Cam Spencer

[red sail]

The reality is Pike put his eggs in the Noah Fernandes basket. He harped on how the kid was a slasher and how we would be playing faster unlike when Mulcahy was the PG and was more deliberate. Fernandes was a selfish player. We would have been better off giving Spencer Fernandes $250k in NIL to retain him. Can't look back now.

 

[scarletrat]

I think one could have looked at last season in 22-23 and said we really needed a smaller guard who can handle and shoot. Didn’t work out.

 

[RUInsanity]

Do you feel you need to make it clear to your employer that you are open to offers? If not, is his situation really different from yours? Players are now employees as well as students.

Does your former employer have to continue to like you and obsessively follow your career after you leave abrubtly without notice?

 

[retired711]

Does your former employer have to continue to like you and obsessively follow your career after you leave abrubtly without notice?

What an odd question! Nobody is saying you *have to* like the person or follow his career obsessively or not. But you don't have an obligation to hate the person either. You can just accept that he had a right to leave your job just as he had a right to leave another job for yours.

 

[Fat Koko]

Very interesting article on Cam Spencer in yesterday's NYT.

Glowing article on Cam in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Article is behind paywall. TKR posters wouldn’t learn too much.

However, the love shown Cam in most media contrasts with the Cam haters on TKR.

Less than year ago, after Cam announced he would be a second-time portalero, TKR posters stated Cam couldn’t create his own shot. Gavin would replace Cam’s production. These posters have been shown to truly inept seers of Rutgers basketball.

The lesson here is a proven college basketball veteran in his twenties is a better bet than a high school teenager.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/uconn-march-madness-cam-spencer-75299531?mod=mhp

 

[retired711]

Glowing article on Cam in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Article is behind paywall. TKR posters wouldn’t learn too much.

However, the love shown Cam in most media contrasts with the Cam haters on TKR.

Less than year ago, after Cam announced he would be a second-time portalero, TKR posters stated Cam couldn’t create his own shot. Gavin would replace Cam’s production. These posters have been shown to truly inept seers of Rutgers basketball.

The lesson here is a proven college basketball veteran in his twenties is a better bet than a high school teenager.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/uconn-march-madness-cam-spencer-75299531?mod=mhp

I'm a WSJ subscriber, so I read the article. This is hard to believe of a newspaper that specializes in economic affairs, but the term "NIL" never appears in the article. It talks about free transferability as follows:

"All the while, college basketball was evolving in a way that would let a player in Spencer’s position capitalize like never before. For much of the sport’s history, players transferring had to sit out two semesters, making it difficult to tell what sort of a roster they’d eventually be joining. But rule changes have introduced something like professional sports’ free agency, with players able to gauge their opportunities and coaches able to gauge their teams’ needs.:"

So the story makes the analogy to professional sports, but without acknowledging the compensation aspect of professional sports and how it is done. Amazing!

 

[Plum Street]

Glowing article on Cam in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Article is behind paywall. TKR posters wouldn’t learn too much.

However, the love shown Cam in most media contrasts with the Cam haters on TKR.

Less than year ago, after Cam announced he would be a second-time portalero, TKR posters stated Cam couldn’t create his own shot. Gavin would replace Cam’s production. These posters have been shown to truly inept seers of Rutgers basketball.

The lesson here is a proven college basketball veteran in his twenties is a better bet than a high school teenager.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/uconn-march-madness-cam-spencer-75299531?mod=mhp

This was the reaction here

NJ.com: Cam Spencer has entered the transfer portal

This one is a shocker wow

rutgers.forums.rivals.com

 

[seansherm]

People don’t seem to get this

I’ll use an example of a player that everyone WANTED to stay but when he did transfer literally NO ONE had an issue with him …. Myles.

In fact he got a really nice reception when he returned

It’s not nearly as simple as “transfer-in= good. Transfer-out=bad”

The WAY Spencer did it really f’ed RU. So for that the kid can suck it.

Heck - even the reaction to Gavin is mixed. Sure he’s getting grief (due to his own words “I will never transfer”) from some, but I think the balance appreciate that he did it right away which gives pike the ability to find a replacement. So besides going against his own words Gavin did nothing wrong .

Cam? He can suck it.

Why can’t some people understand this?

Almost nobody thinks Gavin did it the right way, they think Gavin ran from hard work and competition.

 

[CERU00]

The reality is Pike put his eggs in the Noah Fernandes basket. He harped on how the kid was a slasher and how we would be playing faster unlike when Mulcahy was the PG and was more deliberate. Fernandes was a selfish player. We would have been better off giving Spencer Fernandes $250k in NIL to retain him. Can't look back now.

Fernandes got $250k!!??

 

[Plum Street]

Fernandes got $250k!!??

If he did ….great job by his handlers

 

[Knight Shift]

What an odd question! Nobody is saying you *have to* like the person or follow his career obsessively or not. But you don't have an obligation to hate the person either. You can just accept that he had a right to leave your job just as he had a right to leave another job for yours.

Absolutely agree. A majority bunch of angry old people who are Rutgers fans are justifiably mad at the timing of his decision. However, put yourself in Cam's shoes- you are young, you are offered more money and the opportunity to play for a national title. I would bolt in an instant with no regrets, but I would offer a small apology to the coaches and thank them for giving me the opportunity to play at Rutgers.

 

[RuSnp]

Absolutely agree. A majority bunch of angry old people who are Rutgers fans are justifiably mad at the timing of his decision. However, put yourself in Cam's shoes- you are young, you are offered more money and the opportunity to play for a national title. I would bolt in an instant with no regrets, but I would offer a small apology to the coaches and thank them for giving me the opportunity to play at Rutgers.

View embedded media

We weren't near the NCAA tournament last year? Come on WSJ.

 

[RUJMM78]

I think one could have looked at last season in 22-23 and said we really needed a smaller guard who can handle and shoot. Didn’t work out.

Needed more than one player that could shoot/score.The offensive was abysmal.

 

[rudad02]

Don't recall seeing a link? And NYT is paywalled. So we can just imagine the article.

Sorry don't know how to link.

 

[bethlehemfan]

We weren't near the NCAA tournament last year? Come on WSJ.

Lazy “journalist”

 

[Knight Shift]

Sorry don't know how to link.

If you have the story open on a browser like Firefox or chrome, you can go to the address bar, click right mouse to copy the link, and then you can paste it on a post here by clicking the right mouse and selecting paste. Maybe you have a paper sunsct and did not read it online. I was not trying to be snarky and sorry if it sounded that way.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Nothing wrong with taking better opportunities . Every one of us would do the same in our careers. He followed the rules. Period.

He didn’t have to handle it the way he did. You can think he’s entitled to the “pure business decision” involved with all the NIL money he raked in posing in pics etc. during that off season quite literally up until the day before he entered the portal all you want but it wasn’t an ethical thing to do regardless of whether the rules permitted it. His marketability was based on a lie (that he was a returning star) and therefore the wrong thing to do on so many levels.

It was this and only this that was wrong. Had he told Pike all along that he was weighing his options - we wouldn’t have showcased him in NIL deals. There was no reason to deceive Pike other than to collect extra money from the RU collective with imaging that directly hurt RU. Totally unnecessary. He wouldn’t have lost his spot at RU by being honest. As it was we had space for Oskar to return late. He would aways have been welcome. That’s the reality.

You may think this is all fine and your entitled to your opinion, but don’t for a second compare it to J Will’s transfers - one of which was the same as Cam’s first departure from Loyola to challenge himself at the next level. The other departures weren’t even his decision (dumbest decision with the gambling but again - not comparable at all).

 

[Shelby65]

He didn’t have to handle it the way he did. You can think he’s entitled to the “pure business decision” involved with all the NIL money he raked in posing in pics etc. during that off season quite literally up until the day before he entered the portal all you want but it wasn’t an ethical thing to do regardless of whether the rules permitted it. His marketability was based on a lie (that he was a returning star) and therefore the wrong thing to do on so many levels.

It was this and only this that was wrong. Had he told Pike all along that he was weighing his options - we wouldn’t have showcased him in NIL deals. There was no reason to deceive Pike other than to collect extra money from the RU collective with imaging that directly hurt RU. Totally unnecessary. He wouldn’t have lost his spot at RU by being honest. As it was we had space for Oskar to return late. He would aways have been welcome. That’s the reality.

You may think this is all fine and your entitled to your opinion, but don’t for a second compare it to J Will’s transfers - one of which was the same as Cam’s first departure from Loyola to challenge himself at the next level. The other departures weren’t even his decision (dumbest decision with the gambling but again - not comparable at all).

Ethical for who ? So it was also unethical for UConn to take him from us then ?

Not buying it. Besides, he was ‘made an offer he couldn’t refuse’ and took it at that time.

The workplace analogy holds. You don’t tell your company you’re looking to leave. You tell them when you know you are leaving.

 

[Plum Street]

Ethical for who ? So it was also unethical for UConn to take him from us then ?

Not buying it. Besides, he was ‘made an offer he couldn’t refuse’ and took it at that time.

The workplace analogy holds. You don’t tell your company you’re looking to leave. You tell them when you know you are leaving.

And he also entered the portal soon after he graduated

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Ethical for who ? So it was also unethical for UConn to take him from us then ?

Not buying it. Besides, he was ‘made an offer he couldn’t refuse’ and took it at that time.

The workplace analogy holds. You don’t tell your company you’re looking to leave. You tell them when you know you are leaving.

That’s BS. He posed for a NIL deal reportedly the day before he entered the portal. He clearly knew he was leaving at that time. He ripped off and deceived fans who participated in that event believing they had gone to meet a returning RU player. In my view that’s unethical even if technically permitted by the rules. You are entitled to your opinion but that doesn’t make my opinion invalid.

 

[Shelby65]

No, not invalid. But in my opinion, naive.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

No, not invalid. But in my opinion, naive.

It’s not naive. At no point did I suggest that many people in this world don’t do things like this where all life decisions are driving by money regardless of how it impacts others. That doesn’t make it right nor does it mean that everyone would make the same decision in this situation.

 

[socaldave]

I believe one just has to complete the final 30 credits (basically two 15-credit semesters which is an average course load, five 3-credit classes per semester) to be awarded a bachelor's degree by Rutgers. I would assume Spencer accomplished that as a 4th year student and had sufficient transfer credits (90) from Loyola to achieve the 120 total credits needed.

Good for him as he can use whatever he gets from UConn as toilet paper

 

[Scarlet1984]

I believe one just has to complete the final 30 credits (basically two 15-credit semesters which is an average course load, five 3-credit classes per semester) to be awarded a bachelor's degree by Rutgers. I would assume Spencer accomplished that as a 4th year student and had sufficient transfer credits (90) from Loyola to achieve the 120 total credits needed.

That might be correct for athletes but not for regular students, I believe. More selective schools tend to require the completion of 60 credits at that school in order to graduate. I know that was recently the case with Rutgers. I doubt that has changed for “gen pop”.

 

[RUJMM78]

I think one could have looked at last season in 22-23 and said we really needed a smaller guard who can handle and shoot. Didn’t work out.

There were too many small guards who were inconsistent scorers.

 

[retired711]

That might be correct for athletes but not for regular students, I believe. More selective schools tend to require the completion of 60 credits at that school in order to graduate. I know that was recently the case with Rutgers. I doubt that has changed for “gen pop”.

The residency rules have recently been relaxed. For SAS students, it is sufficient that 30 of the last 42 credits be taken at Rutgers.

https://sasundergrad.rutgers.edu/degree-requirements/policies/credits-and-residency

 

[RedTeam1994]

Almost nobody thinks Gavin did it the right way, they think Gavin ran from hard work and competition.

I think thats a different argument

I tend to agree with the above - i.e., that "Gavin ran from hard work and competition". the "insider" info - that he did it over "playing time" - supports that.

but perhaps he just wanted a fresh start after a frustrating first year, perhaps he wanted a better/different offensive scheme.

but I dont think he "f'ed Rutgers" and I dont see too many people saying that he did.

I mean he announced literally right away.

thus, while there might be some slightly snarky comments ("hes afraid to compete for playing time") I dont see a lot of true animosity going his way.

 

[MADHAT1]

Seriously ?

That’s like being psyched when your girlfriend gets banged by the star quarterback

Some feel accomplishing something , even if it's a means to an end, is all that matters.
Cam left one program for a better one to shine in and in order to play another season had to follow the guidelines, which was academically focused . Once he meat that demand he became qualified to play another year of college ball.
With his RU degree he wasn't hampered by portal rules and was able to receive a great offer to play for a program that would give him better exposure then Rutgers would and a chance to be playing for a National Championship contender.
Spencer left Rutgers for a possible better payday at UConn and the extra benefit of playing for a national championship contender.
What Cam saw was an offer any mercenary couldn't turn down.

I consider Cam a one year rental that did what he was hired for, used his time at RU to be able to play one more year as a college player , then found a new program that benefited him better than if he stayed at Rutgers.

Rutgers fans might be pissed at the timing of his departure but:
no one should blame Spencer for using his one year at RU to better himself , we should be happy he gave his all while he wax on the RU roster and his play was a big reason Rutgers glad a winning record and a spot in the NIT .
Remember Cam left another program after 3 years there for what he felt was a better program to play for , why should Rutgers fans feel he wouldn't do the same to RU if he found a program that he felt better than Rutgers he could go to.
he wouldn't

 

[Fat Koko]

I'm a WSJ subscriber, so I read the article. This is hard to believe of a newspaper that specializes in economic affairs, but the term "NIL" never appears in the article. It talks about free transferability as follows:

"All the while, college basketball was evolving in a way that would let a player in Spencer’s position capitalize like never before. For much of the sport’s history, players transferring had to sit out two semesters, making it difficult to tell what sort of a roster they’d eventually be joining. But rule changes have introduced something like professional sports’ free agency, with players able to gauge their opportunities and coaches able to gauge their teams’ needs.:"

So the story makes the analogy to professional sports, but without acknowledging the compensation aspect of professional sports and how it is done. Amazing!

Agree. This was a populist lamestream media article typical of recent WSJ sports reporting.

It deserved to be flagged because Cam has become a mainstream media darling. Will be interesting to watch any interviews Cam does over the next 7 days.

 

[bitnez]

Two lottery picks on UConn. The Big East player of the year was also a transfer (from East Carolina). But, for some reason, the press decides the story is Cam Spencer. I'll give his family credit -- they are savvy. We're watching a media creation right before our eyes. Thankfully after next week we will almost never hear from him again. G-league and NBA end of bench guys don't move the media needle.

 

[ru66]

People still read newspapers and also read books??

 

[Kbee3]

People still read newspapers and also read books??

All the time.

 

[bethlehemfan]

All the time.

Generally not the wsj sports column though because it sucks

 

[LeapinLou]

two things:

- I find it very hard to believe RU game Noah $250K.

- To illustrate how polarizing the whole Cam thing is, I was rooting for him to do well in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. Then I found myself rooting against him against Illinois. I can't make up my mind.

 

[bethlehemfan]

two things:

- I find it very hard to believe RU game Noah $250K.

- To illustrate how polarizing the whole Cam thing is, I was rooting for him to do well in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. Then I found myself rooting against him against Illinois. I can't make up my mind.

I can’t root for anything UConn haha. But I still like Spencer. I like his toughness and savvy play.

 

[ru66]

but why the NYTimes?

All

 

[Fat Koko]

two things:

- I find it very hard to believe RU game Noah $250K.

- To illustrate how polarizing the whole Cam thing is, I was rooting for him to do well in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. Then I found myself rooting against him against Illinois. I can't make up my mind.

On the $250,000 to Noah, I put low confidence in that figure too. Dean's $75,000 haul at UNC Charlotte also has me wondering.

Last week, a professor who describes himself as an NIL educator wrote,

"I never thought name, image, likeness would serve as a case study in how our beliefs can be influenced by repetition and source credibility. But here we are, living in a world where most college sports fans believe that they 'know' the NIL earnings of student-athletes.

"It’s what cognitive psychologists call the 'illusion of truth effect.' The illusion of truth effect says that repeated information is perceived as more truthful than new information."

On your second point, count me in as a Cam fan. He changed schools to go for an NCAA national championship and compete against teams that would challenge his performance with the ultimate goal of following his brother to the NBA. TKR posters quibble about Cam's timing, but Cam smartly chose to follow his brother's mentorship.

 

[seansherm]

On the $250,000 to Noah, I put low confidence in that figure too. Dean's $75,000 haul at UNC Charlotte also has me wondering.

Last week, a professor who describes himself as an NIL educator wrote,

"I never thought name, image, likeness would serve as a case study in how our beliefs can be influenced by repetition and source credibility. But here we are, living in a world where most college sports fans believe that they 'know' the NIL earnings of student-athletes.

"It’s what cognitive psychologists call the 'illusion of truth effect.' The illusion of truth effect says that repeated information is perceived as more truthful than new information."

On your second point, count me in as a Cam fan. He changed schools to go for an NCAA national championship and compete against teams that would challenge his performance with the ultimate goal of following his brother to the NBA. TKR posters quibble about Cam's timing, but Cam smartly chose to follow his brother's mentorship.

You needed NIL to prove illusion of truth? It's the way of the world now. NIL beliefs are late to the game.

 

[Fat Koko]

You needed NIL to prove illusion of truth? It's the way of the world now. NIL beliefs are late to the game.

Let us discuss illusion of truth. Could you answer your question?

 

[rucoe89]

Cam is a product of the system, a mercenary that helps the program he's at until he sees better opportunity elsewhere.
Now a days when someone transfers to a program they are accepted by that program's fans and the fans of the program the player eft aren't happy about it, tough luck is thought by that players new fanbase.
Then when he goes to the portal to find a better opportunity and takes it, the fans cry foul.
Tough luck on that because he proved in coming he would leave a program if he thought leaving it for another would help his basketball career.
But don't blame the player , it's the system's fault, that player is just using the (mercenary) system to find his best deal as a player.

All good for the players while the money is there. Will be a big let down for later generations when the money starts to dry up.