College Hoops: Digital ACC Preview - Team #11: The U of Miami

We continue our journey through the ACC in search of digital goodness - taking a look at the conference through the eyes of high school athletes hungry for excitement on these programs.

Technology is changing the recruiting world. It's a chance for coaches and teams to share what it means to be a part of their system. And not all digital is created equal. We last left the story here, talking through #12 Boston College.

Let's keep rolling.

#11. Miami

Hitting the U's athletic department site (link here)was a little disappointing, witnessed by this low ranking. There were two key things going for it: 1) access to follow the program through Twitter (see the link deep down on this image) utilizing the Twitter logo and 2) Putting "For Recruits" in the navigation. These are two big points of difference, but sadly are all I could find going for the school. But we do have a program with 2 key pieces that I'll dive into now.

The department does have a Twitter site, here. They've got around 1,100 followers and had 132 posts at press time. But it is general. There is no simple way to follow basketball. From what I could tell, none of the hoops coaches are on Twitter.

Back to the site, check out the top navigation. There is a nice, bold "for recruits" tab. Wow. That is just an amazing setup, and the U clearly recognizes this site traffic is recruiting influenced. Then we get to the content beneath (see image below). This is never sport-specific, unless you call football only sport specific, with national titles listed. The rest of the content focused on NCAA rules or simple contact information and not exciting content a high school athlete might want to check out... or to check out the site again once you've seen it once.


Ironically, the Twitter site is not listed under the recruits tab.

If you click under Multimedia, you also get a look at Hurricane Podcasts. It doesn't look like these are very updated or managed, which is sad as there is a great thought here. I see a sample of post-practice hoops interviews (sadly merged with non-basketball content). But this idea is again, startlingly good, if they can follow through.

Finally, I'll end my tour of the U with this comment. The navigation stays consistent no matter where you are. Which sucks when you (as the stud high school athlete) select basketball. Check the image below... and there, prominent on the page is a tout to the football program's success. Show me the hoops program's success - after all they were in the NCAA tourney in 2008 and hit the Sweet 16 in 2000.

I see potential in Miami (don't we all love that P-word?), if they can build on their strengths. That said, there is a LONG ways to go.

Stay tuned for Monday, when I'll bring us into the top 10 (of the ACC).