Rethinking Player Development in College Basketball: What the NCAA Rules Actually Allow

I wanted to write this because of the number of comments and DMs I’ve been getting lately about player development. When players don’t make the leap people expect, the conversation almost always turns into the same question: Why didn’t the coaches develop her? It’s an understandable question, but it’s also rooted in a misunderstanding of how college basketball actually works. The NCAA tightly regulates when and how coaches are allowed to train players, and once you understand those limits, the development conversation changes completely. This isn’t about defending coaches or criticizing players. It’s about setting the record straight.

A lot of fans picture college basketball as unlimited access — daily skill sessions, constant one-on-one work, and coaches rebuilding players from the ground up. That assumption makes sense from the outside, but it isn’t reality. The NCAA strictly governs how much time coaches are allowed to work with players, both during the season and in the offseason, and those limits shape everything about how development actually happens.

During the season, teams are capped at 20 hours per week of countable athletic activity. That total includes practices, film sessions, walkthroughs, and required weight training. Coaches are limited to four hours per day, and players must receive at least one full day off each week. Those hours are not spent reinventing players. They are spent preparing for opponents, installing game plans, managing rotations, and executing defensive schemes. In-season basketball is about readiness and execution. There is very little time — or margin — for long-term skill reconstruction or physical transformation. If a player needs a fundamental overhaul, the season is the worst possible time for it.

The offseason isn’t what people think either. Outside the season, teams are limited to eight hours per week, and only two of those hours can involve on-court skill instruction with coaches. Two hours per week is not enough to create real change. It’s enough to reinforce concepts, not to transform a player’s game, body, or identity. That’s why most meaningful development happens somewhere else.

Real growth happens when players take ownership. It happens in independent workouts, with private trainers, skill coaches, and strength coaches. It happens outside mandated team hours, in empty gyms and controlled environments where repetition, confidence, and habit-building take place. Players like JuJu Watkins are open about this — training on their own, working with private trainers, and investing in development beyond team requirements. Dominique Darius showed this publicly as well, often documenting her individual workouts with her own trainer. They weren’t waiting on limited team hours to shape their growth. They took responsibility for it themselves.

The NIL era has also changed what’s possible. Many college athletes now earn enough through NIL to invest in their own development. Even working with a trainer once or twice a week is realistic for a lot of players now, and over time those extra sessions add up. This doesn’t mean every player needs a full personal staff. It does mean the barriers of access and affordability are no longer what they once were. Players today have more agency than ever over their growth, and with that agency comes responsibility.

There’s another part of development that often gets overlooked: training alone doesn’t equal development. Some players train, but they don’t change. They show up to workouts, get their reps in, check the box, and then play the exact same way they always have. The work never shows up in team practices. It never carries over into games. When that happens, it creates the illusion of effort without the reality of progress.

Individual workouts are controlled environments. Team practices and games are not. Applying new skills requires intent, confidence, and a willingness to struggle through mistakes. Coaches can encourage application and design drills that allow it, but they can’t force a player to trust new skills in live competition. When players don’t apply what they’ve worked on, coaches often get blamed for outcomes they don’t fully control.

This is why development timelines vary so widely, even within the same program under the same staff. Two players can receive identical coaching and end up in completely different places. The difference isn’t access. It’s ownership. When people say a player “looked better after college,” what they’re often seeing isn’t better coaching — it’s fewer restrictions. Professional environments allow players to train as much as their bodies can handle. There are no 20-hour caps. No offseason skill limits. Development naturally accelerates.

College basketball is built for competition within constraints. Coaching matters. Structure matters. Opportunity matters. But development — real development — is ultimately driven by the player.

And that brings this back to why I wrote this in the first place. When I get DMs asking why a player didn’t develop, the question usually assumes the answer lies with the coaching staff. In reality, development in college basketball is shaped by limited hours, strict rules, personal investment, and — most importantly — whether the work shows up when it counts. Once you understand that structure, the conversation around development changes. And that’s the clarification I’ve been trying to get people to understand.