DChoosier

And he was still 17 when the season started and should have been a high school senior this year as he only spent 3 years in HS !!!!!!!

Am I the only one that doesn’t “get” the Apple AirPod commercial? But have to say that the dude was fantastic in Narco’s.

I’m stating the obvious but tourney game after game after game proves the need for a three level dawg guard. For the 10th or so year in a row that’s something we desperately need.

Off topic but I just saw a NBA draft projection and four of the top 25 picks (1,7,12,25) consist of the Montverde crew. Has any high school (I realize it’s not a “typical” HS) ever had 4 first rounders in one class? And to think we thought we had a shot at Queen (12th) and McNeely (25th).

5/6 of Florida’s top rotation guys are portal dudes. ALL 5 transferred from non-power schools. A couple of years ago who had that on their bingo card as a way to get to the Final game ???

It’s depressing when I watch some games that make me realize our recent teams were not even remotely close to being remotely close to being great. Just an eye opening difference.

There are rumors that MM is going to Kentucky. A comment by a concerned UK fan made me chuckle as he correctly said that when MM is on the floor he “flat tires” the offense. A more positive UK fan described MM as having elite athleticism which made me LOL. EDIT: I just read that after his UK visit MM is not going to UK. Not sure if it was a MM or UK decision. A number of UK fans had him slated as their backup PF. If the staff thought the same thing I’m sure that’s something MM’s NBA ears did not want to hear.

It’s really refreshing/fun to see how other schools play basketball. I realize the motivation of being in a FF game but man these dudes get after it every play.

Pack only played 9 games and none of them were past early/mid December. Goode played the end of season games (ie not season ending injury) during the year he is petitioning. Im no expert, or even close, but it would seem as though Pack has a better chance of winning his case which, like Goode, has not yet been decided.

In that case this recruitment/signing was very quick. Shows how quickly things can change.

Yep, I had never heard of RB until I opened the Tony Adranga spreadsheet that someone posted today. Tony had RB listed. Of the listed players two of them, RB and Nigel Pack had green backgrounds over their names which I am guessing means high mutual interest. If the Pack thing turns out to be real it will be nice that the Boilers will finally get to see him play in person. LOL

Wolf was one of my favorite players to watch this year. A really unique talent.

RB = Danny Wolf is similar to someone the other day comparing a 5’11” target, can’t remember who it was, to Yogi :)

It’s good to read that it seems we have landed RB (and he is a guy other majors were after). Agree the overall D looks a bit iffy but I’m not stressed as we still have a whole lot of slots to fill.

From 247 which has him ranked 35th out of all the portal guys: 35. F Reed Bailey Transferring from: Davidson The scout: Reed Bailey is a bit of a tricky evaluation. He was the second-leading scorer in the A-10 and took his game to another level by leaning on his drives and nifty finishes around the rim. He's a smart cutter and is nearly ambidextrous in the paint. Bailey is a competent low-volume shooter –– which he will need to tap into to maximize his value at the high-major ranks –– but he cannot be the back-line anchor defensively. There's very little true rim protection. Opponents shot over 60% at the rim against Davidson when Bailey was on the floor.

Agreed… that’s why I wrote “I’m a fan” in the first sentence of the Houston section. What he has done at Houston is EXTREMELY impressive.

Lots of discussion in regards to the type of player we should recruit. Not surprisingly it looks like there are multiple ways to get to the promised land (FF) Just read an article about how the final four roster building was done. One thing that stood out is that there were four different ways to make it to the FF this year. 1) 5 star dependent - DUKE - Chase the stars by landing top 25 high school recruits. Among the 4 FF teams there are a total of 7 players that are on the team they originally signed with, out of HS, as top 25 guys. ALL SEVEN of those top 25 hs players are on Duke. In spite of that Duke does have three portal guys, within their rotation, that see some minutes (especially Sion James). Going forward I think Dukes model will require a minimum of 20+ million a year in NIL. 2) mid major portal dependent - FLORIDA - Since his time at Florida (2022) Goldin has not signed a single 4 or 5 star hs recruit. 5/6 of his main rotational guys are from the portal and none of the 5 transferred from a power conference. 3) hybrid approach (I’m a fan) - Houston - KS only signed one portal guy last off-season (Uzan 44.5% from the 3 and 4.4 assists per) but Uzan and a portal signee from 2 years ago, Cryer, are huge parts of his success. Beyond that he has developed multi-year recruits into rotational players that out of high school were ranked 31, 69, 115, 144, 225. We already know this but KS is a great coach. On a side note players are also recognizing KS as his incoming class is ranked 2nd in the country including landing three of the top 25 guys in the country (the #1 rated PF, 4th rated 2G and 3rd rated PG). It will be interesting to see what he does with, and how he manages, that huge “on paper” talent upgrade. 4) highly portal dependent - Auburn- kind of similar to Florida but unlike Florida Auburn has landed some 4 stars and portal guys that are from power conferences. Auburn has 6 players averaging 9 or more points and 5/6 are portal guys. It is a positive for Pearl that this is the second year at Auburn for three of his five portal guys. I think that proven multi-year portal guys, if you can keep them, are great.

I’m guessing the only thing a lot of the student-athletes need to learn is the name of the person doing their online classes. Who can blame the “student athletes” when they have huge bags thrown at them, playing D1 sports is now a 12 month 40+ hour a week job, they are now (in basketballs case) often playing Friday or Monday games instead of weekend games that pull them out of class, going on 4-5 day west coast road trips, being academically eligible is a quaint relic from the past, etc etc etc.

From a statistical crime perspective the US is much safer than it was in the early 80’s. Not even close. Back then you heard about crime during a 30 minute news show or by reading a newspaper article. These days negative reporting is 24 hours a day on tv and social media. Seriously, take a few minutes and look at early 80’s crime statistics vs now.

I realize that Cooper Flagg is an outlier but it’s kind of funny that we thought IU had one of the biggest bags of all time last season, at 6mm, while Duke was paying Flagg 4.8 and you know their other 5* dudes were all getting 7 figures. Would not surprise me if their team payroll is in the 15+ million range.

I completely understand which is why I have clearly stated that I was not making an “oh no we need top 25 guys” post. It was merely a look at how active actual signings have been.

Someone must have funded Louisville with a huge bag$$$$$$. The same CBS ranking shows that 3 of the top 14 portal prospects are going to the Ville and all three were described as good shooters (I vaguely remember what those look like). A few other tidbits: 5 of the top 25 signees are going to the BT and 4 are going to the SEC (I would have figured the SEC would crush the BT) The 5 BT guys have signed with IU, IOWA, UM, PU, UCLA Tucker D is ranked 11th St John’s has signed 3 of the top 15 meaning a crazy 6 of the top 15 are going to Louisville or St John’s!

My following comment below is not intended to say we need top 25 portal guys. I looked at a CBS article, written at 8:30 am on April 3rd (ie there could have been subsequent signings), and scrolled down the top 25 to see how many of them have signed with a new team. Again, not an “oh my god we need top 25 guys”, but rather how active are those types of signings. My guess going in was that 6-8 of the top 25 had already signed but the actual number is 19/25. EDIT: the ranking list actually went down to the top 50 and I just looked and saw that only 5 of the 26-50 guys have signed so in total 24 of the top 50 have committed

We have no idea if that is true. I would guess that his original timeline included signing 4-5 new players by now, not including his son, but who really know’s?

Being “only” 8th or 9th in the SEC is similar to only being the 8th hottest woman in a room full of 250 supermodels. The Auburn men’s basketball collective “On to Victory” allegedly had 13mm (I.e. more than IU) to dole out this past season. They are very competitive.