Big Sky Conference Best Practices: Northern Arizona's Recruit to Shoot

What do you stand for? And do you really stand for it? Enough to put it out there in front of everyone?

This is a tough one for any of us. In life, in work, or in your program. If you had one thing that you were building an identity around, what would it be? Do you lock opponents down? Do you outrebound everyone? Northern Arizona tells you what they stand for and then backs it up.

Hit the Northern Arizona Basketball Page and note the collection of basketball links in the lower right-hand corner of the page.

I'll zoom in to make it easier. You'll note a callout for "Recruit to Shoot," where we will now turn our attention.

Clicking in takes us here, to a statement that "We Practice What We Preach". It is followed with a list of where the squad has finished in 3 categories: 3 point shooting %, Field Goal %, and Free Throw %... going all the way back to 1996.

The bottom of the page gives context: Northern Arizona is one of 4 schools to rank in the top 15 for the past 3 years, along with Kansas, North Carolina, and Florida. And they've led the nation in 3 point percentage 4 times.

Now I want to add in one thing that is a curveball: Last season they only shot 62% from the Free Throw line (per their numbers). Definitely not a good shooting team at the line. But Northern Arizona didn't hurry and change their mission. They also didn't leave this off their site. Their identity is shooting and they will stick with it.

Finally, this identity is easy to recruit from. For a student athlete, is that you? Do you want to be a part of a system built for shooters? And for the coaching staff, it helps you know who to go after.

So... How could this be better? If shooting is your identity, make it your identity. Elevate shooting to the home page. Hold shooting camps for kids, elevate highlights of the best shots, put those "3" signs in the gym when a 3 drops. Maybe you could give t shirts away via Twitter every time the team hits a 3? And elevate your in-season shooting standings in realtime on the site. The bottom line is this is a rallying point for the team, we just need to bring this home!

Tune in tomorrow as we share more inspiration from the Big Sky! And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.

Andy