Ken Ruinard / staff file / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
College basketball coaches consider a ton of different factors when it comes to evaluating the recruits who may end up joining their team. That includes Troy’s Scott Cross, who has a very unique requirement involving Waffle House.
It goes without saying having an eye for talent is one of the most important skills you can possess if you’re in charge of assembling a college basketball team. However, you also need to be able to evaluate a player’s character to determine if they’re going to buy into the culture you’re attempting to cultivate while promoting the largely intangible chemistry that can make or break a season.
Scott Cross has done a pretty good job checking those boxes since taking over as the head coach at Troy in 2019.
It took him a couple of years to turn around a Trojans team that had largely floundered under Phil Cunningham, but they’ve posted at least 20 wins four seasons in a row and recently punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017 by claiming the Sun Belt tournament crown with a victory over Arkansas State.
Troy has a tall task ahead of it as a 14-seed that’s slated to face off against Kentucky in the first round (they’re listed as 10.5-point underdogs), but it’s pretty clear Cross has things trending in the right direction based on how the Trojans have looked over the past few years.
On Monday, Cross sat down for an interview with the KRS+ show Here Comes the Boom ahead of Friday’s showdown with the Wildcats to shed some light on his approach to assembling a roster, and it turns out Waffle House plays an integral role in the players he ends up targeting.
NEW: Troy head coach Scott Cross explains to KSR+ why he only recruits players that like Waffle House.
“We offhand ask them, do you like Waffle House? If the answer is yes, we sign them. If it’s no, we never get them.”
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— Jacob Polacheck (@PolacheckKSR) March 18, 2025
He noted he floated the idea of eating at Waffle House to two potential recruits who emphatically shut down the proposal and ultimately never signed with the team.
That transpired before forward Nick Stampley specifically requested a meal at the restaurant when he visited Troy before transferring, and Cross eventually realized it served as the perfect litmus test for the kind of guys he wants to play for him, saying:
“From that point forward, we offhand ask them, ‘Do you like Waffle House? ‘If the answer is yes, we sign them. If it’s no, we never get them.
I told my staff, you can save a lot of time and money, first phone conversation, in passing, ask them, ‘Do you like Waffle House or not?’”
It’s only crazy if it doesn’t work, and it seems to be working out pretty well for Troy.