kreed5120

Yes, the day of giving has been going on long before NIL was a thing. It goes towards the University to fund the athletic programs. The University doesn't pay for NIL.

I haven't actually seen any real film of these players. Highlight reels don't count as those only show the good. Harris probably has the highest ceiling.

Do we even have any available scholarships left?

Those are numbers that sound believable.

Unless you're a Kansas or North Carolina and can buy a title contending roster each year by reloading.

If you can dodge traffic on Exchange, you can dodge a ball.

I didn't even realize UA bought the Wonder Bread building. I wonder what even led to them purchasing that in the first place.

Once again a lower quality piece than what I'd find written here. If this is what journalism is these days, it's no surprise chatgpt is replacing the 'talent'.

The last time Toledo made the tournament the #1 song on the billboard charts was crazy little thing called love by Queen. The #1 movie at the box office was The Fog. The price of a Big Mac was $1.20.

I never want to play Kent in Cleveland. It's not like they were good this year, but Senderoff had them playing their best basketball in March when it matters most.

Has the MAC even been a 16 seed? That would be an all-time low for the conference.

I don't remember the exact specifics, but the auto-bid credit is split evenly. Additional credits earned go into a prize pool. That pool is then divided based off regular season and postseason performance.

That number does seem very high. Daron Holmes reportedly got $175k from Dayton this season and he came into the season as one of the favorites to win A10 POY. No knock to Ali, but I feel $100k would get you a stud (by MAC standards).

I wasn't looking at the volume numbers. I do see now that you mention it Harris had a pretty miserable start to the year, which explains why on paper his numbers look as bad as they do. It's nice to see he improved as the year went on. Hopefully he can continue to build on that at Akron. Wilson's sophomore season he put up some great shooting numbers. I'd be pleased getting that Wilson. His freshman and junior year he struggled quite a bit, particularly inside the 3-point arc. I'm not sure if he's just not good at finishing at the rim or what. Either way I expect Groce with use him as the proverbial 3&D guy.

I definitely feel better about the team with these additions. Our front court should be as good as any in the MAC. I'm still a bit concerned on whether we'll have enough offense. Okonkwo, from what I've seen, doesn't seem like a player you can run your offense through. Both Wilson and Harris have struggled to be efficient scorers. We're going to need to see improvement from everyone on that end of the floor as I'm just not sure we have that guy who can put the offense on his back.

They were the worst team in the Big 12, but they still finished the season #144 in kenpom. For reference, Akron ended the season at #122, so they weren't that much worse than we were. They just played a vastly tougher schedule. I'm not drinking the kool-aid to think this makes us instant favorites, but in a year that the MAC looks in a disarray, it's not like we need a super team to compete.

One just hopes another year of conditioning and developing places him ahead.

I wouldn't exactly say averaging 17 minutes a game, which is what Seth Wilson played, is hardly seeing the floor. That's nearly a half of basketball.

In that case, they should have went Rick Pitino. He's a vastly more proven coach and it would pee off your main rival. A win-win.

It's probably also a much harder sell now. In previous years it was come to Akron, we have 2 All-MAC caliber players and you could be that final piece we need to make the tournament. I know you have been dreaming of that since you were a kid. Now it's come to Akron. Our roster is very depleted, but you can easily earn playing time.

Kentucky fans doing mental gymnastics to defend this hire when they claimed before Calipari making 7 Elite 8s in 14 tournaments wasn't winning enough. https://tenor.com/x5LA.gif I feel blue bloods, at least in basketball (where you only need 2-3 studs), don't mean as much these days as before the NIL days. Kids are going to care more about securing a bag than going to some storied program that they didn't even grow up cheering for. That enables programs with deep pocketed boosters (Arkansas, Oregon, Texas A&M, etc) an opportunity to narrow the gap if they choose to do so.

Reports are Mark Pope will be the next Kentucky Coach. He has never won an NCAA tournament game...

I don't know if he can or can't help us. If he can, there is no point in redshirting. With how much the transfer portal has exploded, there is no promise of a tomorrow. Unless there is someone I'm missing, only Freeman and Tribble came to Akron as Freshman and graduated as seniors without a transfer in-between during Groce's tenure. The days of guys staying at 1 school for 5 years just isn't as common as it used to be. Also, Ali wasn't hurt by not having a redshirt year. He got an extra year of eligibility regardless from covid. He provided the team defense and versatility. He wasn't asked to nor did we need him to score. That team was probably our most loaded team offensively between LCJ, Cheese, Banks, and Xeyrius.

Ali Ali actually played meaningful minutes as a true freshman on the 2019-2020 MAC regular season title team. He even started 11 games. I'm not going to pretend to be an evaluator of talent, but if Groce thinks he can add something to this depleted roster, he'll play.

Anthony Pritchard has withdrawn his name from the portal and has decided to return to CMU.