trueblue32

It's definitely intentionally left vague. On these lists I almost always assume the best schools on the list are not actually offering. Recruiting in general is casting a wide net to say you were one of the first school's recruiting them when it comes time to make an offer. I'm sure with the transfer portal it's a lot of questions about why they're transferring and what they're looking for at their next school. I still have hope for Mading, granted probably at a lower level. He was the 240th ranked recruit nationally in his class, low to mid-majors don't usually have a shot at recruits of that pedigree even if it's on their second go around. I'm sure he will end up D1 if for no reason other than his recruiting pedigree. He's got potential and he can probably see the court more to develop that potential elsewhere

We're like 1/7th of the way to the total amount of transfers that will probably hit the portal and only a handful of them have verbally committed anywhere (for whatever that's even worth). Then there's also JUCO, D2, and HS players to consider. We only need to fill 5 scholarships so far, and up to 13 if everyone were to leave. Depending where our coach comes from some of our scholarships might be filled with transfers from the coach's previous stop. Patience.

Looks like he was making the same salary as Hodgson at Alabama. I see Georgia Southern's previous coach Brian Burg was making $230k FWIW. Seems likely Henry will be taking a paycut and would be within UB's salary range if that portends anything for the possibility of Hodgson.

I don’t care anymore. I’m just saying we’re not losing much. I’m excited for a fresh start

Williamson was recruited as an undersized center who then redshirted to lose all the bulk that even made that possible. He looks like a small forward out there even when he's in at the end of the game with walk-ons. My guess is he goes D2 and is productive there. Blocker got 42% of minutes this season and was the worst contributor on the worst UB team in 10+ years. We don't need to see anything more from him. Mading is clearly raw with high upside, but the injuries/family situation was out of his or anybody at UB's control. You can only do so much development if you can't practice. The "we need to see what we have in them" comments are always weird. The coaches see SO much of them in practice, if they couldn't help our worst team in forever they're not long term pieces in all likelihood. That said I wish them all the best and appreciate the work they put in at UB even though it didn't pan out.

I think this info was previously available but I'll consolidate it here MTE: Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, FL (Valparaiso, Wright St are other teams I've seen in this MTE so far) 12/2 vs. St. Bonaventure TBD @ UC Irvine

I'd hate for us to bottom out with an 88th rated team (per kenpom) after unexpectedly losing our star player to the pros two years early (Champagnie was a 0 star recruit). That'd be terrible for UB. Or when he bottomed out at 54th at Arkansas with 2 future NBA players still on the roster he left (Mason Jones was a 0 star recruit out of JUCO). Mike Anderson is a good coach.

Eh it’s a fun tag line but they were also at one point coaches on their way up. It’s a cycle but one has a track record of already doing it. I’m not against either but completely ruling someone out for a MAC job for not meeting high major standards is pretty silly. I listed like 5 coaches who followed this path and run a top 100 mid-major. I forgot Ritchie McKay at Liberty, there may be others. It seems like a pretty high hit rate if you have the resources to get one. I think people saw one top 25 season and believe we’re destined for that every year when we don’t have the facilities or resources to do that. Being a consistent top 100 program is not a small accomplishment at the mid-major level.

Starting a thread here since Zid Powell just hit the portal

I will say, Oats has obviously handled the press conferences terribly, but the decision to play Miller is above Oats' head and certainly above Hodgson's head. When the story broke the first person to say Miller would play was the AD. There is no school with more money to toss a coach aside that compromises the school's (legit) shot at their first national championship. If you think Oats should sacrifice his job on moral grounds and bench Miller, your standards are not grounded in any reality. Hodgson hasn't even made the public remarks that Oats has. I'm not sure why we would exclude Hodgson from a search because of this situation

Buffalo connections obviously matter for recruiting purposes. Also they obviously matter for the getting the best caliber candidate at the salary we can offer. Becky Hammon coached men under Greg Popovich. Nobody is hiring her in the NBA because she coached teenagers at the University at Buffalo LOL

$425k. Reality is he will probably have to take a paycut whenever he starts his head coaching career because it will probably be at a mid-major. How close we can get to matching that while also buying out Whitesell I have no idea

Also saw someone point out that Alnutt overlapped with Mike Anderson at Missouri who was just fired by St. John’s. AD ties, NY ties, played the fastest pace in the country the past two years. Mediocre results at St. John’s but he outperformed their last 4 coaches which says something. He also had pretty good results at his previous stops (Arkansas, Missouri, UAB)

I was a defender of the Whitesell hire as a means of continuity but by the end of year 3 it was clear he wasn't the guy and he had outlived his purpose after he was no longer retaining Segu/Williams. This is good news and let's hope Alnutt doesn't fuck this one up. Hodgson is the clear ideal candidate. I'd also love Josh Pastner. He flamed out at Georgia Tech but that's a hard place to win. He's super well liked, and other high major bounce backs have had success at mid-majors later on (i.e. Alford at Nevada, Kennedy at UAB, Pitino at Iona, other Pitino at New Mexico, Groce at Akron etc.)

We're listed in the second tweet in the thread

Another name that we'd be dumb to not eventually be connected to: Greg Dolan from Williamsville. He's a senior at Cornell and his sophomore year was wiped out by COVID. Still has a year of eligibility but Ivy League doesn't permit graduate students. He's currently averaging 13.5/3.6/3.6 and shooting 43% from 3

Just gonna start another thread for transfers that we're connected to

Nate Oats on his best player bringing a gun to another one of his players and resulting in a murder: “We knew about that. Can’t control everything anybody does outside of practice. Nobody knew that was going to happen. College kids are out, Brandon hasn’t been in any type of trouble nor is he in any type of trouble in this case. Wrong spot at the wrong time.”

Presumably Sports Reference's Play Index. Super helpful for coming up with random stats. Here's the query that gets you that: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/play-index/pgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&year_min=2023&year_max=2023&game_type=A&is_range=N&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_c=Y&c1stat=ast&c1comp=gt&c1val=7&c2stat=fg_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=100&c3stat=fga&c3comp=gt&c3val=8&c4comp=gt&order_by=fga Only 8 guys have done it nationally going back to the '10-'11 season: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/play-index/pgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&game_type=A&is_range=N&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_c=Y&c1stat=ast&c1comp=gt&c1val=7&c2stat=fg_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=100&c3stat=fga&c3comp=gt&c3val=8&c4comp=gt&order_by=fga

I don’t really understand this mindset, Mballa and Skogman were the first impact players we’ve lost since Shannon Evans? Maybe I’m forgetting someone but for all the (valid) Whitesell complaints creating an environment where our top players leave hasn’t really been an issue. Mballa made sense using a 5th year COVID eligibility to move from a rebuild to P5. Skogman was a little more confusing but this really hasn’t been much of an issue for us

I continue to be astounded by Isaac Jack, he already seems like the best post scorer since Perkins. Left, right, beautiful footwork, doesn’t panic when he gets the ball on a roll. Super polished for a freshman. I’ll admit I’ve been frustrated about the start of this season but we already have a win over the best team in the Patriot League, if we can close out a win over the best MVC team that at least convinces me Colgate wasn’t a fluke. The talent seems to be there but consistency is key