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The portal is the new normal. 4- or 5-year commitments to a single school are passe’. It’s fun to be wanted, and flirt with other schools. You can’t tweet #foreverazip unless you leave Akron. And those tweets, which always contain noble references to God and family, are great for the ol’ ego too. It’s often as much about ego, and the grass being greener at the next school, as it is about money.

It's not all about money

Probably a bit off topic, but I saw there is something like 1,400 in the women's portal. I found this a bit surprising. I get it with men's hoops as even between a CSU and UMass the pay difference for a starter is substantial. Maybe $75k-$100k difference, perhaps more for an all-conference caliber contribtutor. In the women's game those same wages aren't available. I read that UConn men's roster is $8-10 million spend while the women's is $1.6-$2.5 million. Don't get me wrong that's a good chunk of money, but that's comparable to what Utah State is spending on mens. Now if you take into account UConn is probably at or near the top in women's spending, that would mean most mid-majors are likely at $300k or less. Now mind you that's split across a roster of 15 players. It would seem to me a lot are entering the portal and end up making pretty much a similar amount unless they're going to one of the top ~50 programs that are investing heavily into women's hoops. It begs the question is it really worth making an extra $5k-10k if it disrupts you obtaining a degree because you're on your 3rd school in 4 years?

What if the children only care about the bouncy house and not the football?

I'm all for involving the community as long as the community benefits. How does the community benefit from bad football?

It may be telling to see which players are in attendance.

I had an inflatable Goodyear blimp hanging in my dorm from a basketball game around 07-08. So they must have cared about UA at some point lol.

I'll take things that didn't happen for $100, Alex.

The Randolph rumor has been floating since late last week. We'll see. I wonder if we'll see some big transfer news, or non-transfer news, at the presser on Wednesday.

Evan Miya grades him as an above average offensive player, but below average defender. Rated #53 in the MAC last season overall. Probably a win for both teams. He's better than what Ball State had last season, but a position UMass probably hopes to upgrade if they want to compete at the top of the MAC next year.

I assume Josiah was given a medical redshirt playing only 6 games with Akron. He actually got engaged a few days ago. I saw several Zips players on Instagram share it on their story so they must stay in touch.

There's always eligibility left if only you know where to look.

I didn't know Harris had eligibility remaining.

Josiah Harris in the Portal. Let's see if Dustin can land that plane!

I think it's just a prediction. But the player is intriguing

Whoops, I missed the "predicting" at the top. Removed to avoid confusion.

I don't think we've gotten anything officially. That's just a prediction. Considering the page only has 6k followers and can't even spell the players name correctly it's hard for me to give it much weight.

Edited to remove confusion.

6'10" 240 lbs big man. Averaged 37.5 mpg, 20.8 ppg, and 15.4 rpg for Southern Wesleyan if I'm reading their website correctly.

Yeah, I think when I looked a few days ago they only had ~300 out of the ~1500 portal players rated. I don't even think they listed Young in the portal until about a week after he declared. It feels there are much better sources out there for listing and ranking portal players. Unfortunately most of them are hidden behind paywalls.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DW-p45jDf-G/?igsh=dGs0Y2libG91cjZl

FWIW 247 has Eric as the #138th ranked portal player. Guys around him have committed to Bama, Miss St, Oregon State, Wake Sharron is not ranked in their top 247 Neither was Gillespie, so that may answer the "FWIW" part of this post now that I am typing this out 😆

That’s the gambling equivalent of losing 18 cents in the penny slots.