kreed5120

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Anthony Pritchard has withdrawn his name from the portal and has decided to return to CMU.

In the article it states that the median collective is paying $750k for P5 schools and that number is projected to double this coming year. There is certainly a lot of negative surrounding NIL, but the one positive is I don't think it will be long before you see a lot more players sticking around the full 4-5 years of college. 5 years from now it very well could be that unless you're a lottery pick, the pay is better to stay in college instead of being a late 1st to 2nd round pick.

To be fair, ABJ reporting on everything has gone downhill.

The Vegas odds I saw today had Scott Drew as the favorite. If thats who they land, that would mean Hurley, Oates, Jay Wright, and probably Donovan all turned it down and would be a massive fail on Kentucky's part. Drew has only made made it to 1 Final Four in his 20+ years as a D1 head coach.

Yes, it's why I'm glad Ohio doesn't allow player prop bets for college sports. It's one thing for a guy who gets paid millions as a pro to deal with nimwits. It's another thing for a college student who most likely will never even go pro.

It also begs the question, is UCLA even a blue blood anymore? They obviously have the most titles, but all of that was mostly under Wooden. They have only made it to the Elite 8 4 times this century and only have 1 national title within the last 40 years.

The college game has changed a ton since Donovan was at Florida. It's anyone's guess how well he'll adjust.

UConn now had as many national titles as UNC and 1 more than Duke. Those titles are split between 3 different head coaches. I'm not sure I'd quite put them in the same category as the blue bloods because year in and year out they haven't consistently had that same level of success, but they're certainly entering the conversation.

I'd be thrilled, but with that list of interested parties, I'm not going to hold my breathe.

He's going to have to invest in some stress balls.

It's Canisius, the options were probably Christian or some no name assistant.

I'm by no means a Calipari stan. I'm more just tired of the entitlement you see places by fans. I feel Calipari will be fine at Arkansas. The Tyson family (chicken), who are big boosters at Akransas and friends with Calipari, are paying his salary and giving him $6 million in NIL annually to play with. I don't think he's going to achieve more at Arkansas than he did Kentucky. I just feel the fans in Arkansas will appreciate it unlike Kentucky.

Thanks for sharing.

Two of those seasons were impacted by covid. One was a canceled postseason. The other a shortened and a sh**-show of a season with players missing weeks at a time from covid. It's really 1 win in 3 years, which admittedly is bad for Kentucky, but not bad enough to be fired given that he had Kentucky perennially in the Elite 8 up until covid happened. Buckeye fans are similarly delusional calling for Ryan Days job even though he consistently has the Buckeyes in the top 6-7 every year.

If I was him, I'd bolt too. Why stay where I'm not appreciated? He's made 7 Elite 8 and won 1 national title. If he does that at Arkansas, he'll get a statue and be a legend. Meanwhile, Kentucky fans want him fired.

I doubt NIL is the reason most of these players are transferring. Unless you're a first or second team all-MAC player, you're probably not going to get much, if any, NIL money.

If anyone is curious about diving into learning about NIL, I stumbled on this and skimmed the thread. From what I read in the thread there were a few key takeaways. - UMass Collective tries to have 3-4 players on NIL - Top role players sign for $20k-$30k. The borderline all-conference team types are $50k. Daron Holmes at Dayton signed for ~$175k - The collective spent $170k on this past seasons roster. They're pushing for $400k for next years, but it sounds they're not close to that total. https://www.umasshoops.com/newboard/viewtopic.php?t=16856

Seth Hubbard transferring from WMU to Toledo

I don't think he's going to go there either. I'm more saying even the Dukes make more sense than Akron if he's looking to move back to the area.

I'm very much aware. The arena will house the hockey team as well. The basketball program will play second fiddle in their own home arena. As I said before, their basketball program is a distant third in popularity behind football and hockey. That won't change.

I think the real issue is accurately measuring others as there is no easy way of determining what others spend. The UMass AD, in an interview after making the move to the MAC official, stated only a few MAC programs have collectives for men's hoops. He stated UMass collective is significantly more substantial than anything in the MAC and it should give them a competitive advantage. I don't think it's that Akron has been spending significant sums. I would imagine it's more that many of the smaller G5 have nothing in place. A school like WMU might have more in total, but basketball seems to be a pretty low priority. I imagine football and hockey eat up the vast bulk.

Does anyone really think that he's coming to Akron? I'd guess Duquesne would be well ahead of us in the pecking order as well. He'd play for a coach he knows and the A10 is leaps and bounds better than the MAC.

Yes, it appears to still be a work in progress. Even the donate link doesn't work (at least not for me). It's still nice to see something is being worked on to avoid us from falling behind.

Maybe if @clarkwgriswold wins the powerball, he can replenish his collective.