Zazzy said:

Not sure why Tre Donaldson would do this. He was a starter and Wolf likely coming back. Interesting.

Click to expand...

Probably because the North Carolina PG Cadeau is transferring to Michigan.

Not sure why Tre Donaldson would do this. He was a starter and Wolf likely coming back. Interesting.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is one of those times, a pet peave of mine, that the media takes a single legislator introducing a bill and headlines the story "X state preparing to Y," when it's not ever going anywhere and maybe isn't even supposed to.

Anyway, this almost certainly won't happen but it would be AMAZING for NU if it did!

TheC said:

Done!

Click to expand...

Ahem...as I was saying, Texas A&M is the only marquee open job right now...

Hungry Jack said:

My guess is he wants to see how much NIL bag he can get. He’s probably a borderline NBA prospect, so this is his last chance to make real coin.

Click to expand...

That and he might want to have a more dominant role on some offense. So he can put up bigger numbers and raise his draft stock. Traditionally MSU is a place to share the rock.

As a taxpayer, I don't appreciate professional athletes getting special treatment. On principle, I am opposed to this.

However, they are competing for recruits against states like Texas, Florida, and Tennessee that don't have a state income tax for anybody.

CappyNU said:

Lots of changes tracked above, just catching up after vacation.

• Maryland is the only marquee job open right now, with speculation that Buzz Williams wants it

Click to expand...

Done!

Secho99:

The thing is, you can look at the rules for the portal and the revenue and the NIL capabilities and predict with confidence that the mid-majors are dead. This year's tournament supports the logical prediction.
Its like playing roulette, except they've added about 10 more zeros to the wheel.
Sure, you might have one short run of success, but there is no way you're going to win overall.

And the way the NCAA selects its field, rewarding mediocre Power 5 teams for losing to better teams and punishing the top mid-majors for beating mediocre teams in their conferences, it gives 5 tournament berths to useless teams like Oklahoma and Georgia at the direct expense of top level mid majors. The best way to prevent the mid-majors from making noise is to leave them out entirely. Or give them an 8 seed when they deserve a 4.

Tre Donaldson of Michigan jumped in.

Heard Jace Richardson is off to the nba so Sparty will need a serious reload.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

EagerFan said:

How many years will it take to be a recognizable pattern?

Does it have to only be all four 1 seeds in the final four to count, or can it just be only 1 thru 4 seeds make it to the elite 8?

Click to expand...

Definitely more than one. Maybe less than four?

EagerFan said:

These two statements might actually be seen as supporting evidence of what some folks find concerning, when you think about it.

Click to expand...

Totally agree with this. But if next year's Final Four is a 1 seed, a 3 seed, a 5 seed and a 10 seed, then what's the explanation for that?

Of the teams that made the tourney the last two years, teams have moved up in conference level a ton:

Houston and BYU once in 10, twice in 20
Louisville and FAU once in 10, thrice in 20
Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, Memphis, VCU, Boise St., Utah St., Nevada, Charleston, Troy, Samford, and Oakland all once in 20
UConn, Robert Morris, Bryant, Mt. St. Mary's, James Madison, UAB and Western Kentucky all once in 10
Liberty twice in 10
TCU twice in 20

It's a mix of things, but still TBD on whether it's permanent or not.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

hdhntr1 said:

Yes the mid majors win with guard play but has been stated earlier the guys that would do it are more Sr level and majority of them transferred out And Frosh and Sophs don't have the package to be able to get it done

Click to expand...

I don't know how instructive this is (it may be useless noise), but these are the 20 most experienced teams in this year's NCAA tournament (which is based on average years of D1 basketball per player on the full roster, not raw age):

Texas A&M
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Norfolk St
Lipscomb
Auburn
Louisville
UNC Wilmington
Kansas
Xavier
McNeese
Gonzaga
Clemson
Memphis
Bryant
Grand Canyon
Oregon
High Point
UC San Diego
Nebraska Omaha

The 10 least experienced:

Duke
Illinois
St. Francis
Arkansas
Georgia
Purdue
San Diego St
North Carolina
Maryland
UConn

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

Lots of changes tracked above, just catching up after vacation.

• Loving Xavier hiring Richard Pitino who will have to face his dad 2-3 times a year now, should be great drama in the Big East.
• West Virginia hires Ross Hodge, North Texas' HC, who despite only being the HC for two years, was an assistant under current TT HC Grant McCasland for 6 years before that, so now he gets to face his former boss each year.
• Phil Martelli Jr. got his opportunity to be a HC because his former boss had to resign following a hit and run accident right before the 2023-24 season. He's made the most of his chance, as Bryant had their best-ever season this year, and now gets to take the reins of VCU after just two years in charge, but with another five as an assistant at Bryant.
• As mentioned above, Eric Olen goes to New Mexico after seeing UCSD through its transition to D1 over the past five years and having a phenomenal season this year
• Colorado State promotes from within, and Ali Farokhmanesh, who you undoubtedly remember from his famous March Madness shot to lead Northern Iowa to an upset of Kansas, gets his shot.
• Drake hires SDSU's coach of the last six years, who was previously an assistant under current Iowa St. coach TJ Otzelberger
• Also as mentioned, Fran McCaffery gets to go back home to Philly, to try and bring Penn back up to their past glory. Penn never really recovered once Fran Dunphy went to LaSalle, and they really fell off post-COVID, as Yale has become the dominant team in the Ivy.
• Fordham has hired UC Riverside's Mike Magpayo, who made history as the first Asian-American coach in D1. Wonder if he will bring Parker Strauss with him.
• Maryland is the only marquee job open right now, with speculation that Buzz Williams wants it, along with other candidates such as current PSU HC Mike Rhoades, George Mason HC and former MD asst. Tony Skinn, American HC and formed MD player Duane Simpkins, and Luke Murray (Bill Murray's son), an asst. at UConn.

hdhntr1 said:

It is not just that the final 4 are all number 1s, It is that basically none of the lower seeds won anything. Seeds in through 4 all made it through first game, Two 5/12 upsets. And Arkansas making it to the Sweet 16 was basically all there was.

Click to expand...

Yeah I think the ideal tournament for most people is one in which there is unpredictability early on but the better teams emerge from the pack to give us the best games. I get that this is uninspiring for those who crave the chaos/upsets, and the speculation for why it's happened this way may in fact be correct. All I'm saying is we need to see more than one tournament come out this way to make grand declarations about the mid majors being dead and only power teams will win games from now on. This tournament has extremely high variance and it's to be expected that it comes out boring and chalky every so often. If it's the same thing next year and the year after, then OK we have evidence that there's a problem.

CoralSpringsCat said:

Garbage. So glad we skipped it. Much more important for us to be recruiting the portal.

Login to view embedded media

Click to expand...

I don’t understand why they didn’t announce that the winning team gets $300,000, the other finalist $100,000 and the final four $50,000 until like 2 days before it started. I still think those are lighter prizes than would convince better teams to stick around for it but a potential $20K+ per player for a week's work isn't bad and maybe a couple other decent teams would've considered it. I think if they come up with $1 million for the winner next year it gets a lot more interest.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

PURPLECAT88 said:

This is a weird one. Not immediately clear why Holloman would leave. I can think of several possibilities.
1) Coach Izzo has recruited over him, and he sees a drop in playing time coming based on next year's roster.
2) Newly emerging personality clash with teammates or coaches.
3) Someone back-channeled a big money offer.
4) Green or white headbands no longer doing it for him. Looking to expand his color palette.

Click to expand...

My guess is he wants to see how much NIL bag he can get. He’s probably a borderline NBA prospect, so this is his last chance to make real coin.