If next season is a huge bust, Rutgers men's basketball will be in big trouble with Bailey and Harper leaving along with the the one year transfer portal players.
Every season is in jeopardy with NIL in place. No such thing as team building anymore. It’s all plug and play. Going to be very hard to ever establish continued success year over year.
Of course you are correct about the huge risk. Possible next year could be a bust or it could be great. But come on now, if the alternative to the huge risk is bringing back a lot of pieces from last season’s roster and watching that lack of talent that could not shoot threes, layups, free throws, could not score in general and running it back with a bunch of them, then that’s a hard pass from me. Looks like 6 guys are gone from last season’s roster at this time, personally I was hoping for 7. Give me all the risk and unknowns of next season as opposed to bringing back guys from last season who can’t shoot that bricked shot after shot and generally have no offensive talent. My view all along was the less of that roster that returned the better for next year. Turn the page, it’s time for RU basketball to write a new story.
This is less of a problem then it would be in the past. If 50% or more of players end up in the portal, it'll be most teams dealing with massive turnover
And yet RU signed two of the top three or four incoming freshmen recruits. Still a mystery, but there is plenty of evidence so far to suggest that "blue bloods" (however you define that) may not be the only ones to successfully use NIL. Among other things, making legal what others may have been previously willing to do under the table could have a number of unanticipated effects. Ace/Dylan is an example of that.
RU had connections/links to their top recruits, blue bloods get these recruits every year, and will continue to. We'll see if RUbis a one time, flash in the pan, or if same level replacements come next year.
I’d recommend observing what happens and not too quickly trying to fit it into what you expected to happen. Predictions about how anything is going to play out in the future are mostly wrong, and this one will be interesting to watch.
Roster formation will be even more important with the transfer portal creating yearly movement.This years roster was a disaster because of the absence of shooters .Next season freshmen class has some high level talent but the roster still needs some transfers with success at the college level.Blending those players into a cohesive roster will be a great challenge for the coaching staff.
My Bball IQ isn't great but IMO with his quickness and explosiveness, if Cliff had been developed to play with his back to the basket he would have been unstoppable. But big men don't get to the pros these days with that style of play so that was never going to happen.
Exactly. UConn's best player was at East Carolina two years ago and we know where Cam was last year. Hurley then paired them with 2 top recruits (Clingan and Castle), and, boom, you have a top team.
I don't like what's going on with college sports, and suspect that I will soon turn my back on it as I already have with professional sports, because it won't interest me anymore.
Does Harper have more brothers who are Top 5 high school players (whose best friend is also a Top 5 high school player)? If so, we've got this NIL thing totally figured out. Otherwise? *The Price Is Right* horn
This ^^^^. Do we have the donors and $$$ to do this every year? Based on our history of athletic $upport I would say no. Will the stars align once in a while for us - probably.
We'll see, kind of think Smoke's recruiting is a being a bit over rated. He was at Central Michigan and what, LIU Brooklyn the last six years? They each had some good years, but not like he was recruiting top 100 guys to these schools. I hope he's good.
This exactly wake up it’s blatantly obvious we are playing the NIL game to a high degree but let’s all ask Richie again in next weeks ask the staff if we will land any good portal players and if we have the money to do so.
bvmsports.com
Oh, no doubt, but we've also heard it's very unlikely on these two.Hard to get talent to go there though - at least the level of talent we’re gonna need to get where we’re going. Trey McKinney and Darius Acuff have mentioned him as a big reason we have a decent chance.
Five-star trey McKenney talks Rutgers basketball, relationship with 'Coach Smoke'
Trey McKenney is taking an official visit to Rutgers this fall. It is a significant development for the Big Ten program as they get in with one of the top…
No. 2 PG Darius Acuff Breaks Down Michigan, Rutgers, Kentucky Officials; Talks Possible Future Visits.
On3's Jamie Shaw caught up with 2025 four-star point guard Darius Acuff to talk about his recruitment and official visits.www.on3.com
Can't enjoy next year until next year and a lot has to happen for next year to be enjoyable.
