Transfer Portal

[Slim]

On 8/31/2021 at 6:16 PM, MKBullsfan said:

I don't get it. How can they go from D-1 down to Juco? Isn't it usually Juco to D-1? Especially how can Malik go Juco to D-1 then back to Juco?

Last year did not count on the books ... players can repeat which is why there are so many transfers. Seniors last season are seniors again this season, ditto on down the line.

[DocCas86]

This offseason there were a total of 62 players that entered the transfer portal from the MAC.   Here is current summary of their destination:

As you can see - half of the players that left scored less than 2.5 points per game, more than half ended up in JUCO or D2.  Taking it a step further, roughly 2/3rds of the transfers were to teams ranked >200, JUCO or D2.

There were 10 players (out of 39) who scored 10 PPG or more in 2020-21.  All but two of the players came from teams that finished in bottom five of MAC last year, underscoring the best way to hold onto your best players is to be successful.  It is interesting that two of the players remained in the MAC, but moved to arguably a better team.    

[DocCas86]

Transfer portal already starting to fill up - 291 players so far per verbalcommits.com.  There should be some opportunities for the team to fill the void left by graduating seniors.

Edited March 12, 2022 by DocCas86

[Gxtrex]

No doubt there will be plenty of players available via juco, HS, and transfers. But how desirable will we be? Offering immediate playing time should help. 

[Tee4three]

15 minutes ago, Gxtrex said:

No doubt there will be plenty of players available via juco, HS, and transfers. But how desirable will we be? Offering immediate playing time should help. 

I think we will be fairly desirable for 2 reasons

1. We play a "fun" system - like to run and play aggressive defense

2. Playing time as you mentioned

Also add players have seemed to really like playing here. Haven't had any rotation players even enter the portal now for a couple seasons. That means something 

[DooleyBull06]

We’ve gone down the portal road a lot under Whitesell with mixed results. My only concern is bringing in a transfer and that transfer expecting to start. We need to center the future of this team around the younger guys. Mading, Williamson, Jones, Blocker and Caesar. Obviously Skogman has his role cemented. My point is we can’t bring in a transfer then continuously play that transfer even when they are bad, at the expense of playing and developing a younger player. IE Brewton/Blocker. Or Antwan Johnson or Gave Grant. It’s all a delicate balance. And of course who knows…someone may portal out of UB

[DocCas86]

On 6/24/2021 at 8:00 AM, DocCas86 said:

I believe the Bull's roster is set for upcoming season, such that it would be difficult to find playing time for any additional players who are immediately eligible to play this year.  However, I was looking at NCAA rules and if a player has transferred once already - they are not immediately eligible for this season.

The Council expanded the one-time transfer exception to all sports, which means student-athletes who play baseball, football, men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s ice hockey have the same chance as all other student-athletes to transfer and play right away. If ratified by the board, the change is effective for student-athletes who have not transferred before and want to compete at a new school as early as this fall.

Not sure what talent is in the portal still who falls into this category, but know that we have a couple open scholarships, is it possible that we get another player who would red-shirt this year and be eligible for the following season.  It would be nice to have a experienced player available for the 22-23 season, especially given expected graduations of Williams, Mballa and Segu.

One of the few times I made sense? 🙂

[SGBull]

Not sure if I missed this on here but Fagan entered the portal. Also an surprised he has any eligibility left.

[DooleyBull06]

3 hours ago, SGBull said:

Not sure if I missed this on here but Fagan entered the portal. Also an surprised he has any eligibility left.

Remember he blew out his knee twice. Prolly got medical redshirts

[clodney]

On 3/12/2022 at 11:57 AM, Tee4three said:

I think we will be fairly desirable for 2 reasons

1. We play a "fun" system - like to run and play aggressive defense

Our system may be "fun" for players since Whitesell lets them do whatever the hell they want on offense, but since he became coach he has completely abandoned the aggressive defense that the Oats teams were known for. Just take a look at "forced turnovers per game" the last 4 years.

2019 (Oats final year) - 15.2 tpg (29th in D1)

2020 (Whitesell) - 14.3 tpg (71st)

2021 (Whitesell) - 13.1 tpg (171st)

2022 (Whitesell) - 11.4 tpg (266th)

Edited March 30, 2022 by clodney

[DooleyBull06]

8 minutes ago, clodney said:

Our system may be "fun" for players since Whitesell lets them do whatever the hell they want on offense, but since he became coach he has completely abandoned the aggressive defense that the Oats teams were known for. Just take a look at "forced turnovers per game" the last 4 years.

2019 (Oats final year) - 15.2 tpg (29th in D1)

2020 (Whitesell) - 14.3 tpg (71st)

2021 (Whitesell) - 13.1 tpg (171st)

2022 (Whitesell) - 11.4 tpg (266th)

I wonder what our turnovers on offense per game is too. If that went up in conjunction with turnovers forced going down…bad combo.

[clodney]

5 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I wonder what our turnovers on offense per game is too. If that went up in conjunction with turnovers forced going down…bad combo.

We're all over the chart here.

2017 - 14.5 (300th)

2018 - 12.3 (112th)

2019 - 11.9 (87th)

2020 - 13.8 (243rd)

2021 - 13.9 (221st)

2022 - 13.4 (248th)

[DocCas86]

1 hour ago, clodney said:

Our system may be "fun" for players since Whitesell lets them do whatever the hell they want on offense, but since he became coach he has completely abandoned the aggressive defense that the Oats teams were known for. Just take a look at "forced turnovers per game" the last 4 years.

2019 (Oats final year) - 15.2 tpg (29th in D1)

2020 (Whitesell) - 14.3 tpg (71st)

2021 (Whitesell) - 13.1 tpg (171st)

2022 (Whitesell) - 11.4 tpg (266th)

Here are the TO% - this also takes into consideration the number of possessions per game.   This is important, as the offense slowed a bit this year.  This means the 11.4 tpg is even worse when comparing to history.   As Carruthers, Jordan and Graves left, so did the ability to force turnovers it seems.    The drop off in defensive performance is most disappointing to me. As we restock this offseason, Whitesell needs to recruit players that are willing to put in the effort and take pride in playing tenacious D.   Interestingly, if you look at Whitesell's last four years at Loyola, the defensive TO% of those teams was even better than Oats' last year.   Maybe there is hope that team defense improves.

[DooleyBull06]

1 hour ago, clodney said:

We're all over the chart here.

2017 - 14.5 (300th)

2018 - 12.3 (112th)

2019 - 11.9 (87th)

2020 - 13.8 (243rd)

2021 - 13.9 (221st)

2022 - 13.4 (248th)

Wow. Striking numbers under Whitesell. 

[UBinMD]

3 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

Here are the TO% - this also takes into consideration the number of possessions per game.   This is important, as the offense slowed a bit this year.  This means the 11.4 tpg is even worse when comparing to history.   As Carruthers, Jordan and Graves left, so did the ability to force turnovers it seems.    The drop off in defensive performance is most disappointing to me. As we restock this offseason, Whitesell needs to recruit players that are willing to put in the effort and take pride in playing tenacious D.   Interestingly, if you look at Whitesell's last four years at Loyola, the defensive TO% of those teams was even better than Oats' last year.   Maybe there is hope that team defense improves.

Defensive players are usually the guys scrapping for PT and earning their spot. This year we had 3 dudes that were all thinking they were “the guy” and nobody really was. Williams had good games in spurts, but disappeared at time. Same for Mballa but he had way more lows that highs compared to Williams. Segu was a human highlight reel and tried at times, but he just isn’t that guy. I was hoping Hardnett, Jones, maybe even Jack or Perry would fill the D role, but that didn’t happen for whatever reason. Really only Skogman improved significant. The rest were status quo or worse. Hopefully our 22-23 will be eager to learn and play hard on both ends of the court. Time will tell.

[DocCas86]

4 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

Defensive players are usually the guys scrapping for PT and earning their spot. This year we had 3 dudes that were all thinking they were “the guy” and nobody really was. Williams had good games in spurts, but disappeared at time. Same for Mballa but he had way more lows that highs compared to Williams. Segu was a human highlight reel and tried at times, but he just isn’t that guy. I was hoping Hardnett, Jones, maybe even Jack or Perry would fill the D role, but that didn’t happen for whatever reason. Really only Skogman improved significant. The rest were status quo or worse. Hopefully our 22-23 will be eager to learn and play hard on both ends of the court. Time will tell.

Here are charts of Off / Def Adjusted Efficiency.

You can see drop off in offense 22 vs 21, but the change on defense is really striking.  The performance on defense in 21 was what had me optimistic for 22.   I don't have the numbers to translate the drop off in 'D' into how many fewer wins we had - but if we played defense close to last year, we most certainly would have had a chance to be in NCAA tourney.

 

[DooleyBull06]

15 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

Here are charts of Off / Def Adjusted Efficiency.

You can see drop off in offense 22 vs 21, but the change on defense is really striking.  The performance on defense in 21 was what had me optimistic for 22.   I don't have the numbers to translate the drop off in 'D' into how many fewer wins we had - but if we played defense close to last year, we most certainly would have had a chance to be in NCAA tourney.

 

I like when metrics support the eye test. When it mattered most UB could not get a stop on defense. See Akron knocking us out of the tournament. Defense was an issue last year. Offense couldn’t bail them out.

[ub2019]

 

Another big loss for the MAC. 

 

[rma]

2 minutes ago, ub2019 said:

 

Another big loss for the MAC. 

 

When reached for comment, Kent State Forward DJ Johnson said "Fuck Ali Ali"

[DaBulls99]

Obviously terrible coaching over that way. 950+ in the portal. Sheesh. 

[skrabukes]

Just now, DaBulls99 said:

Obviously terrible coaching over that way. 950+ in the portal. Sheesh. 

Ridiculous 

[DocCas86]

16 hours ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I like when metrics support the eye test. When it mattered most UB could not get a stop on defense. See Akron knocking us out of the tournament. Defense was an issue last year. Offense couldn’t bail them out.

I think the drop off on defense also exacerbated the flat lines on offense.  Playing tough 'D' during the scoring droughts can prevent you from falling too far behind.  When the shots start falling you don't have as big of a whole to climb out of.  As a contrast, the Bonnies - offensive efficiency was comparable to ours (although at a slower pace), but their defensive efficiency was 98.6 - and they ended up ranked #88 on barttorvik, compared to 146 for UB.  A ranking of 88 while still a little below my expectation would have been acceptable - with us either in NCAA tourney or NIT.

I know most of the focus on this board was offense.  Could we have been better offensively, sure.  But defensively is where things were not where they need to be this year.

16 hours ago, ub2019 said:

 

Another big loss for the MAC. 

 

Typically over the past five years, the MAC has had around 5 players per year "transfer up".  However, the total number of D1 to D1 (so not counting those that left to go to D2 or JUCO) peaked last year at 28.  Seems like we are starting to see an acceleration in numbers of quality players transfer from the MAC this year - not good! 😞

Here is list of top players in portal so far (and there may be more):

Edited March 31, 2022 by DocCas86

[UBinMD]

1 hour ago, skrabukes said:

Ridiculous 

MAC is just a farm system at this point. Bring in a raw kid, shows some promise in some televised games and out the door they go.

[ub2019]

51 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

I think the drop off on defense also exacerbated the flat lines on offense.  Playing tough 'D' during the scoring droughts can prevent you from falling too far behind.  When the shots start falling you don't have as big of a whole to climb out of.  As a contrast, the Bonnies - offensive efficiency was comparable to ours (although at a slower pace), but their defensive efficiency was 98.6 - and they ended up ranked #88 on barttorvik, compared to 146 for UB.  A ranking of 88 while still a little below my expectation would have been acceptable - with us either in NCAA tourney or NIT.

I know most of the focus on this board was offense.  Could we have been better offensively, sure.  But defensively is where things were not where they need to be this year.

A question for the 'x' and 'o' folks... I know that we did have good metrics on offensive rebounding.  I think back to the loss to Toledo - where they were able to get out on a fast break and score easy early on way to comfortable lead.  It seemed like 

Typically over the past five years, the MAC has had around 5 players per year "transfer up".  However, the total number of D1 to D1 (so not counting those that left to go to D2 or JUCO) peaked last year at 28.  Seems like we are starting to see an acceleration in numbers of quality players transfer from the MAC this year - not good! 😞

Here is list of top players in portal so far (and there may be more):

Toledo is going to run away with the conference next year. 

[DocCas86]

9 minutes ago, ub2019 said:

Toledo is going to run away with the conference next year. 

Not if Rollins and/or Milner add their name to portal - If Kowalczyk is able to keep the team together for one more year, you are correct.