when should I expect them to appear? I'd like to change my depth chart, practice plans, etc. thanks

They should appear at the next cycle, which is at 2am-ish eastern (I am waiting for it too).  Nice PG recruit, especially for your first time recruiting.

really? thanks for the nice words but i was a little disappointed. Had my eye on two DII recruits as dropdowns, but despite the fact that they never 'considered' any schools they never gave me the invite to recruit them harder. oh well.

If they said you were a "back up option" or something to that effect, it's possible to "pull down" those recruits by offering a scholly, calling them, and doing scouting trips.  If you look at the recruits I got (which I am not thrilled with, but they'll fit my system decently), my PF recruit took me sending him 10 scouting trips and offering him a scholarship before he considered me.  

I was under the impression that if they say you're backup option, they would send you another email(or the assistant coach would), saying that you now have a realistic chance and that I should consider that follow up email the green light to recruit heavily.

Correct.  That is the drop-down method.  There is the pull-down method which is a different way of getting recruits from the higher division, but it is also more risky.  If they say you are a back-up option, it means they will at least talk to you.  At that point, you can blitz the recruit with calls, materials, a scholarship, and most importantly, scouting trips.  It can take up to 15 or more scouting trips to get a player to consider you, or it could be only 5.  Like I said, for that PF recruit, it took me 10 to get him to consider me.  Nobody jumped on him, so I didn't have to battle anyone.  Here are my efforts for him:

7/15/2010	Added to Watch List	N/A
7/23/2010	phone call	$10
7/24/2010	phone call	$10
7/24/2010	letter	$15
7/24/2010	call current coach - (2)	$20
7/24/2010	call current coach	$10
7/24/2010	scouting trip	$189
7/24/2010	phone calls - (6)	$60
7/24/2010	letters - (6)	$90
7/24/2010	scouting trips - (2)	$378
7/24/2010	rejected home visit	N/A
7/24/2010	scholarship offer	$100
7/24/2010	call current coach - (8)	$80
7/25/2010	scouting trips - (2)	$378
7/25/2010	rejected home visit	N/A
7/25/2010	letter	$15
7/25/2010	scouting trip	$189
7/25/2010	scouting trips - (2)	$378
7/25/2010	rejected home visit	N/A
7/25/2010	scouting trips - (2)	$378
7/25/2010	rejected home visits - (2)	N/A
	Total	$2,300

The risky part is you might have 2.5k in a guy who is still not considering you and then a d2 guy swoops in and takes him away.  That's pretty much a scholarship out the window.  Pulling down a whole class is hard in d3.  The top schools usually recruit about half and half, although I do like to go heavy on d2 recruits (and I have been burned).  So yeah, that's basically pull-downs.

thanks man. sounds like it would be pretty much impossible to pulldown a DII recruit that isn't very local. Scouting trips were pretty expensive for a lot of the guys I contacted, so 10+ would have gotten really expensive really fast.

Any reason you emphasized scouting trips as opposed to home/campus visits?

Players cannot refuse a scouting trip and it still counts as "face time" just like HV/CVs do. Plus they are obviously less expensive.

Weena's right, as always.  You get a fair bit less recruiting credit with the scout, but the risk of losing $1000+ on a refused HV can be brutal in D3.  And CVs?  I'm not sure any of my players ever saw my campus until they moved into their dorm. I just have the the asst coach give him a google map printout.  I'm not made of fancy D2 money.

Especially with my scrub conference mates not bringing home any serious tourney money.... ;)

Scouting trips shouldn't be very expensive.  One of the most important things with a D3 recruiting budget is to focus on players close to home.  Most coaches try to stay within a few hundred miles; in general I try to do most of my recruiting within 70 miles to keep costs as low as possible.

thanks for all the advice guys. thanks to the previous coaches, St. John's is ranked #16 going into the season. If we finish anywhere near that high, it will be in spite of my best efforts, ha.