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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 24, 2024 12:33:22 GMT -5
From the player's perspective, I completely agree with you. 100-200k may end up being a lot of money to a guy like Cliff if the pro route doesn't pan out. And if that's the final gap, I would expect him to go to the highest bidder. It would be foolish for him not to. Hearing that the gap between our offer and his demand was a bit larger than that, but who knows... maybe no one else is willing to meet his number either. My comment was more geared towards expressing hypothetical annoyance at the program, which hasn't been substantiated (yet). I would hope they don't let what is roughly 2-5% of our alleged budget dictate the difference between getting IMO a top-flight 5 that gives us a great chance to get over the NCAA hump vs. settling for backup options that may force us to play Sorber significant minutes out of the gate and hope that he's further along than most freshman. Especially coming off of a lost year like we just had. On the other hand, if his offers start to close down -- for example, if Georgetown and others go another route and suddenly it's just one major bidder, he could lose quite a bit, too. I suspect a lot of these kids do not have effective representation to begin with, and then factor in a completely new and unknown market, and more than one of these kids is going to find their $1M offer become $.5M or disappear completely if they let it linger too long. The flip is it could become a bidding war ... but once the portal locks and the NIL of the players staying is effectively locked ... it'll be interesting to see which way the market goes. Does Cliff become wildly in demand due to scarcity and a lot of unspent money? Or does the lack of bidders make the floor fall out? Absolutely. Cliff could definitely Dennis Schroder himself if his view of his own worth is terribly inflated. Teams that aren't willing to wait are probably going to throw unwarranted "mid-level" dollars at Plan B options like we did with Ish last year and effectively take themselves out of the running budget-wise by not being willing to wait. But, if you're one of those teams that is willing to take the risk and wait at the risk of being left with nothing (or even Plan C options), maybe you land him at a lower number. But unlike most pro leagues, there's no cap. There's nothing to stop one overzealous booster, one coach who leans on his collective, etc. to blow your number out of the water. It could definitely go either way.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 24, 2024 9:00:18 GMT -5
If Cliff gets the godfather offer that he seeks from somewhere else, good luck to him. Can't begrudge him or any other kid for doing so, especially if they're not a surefire NBA player. That being said, I am curious to see what the final number is vs. our offer. If we got blown out of the water and someone else massively overpaid, I can live with that. If we were haggling over 100-200K and had the opportunity to meet in the middle but chose not to, I'd be a little bit more annoyed. Time will tell. Many deals are falling apart over 100-200k. That is a lot of money for a lot of these guys that don't have much and aren't lined up for big paydays in the future. It's crazy to think but some of these guys will make more in college than they will in the pros or whatever job they end up in. Crazy times we are in right now. From the player's perspective, I completely agree with you. 100-200k may end up being a lot of money to a guy like Cliff if the pro route doesn't pan out. And if that's the final gap, I would expect him to go to the highest bidder. It would be foolish for him not to. Hearing that the gap between our offer and his demand was a bit larger than that, but who knows... maybe no one else is willing to meet his number either. My comment was more geared towards expressing hypothetical annoyance at the program, which hasn't been substantiated (yet). I would hope they don't let what is roughly 2-5% of our alleged budget dictate the difference between getting IMO a top-flight 5 that gives us a great chance to get over the NCAA hump vs. settling for backup options that may force us to play Sorber significant minutes out of the gate and hope that he's further along than most freshman. Especially coming off of a lost year like we just had.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 23, 2024 12:45:45 GMT -5
If Cliff gets the godfather offer that he seeks from somewhere else, good luck to him. Can't begrudge him or any other kid for doing so, especially if they're not a surefire NBA player.
That being said, I am curious to see what the final number is vs. our offer. If we got blown out of the water and someone else massively overpaid, I can live with that. If we were haggling over 100-200K and had the opportunity to meet in the middle but chose not to, I'd be a little bit more annoyed.
Time will tell.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 17, 2024 15:16:41 GMT -5
I'm confused one for 150 is this person saying that this is a valid scoop maybe I'm missing something thanks I would take Troare in a heartbeat and have a good problem Leverage that supposed NY Lightning connection to get Omoruyi too while they're at it.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 17, 2024 13:03:09 GMT -5
I don't think it necessarily is a situation either where you're telling a potential 5th year PG that he's going to be limited to a 10 MPG role. There's 80 MPG to split at the 1 and 2 so there definitely is a way to ensure Epps, Mack (assuming he commits soon) and a guy like Roach are all playing ~25 MPG and staying relatively fresh throughout the course of a season vs. burning guys out through overuse (i.e. 35 MPG) and then actually having to worry about things like injuries. I'm happy with a 5th year if it happens. But I'd rather have a freshman who is really talented than a 4th or 5th year guy who isn't. It's tough to say with any certainty because we don't know who the 5th year guy is that we're comparing to, it's all theoretical. My point is just that we all have an archetype in mind and it's likely difficult to find somebody who exactly fits that archetype, is good enough to play in the Big East and happy to join our 2-18 team to sit behind the guy we just gave a ton of NIL money to (Mack). Age and experience are important, no doubt. But talent is too. I don't think there's any chance we're in on a guy like Roach. I think Cooley will likely only have a 9 man rotation, and that's probably 3 guards/3 wings/3 bigs. If the next guard we bring in (after Mack) is going to get regular run he will likely have to outplay Mulready. Which I think will be hard, because Mulready is pretty good. As it pertains to Hammond, I can totally understand not seeing the fit. It's not a great one, tbh. But he can play. And for so long we've been wanting to keep top local players home. I'm ok with doing that even if it's not a perfect fit. I want the TTO and Paul VI pipelines. The best case for us might be for Hammond to go elsewhere for a year or two (say, George Mason) to get significant PT and then transfer to Georgetown in a couple years. But if he wants to come today and we need a backup point guard, I personally would not tell him no. Totally see your point re: freshman vs. 4th/5th year. I probably am a little bit more pessimistic in my view when it comes to bringing on fringe freshman. 5 years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed. But now, with the current NIL/transfer rules, the chances of your investment in freshmen, especially if they don't project to being a major contributor right away, is exceedingly low in being paid back. If they can't immediately contribute to wins, they don't help the team. If they don't develop right away, they're probably going to leave in a year to find a level that better suits their ability and any effort you may have put into their development is wasted. In a perfect world, the player exceeds expectations and outplays their ranking, develops quicker than expected, and helps you to win. Then you have to figure out how pay the kid enough the following spring so that he doesn't leave. Just a ton of headaches that don't come with taking on seniors/grad transfers. Agree that the most important thing here is developing that relationship with TTO/PVI. Honestly wouldn't have even given a player like Roach a 2nd thought except for the fact that he did go to PVI too. As much as we want to prove that we should be a preferred destination for their top-level players going forward, they need to hold up their end of the bargain and demonstrate that they'll steer their top-level players towards us too and not just anybody.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 17, 2024 8:21:17 GMT -5
The bigger issue is that if either of Mack or Epps gets a significant injury, you're likely starting a Freshman in Mulready or Hammond. It's risky. Hammond is a nice player. But a 5th year would make a lot more sense imo The 5th year route seems better in the abstract IMHO. I don't think you're getting a guy on his last year of eligibility who is BE caliber and who is willing to be the 4th guard in a 3.5 guard rotation for a team coming off of 2-18 in league. Maybe if you overpay it's possible, but the odds don't seem great. More likely you're getting someone in the Cam Bacote or Trey Dickerson mold who is transferring up from a low major and doesn't have any other high major options. Someone who is just happy to be playing at Georgetown, but who is not really the caliber of player who belongs in a Georgetown rotation. And that's OK with me if that's where it lands. But if a legitimate talent like Hammond is willing to come in and give it a shot, I think that's better. I know some will just see Hammond's 3 star rating and blow him off, but he's a better player than that ranking IMHO. I'd much rather have a high major-caliber talent like Hammond out there even if he's young than a seasoned player who is not a high major talent like Bacote part 2 (no offense to Bacote by the way, seems like a great guy). Does it make sense to bring in a freshman point guard to go with a sophomore point guard (Mack), a small junior 2 guard (Epps) and a freshman combo (Mulready), especially when we've made a huge push for Lewis in 2025 over the last year? Not really, not in the conventional sense. But all rosters are year-to-year at this point. I don't bank on a single person being back next year, you just never know. So to bring in a senior just to keep a seat warm for Acaden is not ideal. If Hammond knows the deal and wants to follow Kenny Johnson and take a crack at it, great. If it doesn't work, he will head back to the A-10 level this time next year. If it does work, great, and maybe one of the other guys takes off next April. I think in the current climate you just have to get the best players you can and see what happens. And Hammond is pretty good. Count me also in the 5th year camp. If this program wants to start shifting its sights upwards, we have to start planning to have guys off the bench who can hold their own and possibly even do some damage to opponents, vs. us just having to cover our eyes for a few minutes and hope the opponents' lead hasn't ballooned with our bench on the floor. I'm not saying Hammond can't eventually be that guy, but at this point I'd take the known quantity. I don't think it necessarily is a situation either where you're telling a potential 5th year PG that he's going to be limited to a 10 MPG role. There's 80 MPG to split at the 1 and 2 so there definitely is a way to ensure Epps, Mack (assuming he commits soon) and a guy like Roach are all playing ~25 MPG and staying relatively fresh throughout the course of a season vs. burning guys out through overuse (i.e. 35 MPG) and then actually having to worry about things like injuries.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 13:25:46 GMT -5
If you believe the rumor mill - once Peavy got big NIL and Epps renegotiated, Styles tried to do the same unsuccessfully. IOW, unrestricted free agency with no salary cap? And no contracts of any length. It's a crazy system right now, if you can even call it that.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 10:39:42 GMT -5
A little surprised by Styles, but there isn't a spot on the floor where we're any deeper. Peavy, McKenna, Williams, and Mulready - plus possible additions - can go at the 3. But yeah... thought he would've had a shot at a very good senior year. In a perfect world, would've loved the additional depth that Dontrez would have provided. But if his departure frees up significant cap space to go after other bigger needs, then so be it.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 10:10:34 GMT -5
Rutgers' adjusted defensive efficiency per Bart Torvik, nationally: 2023-2024: 5th 2022-2023: 8th 2021-2022: 64th 2020-2021: 20th Personally, I would kill for these numbers. Multiple times. Sure, these numbers look great but I'm talking about overall. As always I admit that I'm biased toward offense but aside from that I'm much more interested in seeing the young kids play this coming year. More than a few on this board spent much of last season calling some of the players @ St. John's "mercenaries" & praising the way Cooley & company were rebuilding the program seems like that notion is out the window now. Sure, overall: 2023-2024: 105th 2022-2023: 39th 2021-2022: 75th 2020-2021: 42nd I'm excited to see the incoming freshman class as well, but I don't think Sorber is ready to handle a 28-30 mpg workload and even if he is, we've already seen what happens to our defense when Cook gets regular rotation minutes. It wasn't pretty. I also don't hold it against any coach who has realized that utilizing the portal is a virtual necessity for success these days. NIL and transfer rules have unfortunately forced their hand in that direction.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 9:30:08 GMT -5
I think whoever gets Cliff will be overpaying (especially if you think of what he does offensively). His worth though is in his defense and athleticism for his position. Yeah, he doesn't have much post moves (or any at all for that matter). But he's very good/elite on the defensive end, shot blocker, mobile and can hedge out and guard the perimeter a bit. Lob threat on offense. Obviously a very good rebounder. He's kind of what we need. If we officially land Mack, the bulk of our scoring is going to come from them. Styles and Peavy are solid wing guys. Drew (Fielder) can score down low, but his value is his ability to shoot for a big. But it's painfully obvious we need a shot blocking C who can help when the guards get beat on drives. What Cliff is good at, is exactly what we need. So if you have the money, might as well overpay for it if you need to. Especially if we have the NIL room to do so. How has his elite skill set defensively worked out for Rutgers over the past 4 seasons? Rutgers' adjusted defensive efficiency per Bart Torvik, nationally: 2023-2024: 5th 2022-2023: 8th 2021-2022: 64th 2020-2021: 20th Personally, I would kill for these numbers. Multiple times.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 8:49:29 GMT -5
Reading the tea leaves on how the team has gone dark since the Hilltop Hoops article, I'm convinced now more than Cliff Omoruyi is in play. Both Henton and Kenny Johnson follow him on IG, we know Cooley went to NJ and visited him at "home" Shortly after that he went dark about his recruitment and not giving any idea on visits or who is getting the visits. This is the guy I've wanted us to prioritize from the portal since the beginning. Sounds like the price might be high given the dearth of quality bigs in the portal, but IMO it's worth it and if $ is the only obstacle in landing him, it's time to pony up. The 5 is clearly our biggest remaining weakness. Cliff's a plus-plus rim protector + post defender and above average rebounder who can really clean up a lot of mistakes on the back end. Let Sorber have a year to develop with the full knowledge that he will be the guy starting in Year 2 with no obvious roadblocks to starter-level PT. Peavy, Mack, and Omoruyi would definitely meet my expectations for portal season and that's a team I believe could compete for an at-large next year.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 15, 2024 8:35:12 GMT -5
One of the things we've been lacking sorely for years is defensive versatility. The better teams will repeatedly run offensive actions to force switches and create favorable matchups that they can attack, and this has killed us in recent years. Looking for Peavy to be the beginning of shoring up this team-wide weakness, which was arguably the worst of all our problems last year. I think he's capable.
The shooting numbers aren't great and YT has some great videos of spots where he excels and where he doesn't, but it's on him to keep improving his shot as it looks like he's done every year at the collegiate level. And just as important, if he can provide plus rebounding for his position at the defensive end, that would be a big help. Had too many guys last year who were allergic to rebounding on the defensive end, which is why we never could string together stops.
Like the add overall.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 11, 2024 8:43:19 GMT -5
GU, Texas, UVA in Mack's final 3 according to Trilly. Visits beginning this weekend. Thinking that Cuse/Vandy no longer being listed is a good sign for our chances and gives a higher degree of probability that KJ is somewhat involved despite the program for whatever reason refusing to publicly acknowledge his or anyone else's hire. Didin't Mack have his GU visit during spring break? Or did that not happen? I don't recall that being the case, but I could be wrong.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 10, 2024 10:48:11 GMT -5
GU, Texas, UVA in Mack's final 3 according to Trilly. Visits beginning this weekend.
Thinking that Cuse/Vandy no longer being listed is a good sign for our chances and gives a higher degree of probability that KJ is somewhat involved despite the program for whatever reason refusing to publicly acknowledge his or anyone else's hire.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Apr 8, 2024 9:11:13 GMT -5
Mack is now following Lampkin on Instagram and Cuse's twitter accounts are crowing about Donnie Freeman pitching him on Cuse. Think this ship might have sailed. Definitely don't think ship has sailed. But Cuse is definitely making a play. Straughn (Cuse Assistant and Takeover guy) is a good DMV recruiter who I wish was on our side and not theirs. I expect that they will make him a strong offer. It sounds like Vandy is going to make him a big NIL offer too. Mack is considered to be one of if not the top PG available in the portal. It was always going to be a battle, we should expect that competitors will be pursuing hard. That's what happens when you recruit really good players. Let's see where it goes. We are a high level academic institution, in his home area, making (we presume) a fairly lucrative NIL offer and handing him the keys to a high major program. We are also, allegedly, on the cusp of hiring an assistant coach associated with his former AAU program who has a pre-existing relationship with his family (played with Mack's father, believe I heard). Not much more we can do than that! If he turns that down because he'd rather play in Syracuse with a knucklehead like Eddie Lampkin, then he probably never was the guy for us. Hopefully he is just hearing them out, doing his diligence and trying to get himself the best offer. That would be the smart play, which we might expect from a Harvard man. Thanks for the summary. Do you think that the delay in announcing our assistant coach hire may have allowed other schools to become involved in Mack's recruitment that may not necessarily have had the chance if we had locked down our hire earlier?
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 29, 2024 17:21:14 GMT -5
So here we are, approaching the end of another week with still no clarity on filling the assistant vacancy and at least 1 other open position. Yes, the staff needs to tread carefully and take a lot into consideration before making a decision. But at some point, inaction becomes the enemy of progress. Seeing numbers being thrown around for players I would have hoped we would have at least thrown our hat into the ring for by now (but haven't) and programs we are looking to chase down in terms of competitiveness already make moves/offers for those very same players is not really instilling much confidence that, at the current pace our offseason planning is going, we are going to be able to add enough to put together a quality team next season. Cooley was hired on March 20 and many have said how that was such a late start and how he was so disadvantaged because of it. That's why this year was such a failure. It's now 9 days after that this year and I think people should realize how silly that was especially considering he brought much of his staff with him. That said we really never got coaching announcements last year and the first big 3 transfers all announced on the same day or close to it last year and that was in early April. Maybe there is already a lot of pieces lined up and the incredible Georgetown PR department is holding all the news for one big splash. I wouldn't put anything past them. Agree. I'm not expecting a fully finalized roster at this point, but I also wasn't expecting at least the first of hopefully several dominoes to fall or to even be still short an assistant. For those to be saying, "well we waited just as long if not longer last year, so we shouldn't expect anything different this spring," I hope we are expecting different results than 9-23.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 29, 2024 14:21:14 GMT -5
So here we are, approaching the end of another week with still no clarity on filling the assistant vacancy and at least 1 other open position. Yes, the staff needs to tread carefully and take a lot into consideration before making a decision. But at some point, inaction becomes the enemy of progress.
Seeing numbers being thrown around for players I would have hoped we would have at least thrown our hat into the ring for by now (but haven't) and programs we are looking to chase down in terms of competitiveness already make moves/offers for those very same players is not really instilling much confidence that, at the current pace our offseason planning is going, we are going to be able to add enough to put together a quality team next season.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 26, 2024 14:50:24 GMT -5
Who is using it as an excuse? I don't see Hilltop making an excuse. He is saying that who is on staff will impact who we get. This seems like common sense, no? Only a tiny handful of players have committed in the portal thus far, and almost all the the top ranked players are uncommitted. But go ahead, keep pushing the narrative. That said, if Kenny Johnson is the guy, let's nail it down. If, instead, the staff is considering someone else, such as someone on a team that's still active, then so be it. There have been tons of tweets about guys being contacted by Georgetown. I don't think anybody is sitting on their hands waiting for Thomas' role to be filled. Why do you continue wasting your time and energy talking to this guy as if he is having a good faith discussion? He is not a serious poster, don't take his bait. I do not know anything about the staff's plan, but my perception is that there was mutual interest with Johnson last week. And maybe it still could happen, but there are some important people who would be unhappy about it. If you hire Johnson you strengthen your ties with TTO, and there are a number of Takeover guys in the portal right now or expected to be soon including McDaniel, Perkins, Mack, Mintz, Dickinson again(?), Terrence Williams, Julian Reese, etc. Seems like Johnson would help on that front (no guarantees, but it doesn't hurt). On the flip side, if you get in bed with Takeover, some of the rival AAU organizations are not going to be happy and will potentially steer their players away, for the same reason that a lot of AAU teams steered kids away from the Thompsons after the whole JT2/Falk/DC Assault fiasco over Jeff Green. One of those rival organizations is the one where our top 2025 targets play. So, it is not necessarily an easy or straight-forward decision and Cooley may need to try to smooth things over or consider his other options. TTO is always going to have some solid players in the pipeline but relying so heavily on one AAU program may be tough. Lot to consider. Don't we have multiple openings at this point? Couldn't we just take one each from multiple AAU organizations and give everyone a slice of the pie? I know it's not that simple, but I also don't think it has to be necessarily an either-or situation at this point.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 25, 2024 15:27:02 GMT -5
Interesting to see Rowan higher on this list than Dual... Their BPR rating is 3.49 v. 3.45. I don't think it's that interesting. It's certainly not statistically relevant. Dual came in with much higher expectations and failed to meet them. Brumbaugh was a well regarded 4 star recruit, who after 2 years in college programs likely isn't as far as people thought he'd be at that point. In that sense, they are similar. Brumbaugh is better offensively, Dual defensively. Too bad we cannot get Rowan Dual. That'd be the best player. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about this kid or have watched him at all... but the kid ranked 2nd on that list behind Dug, damn... Ja'Kobi Gillespie's stats last year really jump out. 56% FG / 39% 3PT / 83% FT shooting from a 6'1 guard at that kind of volume is impressive. Near 2:1 A/TO ratio and led the MVC in steals this season.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 20, 2024 10:43:01 GMT -5
It used to be that guys would transfer for the following reasons: get more playing time, get more exposure by playing in a bigger conference, maybe specifically to programs where they could develop their game... all for the purpose of getting a sniff at the league or at worst, a career overseas where they could earn a decent paycheck for a few years before returning state-side.
Now with NIL probably in many instances dwarfing what an overseas contract or even free agent NBA deal looks like, what incentive do a lot of players have to care about getting better? Just milk the "marketing" angle for as long as possible until the well dries up and then go on with the rest of your life.
The well is going to dry up for almost everyone sooner rather than later. If significant progress isn't rapidly made on a number of fronts both at the program and administrative levels, that will include Georgetown.
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