trueblue32

1 hour ago, Tee4three said:

What makes you say halcovage hasn't won a recruiting battle? 

It's probably hyperbole, but we haven't publicly landed anyone who had a Top 3/5/whatever and picked UB.

Tyson Dunn - no other D1 offers
Ryan Sabol - no other D1 offers
Lloyd McVeigh - no other D1 offers
Bryson Wilson - 1 D1 offer in 2020, 2 other D1 offers from service academies in 2023
Ben Michaels - no other D1 offers
Tim Oboh - no other D1 offers
Kavon Bradford - no other D1 offers
Sam Akot - no other D1 offers
Brayden Jackson - no other D1 offers within 10 months of committing. Unlikely any were commitable but maybe Halcovage won here
Anquan Boldin - A couple D1 offers, notably EMU. Probably a recruiting win
Shawn Fulcher - had some low major offers, we won this battle it seems and he was one of the worst players in the country

Transfers are ambiguous, they have long "interest" lists, but who knows on offers. Armani Mighty had a visit at Towson so I'll credit Halcovage with a win here. I'll give Halcovage 3.5 recruiting wins.

Now offers we had out that went to other D1 schools instead:
Alex Massung
Braden Hausen
Richard Brisco
Amarri Tice
Ma'Kye Taylor
Josh Reed
Samson Reilly
Angelo Ciaravino
Jack Graham
Isaiah Fields
Sultan Adewale
A host of transfer "interests"

These are just the ones with updates on our recruiting forum, I could be missing some. Not to mention all the Whitesell players he failed to re-recruit

It appears that the Cage replacement is... another former Villanova walk-on with no coaching experience:

9 hours ago, MuchMany said:

Again, no one thinks our recruiting is impressive right now, but this kid just doesn't matter. I just don't know why anyone would be hand-wringing over a low level transfer to Niagara in our transfer thread. But I'll be right there with y'all on Niagara Scenic Parkway for the parade.

You were in the recruiting threads talking yourself into a high schooler that we recruited that averaged 5.4 PPG so I don't get how you think UB (under Halcovage) is above a kid that averaged 8.1 PPG in the MVC, but blue tinted glasses and all I suppose

Edit: I guess my point is: Williamson isn't a high level transfer, and he'd still start for UB. I think people are downplaying how dire the talent level is on this team, and I guess they'd rather just close their eyes and be surprised about it in November

3 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Showing that he has more counting stats than our transfers who were role/bench players at P5 schools is meaningless. Yours and Chet's posts deserved hyperbole in response. I don't think anyone around here is overly optimistic about this team, but the snarky doomsday shit in April is just kinda tiresome, that's all. 🥂

Even if you throw away the rest, James Graham played at the mid-major level last year (in his 4th college season) and was significantly worse than Williamson. You invoked the Sabol comparison: Sabol was worse, on a worse team, in a worse conference.

Halcovage hasn't won a recruiting battle to date and Williamson has shown more at the D1 level than anyone that Halcovage has (successfully) recruited to date.

1 minute ago, MuchMany said:

Wow. In that case, all hail Jahari Williamson! King of WNY College Hoops!?

I definitely didn't say that he was a superstar. Just that the bar is on the floor when compared against UB's recruiting and he clears it. If you want to counter that assertion rather than be hyperbolic I will listen.

38 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Yeah just trying to put things in perspective since it seemed like an "even NIAGARA is getting incredible players in the portal and we can't" type of post.

TBF Williamson scored more points in one season at Valparaiso (238), than all of Halcovage's D1 transfers (Graham, Batchelor, Mighty) have in 7 seasons prior to UB (207). You can even add in Graham's 29 points at UB and they lose in 8 seasons. I understand the discrepancy in levels the transfers came from, but there's something to be said for getting ANYONE with ANY level of proven production in D1 basketball in two seasons

Williamson also bests Sabol in usage adjusted offensive efficiency as well some secondary categories (rebounds, steals, turnovers). Williamson is also rated better as a defender by a fairly wide margin.

If people didn't like Isaiah Adams' rebounding/defensive effort they are going to hate Noah Batchelor at the 4.

His career defensive rebound rate at Maryland was 11.1%, his block rate was 0.9%
Adams last year was at 12.3% and 1.3%, for his career at UB he was at 13.8% and 1.6%

Offensively, Batchelor was 3 for 4 at the rim in his career at Maryland (only 5.1% of his FGA).

Nothing about Batchelor is a 4 other than his height at 6'6", which is small even for the MAC

4 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Good news imo. Someone shared a graphic from Evan Miya that had Fulcher as the worst D1 player in the country last season. Could you repost please?

Would like to see a power forward brought in with this last spot now.

Worst among players who played at least 950 possessions, 5.88 points per 100 possessions worse than an average D1 player


I wish him well wherever he goes next but if Bradford/Dunn are what people are hoping they'll be he wouldn't have played next season. That said, we learned too many ball handlers never hurt.

18 minutes ago, DaBulls99 said:

My point was you have no idea if any of the current MBB signed guys are getting a nickel. Maybe AJ Boldin is? Maybe a Chellia is? Maybe Red Murdock is? Don’t make assumptions without getting good info (which I obviously don’t have either). 

I'm not making assumptions? Wouldn't making assumptions be throwing money at a group that just popped up thinking that it will be worth my money when no plan for anything has been announced?

I'm not assuming anything. I'm not giving the program any money (including season tix) until the coach is gone or he has us contending for the MAC. That is the opposite of assuming. Going forward I will be reacting to how the program/department performs because Halcovage and Alnutt have not earned the benefit of the doubt (assumptions).

The fact that Boldin was cited as a player that would be worth spending the money on shows what a joke this even is. He was a 7 PPG scorer on a 3 win team, and he's the son of a multi-millionaire. Paying some of the guys on the roster to enter the portal and open up a scholarship would be a better use of the money.

7 minutes ago, MKBullsfan said:

I know it might be early but this tournament is coming up soon. Anyone have an update if we will be back this year? I believe they are announcing the teams and haven’t heard about Blue Collar. 

I've heard that there will not be a Blue Collar U team this year

54 minutes ago, DaBulls99 said:

Message boards are great. This guys reality is based on complete speculation he has zero idea about. The collective is less than 24 hrs old and yet he’s down on it big time. 

I’m not down on the collective, I’m down on the decision makers running the athletic department. This is just another avenue for Alnutt and co. to light UB supporters money on fire. Last year I paid $275 per season ticket per home win and I’m supposed to be fired up about a monthly subscription to increase that?

If the collective opens an avenue to support for the next coach that comes in I’d sign up. The 13 scholarships are filled and none of them had other D1 scholarship offers, much less NIL offers. Donating money this year (for MBB) is going towards a bidding war that no other D1 schools are participating in

9 minutes ago, Dabulls said:

With our NIL just starting up I’d expect it to retain our commitments unless they get an absolute bag. BTW I also heard that Our new center, Mighty, was looking for a place with decent NIL. Must’ve saw the prospects of it
 

Bradford reminds me of Devin Ceaser a bit, very very athletic with a very decent mid range game. Good get since we needed some guard help 

If we're giving NIL money to anybody on this roster then we might as well shut the NIL collective down because it's just wasting money lol. There are no players on this roster worth paying for (which is why they are at UB)

He's from Portland and prepping in Canada. I think he would be able to be lured away eventually with NIL FWIW

7 minutes ago, Blue03 said:

With the new NIL program set up, allowing for stronger recruiting, how do we evaluate our coaches now? Do they get a grace year until they can actually use the collective properly? If GH3 has another disaster year does ADMA give him another year to apply this?

Letting Halcovage piss away the first year of money in an attempt to save his sinking ship is the worst thing that could happen for continued NIL support imo

Nice pickup. I think he's clearly the best recruit of the GH3 era. Clear D1 size/athleticism at a position of need. Didn't get a ton of run at BC but they were a top 75 team with the frontcourt being their strength, so he may have just been buried.

Hopefully the staff finds another similar caliber transfer with the last scholarship

6 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

It will be interesting to see who they bring in to replace him. Maybe someone with an ounce of knowledge and experience.  

Honestly don't think they'll be able to. I can't imagine any coach with experience coming and taking a lower title than Tibbs and Presutti who Halcovage named Associate Head Coaches for no reason. They painted themselves into a corner

1 minute ago, MuchMany said:

Gotcha. Any jist of what it said?

Some generic commitment quote with a pic of Long in a Hampton jersey, Cage in Hampton gear, and presumably the Hampton HC

3 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

I think Cage's family and daughter is down that way. May be it's a better location for him on a personal level.

I think it's partially that. I was also told in November/December that he was already eyeing the UB MBB HC position after GH3 (theoretically) would be canned. I think he didn't want to go down with the current staff and parachuted to a gig closer to home.

1 minute ago, MuchMany said:

Screenshot? He's private.

I don't follow Long either. Cage had posted it but now it appears to be gone (maybe it wasn't supposed to be public yet?)

Long is committed there though:

I had heard this about a week back, but I saw the first public acknowledgment of it in an Instagram story with Canisius transfer Xzavier Long committing to Hampton and mentioning Cage.

He had offers from UT, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Illinois-Chicago, Texas-San Antonio, and Wyoming

How many of our players had other D1 offers much less 2 ACC offers?

4 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

I was thinking the staff was going to go for size with two remaining scholarships.  I wouldn't be surprised if UB is no longer in the mix.

Yeah I wasn't sure about that. The tweet is from the same day that the Dunn signing was announced, but UB could've have reached out to him a month before that for all we know.

What the 2 time MAC Coach of the year had to say about Adams:

"'I have a tremendous amount of respect for Isaiah's talent level and competitiveness after seeing him play against us for the last two years in conference play,' Kowalczyk said. 'I told our players in our scouting reports that he was a first-team All-MAC caliber player. Isaiah is an extremely versatile player on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court. He can guard all five positions, score in the low post and knock down shots from the perimeter.'"

What ubfan.com had to say about Adams:

"I'd like him a lot more if he was an international freshman with no other D1 offers."