC after his 8th grade year. Seems the younger Polee sat out most of the summer AAU circuit to focus on school but after a very good performance in a recent camp he started to get attention from other schools. So Floyd simply hired his dad.

The beauty of this is not only does it almost guarantee Polee attends USC eventually, it saves a scholarship because children of USC employees get free tuition. This is how Hackett the USC guard is on the roster now but not on scholarship, his father is the strength and conditioning coach.

With the new APR rules and USC allegedly losing a scholarship(because Pruitt flunked out before turning pro), they won't even notice it since Hackett doesn't count against their 13, and Polee won't in the future.

To be fair Polee Sr does at least have a basketball background, McDonald's AA, played at Pepperdine, played professionally etc, but make no mistake he was hired because of his son. The rumor is they had been trying to fill this position by hiring Greg Monroe's AAU coach, but that apparently didn't work out. Monroe is the top rated recruit in the 08 class and has USC on his list of about 10 teams.

Not to worry if you're Tim Floyd as it appears Gib Arnold will leave as assistant coach after this season opening up a coaching job for him to recruit with.

 

[Russ Smith]

FYI, when ASU hired Pera and some of us said it was in large part to get a player, someone mentioned that as Director of OPS Pera would NOT be involved directly with recruits? Can anybody point me to something that says
that is in fact the rule?

I ask because Tim Floyd was quoted today in the LA Times as saying Polee has terrific recruiting connections and will be invaluable in recruiting to USC. But Polee said his job is to make sure players are on track academically and handle problems they may have with their housing.

I'm pretty sure someone said the rules were that Pera could NOT have direct contact with recruits which would imply neither could Polee, but Floyd clearly doesn't think that's true based on what he said?

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

I think only three members of the staff are allowed to actively "recruit" at one time (which means watch games at AAU Tournaments and make HS campus visits), so when Pera was originally hired he was not involved in that aspect nor was he allowed to do much practice work with the players. Of course, you can always use connections to influence visits and work the back channels to reach certain players.

You likely won't see Polee flying around the country with Tim Floyd trying to land kids, but he will use his connections to get some of them interested in USC.

 

[Russ Smith]

I think only three members of the staff are allowed to actively "recruit" at one time (which means watch games at AAU Tournaments and make HS campus visits), so when Pera was originally hired he was not involved in that aspect nor was he allowed to do much practice work with the players. Of course, you can always use connections to influence visits and work the back channels to reach certain players.

You likely won't see Polee flying around the country with Tim Floyd trying to land kids, but he will use his connections to get some of them interested in USC.

Right and Pera got promoted when Archie Miller left ASU so he can now recruit.

I asked Ben Bolch that question in email and he said Floyd probably didn't mean directly recruit just that because kids know who Polee is it might help attract potential recruits.

It's a grey area and one that Floyd is clearly going to exploit.

I think the bigger issue is that USC as a private school has found a very exploitable loophole to get around the 13 scholarship limit. Just hire players fathers and the player then gets free tuition and you don't have to use a scholarship on him. About the time Hackett leaves USC, Polee JR will come in also not on scholarship. Only private schools can do this.