(03-10-2023 06:47 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(03-10-2023 05:27 PM)FauqDawg10 Wrote:  In practice it’s a fine line. No one’s gonna try to get your scholarship revoked, and not that many coaches will actively say “We think you’d be better off elsewhere,” but in the modern transfer era many will truthfully tell a disfavored upperclassman they’re looking at being the 11th, 12th, 13th man on the roster and let them figure it out themselves (and then start recruiting transfers as though it has a good chance of happening). After all, in that player’s position, what difference does it make? You want to play, your coach is not planning to give you real minutes, and you’re immediately eligible elsewhere.

For our team, with the revolving door roster we've had, maybe not much difference. But presumably players develop relationships with each other over the course of a couple of seasons. Also, if they were actually interested in a W&M education, leaving means losing that. There's a host of reasons for not leaving even with low or no playing time.

Regardless of what talent level we had as a whole, we had 10-11 players that could make a case for playing time this year. That's a good thing and a bad thing. It's good to have players having to earn their floor time, but bad in that coaches can get too loose with substitutions and make it harder for players to figure out their roles. We had more of the latter this year. I'm not advocating for only having 8 good players on a team, but every scholarship doesn't have to be a starter, and sometimes you have players like Connor Burchfield that take a couple years to break out. If he was encouraged to leave after his freshman season, we'd have been a lesser team.

It's easier to stomach the notion that not every scholarship will eventually turn into a high-quality starter if such scholarship player is stuck behind a bunch of winners, but that's not what happened here. In the same vein, it's great if you can play 11 guys because you are top-to-bottom deep but that wasn't the case either. We didn't even have 8 good players this year; we had two and sort of threw the other 10 at the wall hoping something would stick.

Certainly, you recruit kids at different levels (surely our realistic expectations for Karasinski have always been higher than for Lowe). In addition, no one bats 1.000 with what they hope for with their scholarships--you will get some Tom Schalks and Fred Heldrings, and you can accept that while simultaneously acknowledging that on the whole, you will need a higher average ROI than that on four years a kid if you expect to be a winner. Although I've never advocated that a freshman is beyond hope, the Burchfield/Rowley/Malinowski/Tot class is actually a good example--all eventually at least capable role players as upperclassmen (more than that for Connor!), but if the class looked like that every year, we'd be a perennial cellar dweller.

If some people think we're just a competent coach away from instantly being a contender, then I disagree. I don't think Bobby Knight would've cut down the nets with this group. That is *certainly* not to suggest that the current staff is not wasting the potential of some (all?) of our guys. But we are for sure going to need to bring in some guys who can really be impact players before I start giving us a realistic chance.

Years of Eligibility Left | Height | Player Name

Transfers Coming to the CAA (and previous school):
(None)

CAA Players in the Portal (and destination school):
Delaware: 1Y 6’4 Ebby Asamoah
Towson: 1Y 6’4 Nicholas Timberlake
W&M: 1Y 6’5 Miguel Ayesa, 2Y 6’9 Ben Wight

Players in the portal WM is interested in (* means player followed back):
2Y 6’8 Rich Byhre from Rockhurst (Howland* 3/8)
1Y 6’4 Sean Houpt from Florida Tech (third party tweet, 3/9)

(03-10-2023 12:04 PM)Source of Truth Wrote:  

(03-10-2023 11:01 AM)Zorch Wrote:  

(03-10-2023 09:08 AM)wml33t Wrote:  … a large portion of our contributors look to be gone next year.

Keep in mind that those players were key contributors on a team that was not very good.

To me, one of the things that highlights how this coaching staff doesn’t have a clue is Ayesa. They underutilized him all year and didn’t figure it out until the last handful of games. Moreover, now that they can see that he is a lot better than they thought he was, they seem uninterested in coaxing him back for a Covid year.

It also shows that players (like Wight, for example) should never be redshirted unless injured. All that does is make the player graduate with eligibility which he will then use somewhere else.

Wight was getting 0 minutes his true freshman year while Knight and Van Vliet were still here. Wight had a lot of work to do that year to get up to CAA level. I agree in general though that if players redshirt, they will just leave for another school with the instant transfer rules.

I wish we redshirted more, truthfully. We recruit a lot of kids who are nowhere near Day 1 ready. Tai Hamilton is a perfect example—I think he’d benefit much more from practice reps and a strength program than the mop-up minutes he'll probably get as a freshman.

But it requires giving something up now for a benefit four years down the line, and neither college coaches nor 18-year-olds are known for their patience. Like you said, it’s much harder in the instant-departure era—every kid thinks they’re ready to instantly dominate and could be quick to blame you if you don’t want to give them a chance right away (and usually, quickly get humbled on the court). Takes a rare amount of self-reflection.

Jake Weingarten tweets:

“VMI’s Tony Felder Jr. intends on entering the transfer portal, a source told @Stockrisers. Averaged 10.5 points this past season — during his freshman campaign. Hit 59 three-pointers and shot 35% from downtown as well.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/jakeweingarte...7100921856

Coach Bollinger and Felder, a 5’10 guard, recently followed each other.

A group of Ivy League student athletes filed a class action suit the other day, challenging the Ivy's ban on scholarships as "in restraint of trade." Based on the Sup Ct's recent decision re: NIL, the students have a really good case. From there, it is fair to wonder whether any NCAA limits on scholarships, payments, etc. to student athletes will survive.

6’4 Russell Dean, who averaged 36mpg at Hampton, is entering the portal as a grad transfer.

https://www.verbalcommits.com/players/russell-dean

6’0 Jamarii Thomas, who averaged 19 mpg at UNCW, has entered the portal with two years of eligibility.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...9125657603

6’6 Gianmarco Arletti, who averaged 21mpg at Delaware, is entering the transfer portal with two years of eligibility remaining.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...0161666053

Tyler Rice is in the portal.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...4404752387

(03-13-2023 08:45 AM)WillaMary08 Wrote:  6’6 Gianmarco Arletti, who averaged 21mpg at Delaware, is entering the transfer portal with two years of eligibility remaining.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...0161666053

Was that highway or city??

(Sorry, I couldn't resist...)

(03-13-2023 08:49 AM)WillaMary08 Wrote:  Tyler Rice is in the portal.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...4404752387

Good luck Tyler. He was the obvious portal entrant. Interested to see who else decides to test the waters.

(03-13-2023 08:52 AM)mrjoolius Wrote:  

(03-13-2023 08:49 AM)WillaMary08 Wrote:  Tyler Rice is in the portal.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...4404752387

Good luck Tyler. He was the obvious portal entrant. Interested to see who else decides to test the waters.

Well everyone wins. Rice gets a better opportunity. WM gets another scholarship to go shopping with in the buyers' market transfer portal where it is very hard not to get better. They had five transfer in last year and won 8 more games. With four potential new transfers in this offseason they could win another 6-7 games more next year (getting to or near 20 wins) and wouldn't that be a pickle haha.

Good luck, Tyler!

Thanks for all your commitment the last two years.

How many roster spot openings will we have to fill for next year?

Come on Brian, Mann up and do the right thing and move on from Fischer please (though I’d be shocked at this point if he does as all signs point to this staff returning with no movement yet and the assistants actively following transfer targets which is a huge bummer).


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And then there was one...
https://twitter.com/NoBidNation/status/1...uH0SQ&s=19

Princeton 6’8 Garrett Johnson has entered the portal. He’s from VA and WM offered him a couple years ago but he hasn’t appeared in a game yet due to health issues.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VerbalCommits...3235285005

(03-13-2023 09:12 AM)mrjoolius Wrote:  And then there was one...
https://twitter.com/NoBidNation/status/1...uH0SQ&s=19

Wow … pretty remarkable to see it laid out like this.

Great job No Bid Nation putting this together.


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Wishing Tyler all the luck in the world. I think he is going to make some other program very happy.

Don’t forget that Loewe, Scott, and Williams all transferred or quit also.


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(03-13-2023 09:06 AM)Naptown Tribe Wrote:  Good luck, Tyler!

Thanks for all your commitment the last two years. Very telling to me in his announcement that he did not mention or thank any of the coaches.

How many roster spot openings will we have to fill for next year?

Come on Brian, Mann up and do the right thing and move on from Fischer please (though I’d be shocked at this point if he does as all signs point to this staff returning with no movement yet and the assistants actively following transfer targets which is a huge bummer).


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He did: “I would like to thank my coaches, teammates, and brothers”
He was classy all season and classy on exit.

What is telling is that very few players want to play at W&M, even fewer want to play for this Coach, and even of those that come here, the majority opt to leave.

I believe Mann can and may still move on a timetable. If we get past next Monday with no decision then I think we get a 5th first year.

(03-13-2023 09:33 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Don’t forget that Loewe, Scott, and Williams all transferred or quit also.


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All true, but for the sake of the NBN post it was focused on Dane recruits.