kreed5120

This is my thoughts as well. His agent behind the scenes likely gathered a few offers and Okonkwo picked whichever one he thought was best. A deal was most likely in place before he even entered his name in the portal. It's also likely why the Memphis reporter broke the news he was entering the portal. His agent probably reached out to Memphis to see about getting a offer. Someone on staff passed the news onto the beat reporter. It would seem unlikely we would force him out. He was a productive player, particularly on defense which Groce loves, for us and his game was still developing offensively. Besides it would be a poor look for us to force a guy out this late in the recruiting process when we're promoting a team culture. Proven quality bigs are in short supply in the portal and cost a pretty penny. They all will find their way onto a P5 or high major roster. My best guess is we'll target someone under the radar who wants an opportunity to play and prove themselves. Parks from OSU is still available I believe. Some speculated we had interest in him earlier before we signed his his teammate (Evan).

It looks like he has visits scheduled with both Penn State and Villanova.

The YSU C committed to USC last night. @Captain Kangaroo lost one of his desired replacements.

We would only ever face those type of programs on a neutral court if we play them in an exempt tournament anyway. I don't mind playing Purdue on the road. Either we win and gain instant credibility or we lose, like everything expects, and it doesn't really ding us any sort of way.

That was kind of my thought process as well. He's going to be worth more to Tennessee than anyone else as he'll have to go in and learn an entirely new playbook. Perhaps even a new offense. Had he just transferred back in January he wouldn't be so far behind. Now he's playing catch up and many of the teams that would be willing to spend $2+ million on a QB already have a QB they're okay going into the season with.

I don't know, but all these kids have agents these days. It wouldn't surprise me if he had people in his ear telling him he could make double, triple elsewhere.

Really good move by Tennessee IMO. Tennessee's offense ranked 9th in the SEC and he barely surpassed 100 passing yards in the playoffs. I'd be surprised if anyone gives him $4 million this late into the recruiting process.

Bigs that are 6'10+, can run the floor, and score are hottest commodities in the portal. You're probably talking $1 million as every team wants them, but very few exist. Edit: I think we hit on just about every transfer last year, excluding Harris who got injured. We'll likely go a similar route and find someone under the radar and within our budget.

He probably can't afford to settle for less and if it was a lock and shut case Kent would have offered nothing. I don't really know the details of his contract or the infraction so it's impossible to know if it's a wise decision or not. Time will tell.

It's because what Kent offered him was less than what his contract stated. He's wanting all the money guaranteed to him, not a partial total.

He can't afford to simply walk away from the buy out. He has creditors that he already couldn't afford to pay.

Perhaps his agent reached out to Memphis staff to see if there was interest.

The 2025 season was a lost cause already. The talent level is that of a bad FCS roster. The ramifications of not having a coach in place more impacts the 2026 and beyond. It's going to be challenging for Kent to recruit for the future without a coach.

Daniel Rivera transferring out of UMass. He averaged 11.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 1.8 assists last year. He transferred into the program this past year from Bryant so this will be his 3rd school in 3 years.

Tennessee QB is holding out of camp as he's wanting his pay increased from $2.4 million to $4 million. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/44630900/qb-nico-iamaleava-skips-vols-practice-amid-nil-talks-sources-say

The news is a bit old, but I didn't see it posted elsewhere. The NCAA is looking to expand the regular season from 31 games to 32 games. That way teams have more opportunities to play more games against other conferences. https://www.ncaa.org/news/2025/3/25/media-center-mens-and-womens-basketball-oversight-committees-propose-32-game-maximum-contest-limits.aspx

I'd say $ has just recently started going to basketball and it's already paying dividends. We didn't even have a practice facility for basketball until this past year. Football has had theirs for 20 years. Football also plays in one of the nicest stadiums in all of the G5. Meanwhile, basketball has a bottom 2-3 arena in the MAC. Basketball has capitalized on the additional funding (largely donor given) by making 3 NCAA tournament appearances in 4 years. We're only the 2nd team in MAC history to do that. Buffalo being the other. Meanwhile, in 30 years all football has achieved is 1 MAC championship and 3 bowl appearances. Money had been flowing to football for decades and still is. It wouldn't surprise me if the University spends more on Infocision alone than it does funding the entire basketball program. Football had it's time to shine, but failed. Our long-term struggles can't be blamed on lack of NIL and scheduling. NIL has only existed for 3-4 years and it was maybe 10 years ago that we started scheduling multiple buy games. We're not going to have Groce and Bud forever. Let's make the most of it. When basketballs window of opportunity closes we can reevaluate.

Why keep throwing more good money after bad? We've seen little to no improvement on the money we've already spent on football (stadium, field house, multiple coach buyouts, etc) The amount of money it will take to compete in football, even at the G5 level, is going to be absurd as that's what 90% of the FBS schools will be chasing. Dollars will go much further in basketball.

AJ Brown has entered the portal. Reports are he's going to Florida to play with his brother.

The article hinted at that already. It said solid MAC players had been going for 20k-100k before. Now with revenue sharing those players making 80k-100k before will be making 150k or more. Revenue sharing will be done at the school level as the MAC right now doesn't have any requirements or stipulations. Also, schools can allocate to the different sports as they wish. If let's say school A commits 1 million with 50% going to men's basketball, that's $500k they didn't have before. If school B commits $800k to revenue sharing, but only allocates 15% of that to men's basketball, as they're going all in on football instead, that's 120k. That means school A has an additional $380k now to spend on men's basketball compared to school B. I think you will see more G5 specialize in 1 sport as trying to out spend your peers in both will be too costly.

An article was done regarding MAC basketball to see how much players are getting paid and what teams are spending the most NIL. They label Akron and UMass as 1(A) and 1(B) in spending. One MAC coach polled believes Akron is spending $1 million, or more, on this year's roster. They also said that guards are much cheaper to get in the portal compared to bigs due to how they're in short supply. That seems to be true as every MAC board I've viewed I've seen posters complain about big depth, including this one. https://www.toledoblade.com/sports/college/2025/04/09/briggs-wonder-what-mac-basketball-players-are-getting-paid-we-found-out/stories/20250409124

I shared this link elsewhere. It might be useful for you to include it on your original post. Someone has been updating it and inputting stats. Buffalo for example has 4 incoming transfers, but 3 of them are very much under the radar since they're D2/NAIA players. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1_KQr_u9-3pHbYajqHmII1vuwYWZJLmw2UImJrAsiIIM/htmlview?pli=1

For those interested, I found this elsewhere on the internet. It lists all the incoming and outgoing transfers for the MAC, including player stats. It was probably last updated 2-3 days ago as I see Vanderjagt listed for Toledo, but not Ohio's transfers. I'm sure it will be fully updated soon. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1_KQr_u9-3pHbYajqHmII1vuwYWZJLmw2UImJrAsiIIM/htmlview?pli=1

UMass has lost 8-9 players to the portal. They did just bring in a top 100 JUCO rated player to replace some of the production lost. I'm sure they will be active and add more. Their fan base doesn't seem to believe they will compete with Akron this coming year, but that it will be a top 4 MAC team. Miami has their 2nd best player and 2 additional rotational players in the portal. They still haven't added anyone. I think for them it's too soon to tell. They could be improved if Craft decides to return. Otherwise they will have to replace 26ppg, 9 rpg, and 5 assists from the loss of Craft, Potter, and Cooper. Ohio is losing AJ Clayton to graduation and Elmore James to the portal. That roughly offsets what they've added in the portal. I think they would still need to add another piece, which is certainly possible, in order to see meaningful improvement. Kowalchoke has had luck both raiding other MAC rosters and finding guys at the D2 level in prior years. I think they will be about on par with what they were this year.

Exactly, revenue sharing is about to start and it's not like the University has deep pockets. Akron revenue sharing $1 million to pay players goes much further to building a competitive roster than a flashy arena would and costs a fraction of the price. The JAR is like a 12 year old Toyota. It's not flashy, maybe even has a few rust spots, but it's still dependable to get you from point A to point B. When it starts to become dilapidated then it becomes a different conversation.