Relating to Nate's assessment of hitting and missing on transfers and portal guys, you have got to go perfect or the hits need to be more than the misses for any immediate results. With exception to maybe Dotson (freshman / massively high upside / we did recruit him in HS), everyone else we've brought in this year has been a miss. Not good.

Then on top of that, you need to be targeting the right guys who don't have individual agendas. There seems to be a lot of agenda on this team.

The other night I watched a Josh Schertz interview on Field of 68. SLU is what they are this year because they went 6 for 6 in the portal and the quality of dudes they were able to find.




Full interview here - https://x.com/TheFieldOf68/status/20158 ... 14736?s=20


Schertz is a special coach.

So.... You need to be perfect thru the portal.


Read this one - https://www.on3.com/sites/field-of-68/n ... s-special/

I took a stab at guys Drew has brough on as freshmen or transfers and tried to classify them very simply as a Hit or a Miss. Obviously some guys aren't so easily classified as such and there may be some disagreements. I think he kind of just sucks at evaluating portal talent. We have the money to attract talent, that is clear. But there have just been some big time swings and misses.

Transfers
-Tavarez: Miss
-Moore: Miss (too injury prone; otherwise could have been a hit)
-JOJ: Miss
-Dotson: Hit (although injury prone...)
-Harris: Miss
-Amos: Miss (too injury prone; otherwise could have been a hit)
-Richardson: Miss
-Houinsou: Hit (injury prone but proved massive last year running PG)
-Watson: Hit
-DeLoach: Miss
-Sheldon: Hit
-Nwaokorie: Miss (had trouble with this one...)
-Greg Dolan: Hit
-Alston: Hit
-Mwamba: Miss (had trouble with this one...)
-Dame: Hit
-Bryce Golden: Miss
-Jeameril Wilson: Miss

Total: 39%

Recruits
-Glazkov: Miss
-Anderson: Hit
-Love: Hit (pending health)
-Rubin: Hit
-Dawson: Hit (disappointing transfer)
-Quinn: Hit (disappointing transfer)
-Hendawy: Miss
-Turner: Miss
-Brayden Young: Miss
-Trey Lewis: Miss

Total: 50%

Good stuff.

Now I begin to wonder, on the few guys who were hits were there any other staff members who are no longer with us very heavily involved in their recruiting process to bring them here?

Gone are:

- Amorrow
- Dwyer
- Will Bailey
- P-dub (Patrick Wallace)

Which of our hits were their guys? if any ?

just wanted to point out that Turner is starting at Oral Roberts and Hendeway is 6th man at Winthrop. You could also make the case that those conferences are not A-10 level and those kids left cuz they didnt want to be bench guys....Hard to find dudes that want to hang around and be bench guys...It has become a difficult task to manage a roster these days. One could make an argument that it takes a veteran coach to do so.

I'd disagree on some of this. Hitting on a player doesn't just mean they are a key piece and light things up. Nwaokorie, Mwamba, and DeLoach were great complimentary players. They didn't light things up but we won games because of them. Those are hits in my mind. I also can't say Moore and Amos are misses because they got hurt. If you could predict injuries and lingering impacts from guys who have been fairly healthy then you could probably make a ton of money doing that for teams.

I'd put Tavarez as TBD. He's having a "bad" year. I think he'll shoot better next year. If you remember, people were calling Sheldon a bust after his first year when he shot 27% from 3 his first year. Tavarez is at 31% this year after shooting 41% last year and 36% the year before. He could easily become a hit if he shoots well next year.

Honestly, I think if you can hit 50% of your high school recruits you're doing fine. With the amount of turnover that happens every year, it's easier to let go of the players that you miss on. It also allows you to take some swings. Brayden Young seems like a very raw talent that just isn't developing like we'd hope. Nic Anderson, though, also looked a little raw and has been looking good. He still needs to get a little more physical on defense, but so far he's coming along really well.

It is definitely an overly simplistic way to view things. I had trouble with Nwaokorie and Mwamba. But agreed that they were decent complimentary players, played solid defense utilizing their size/athleticism. Deloach I think was a miss just because he was worse for us than he was his soph year at VCU. I think many people (myself included) saw his soph numbers at VCU vs A10 competition and thought he could build on those numbers and be an all-A10 type guy. Never quite got there.

I think the overarching point is how important it is to hit on transfers. As discussed elsewhere, SLU nailed the transfer portal (6 for 6 per their coach). We did not (1 for 7 using my ratings, 3 or 4 for 7 using more generous ratings). With the massive turnover every year, you really have to nail it.

I'd disagree with a lot of the "Misses," actually.

A few examples...

Tavarez: Has he been what we expected? No, but he's also a two year player, so I'd say it's too early to tell.
Moore: I wish he were a better shooter, but he's been a solid player who tore his ACL. I wouldn't call that injury prone.
Amos: Injury prone, okay.. but again, we have him for another year as well.

Calling DeLoach a miss is crazy.

Even a guy like Richardson has been fine. He's a backup.

Bigger problem to me is some of the gigantic misses. Like, season-destroying misses. Dominick Harris is at the top of that list for me. Bryce Golden is up there. Jameril Wilson was disappointing. The Saint Thomas flame out.

If you're perfect in the portal, you can be SLU 2026.

If you do fine, you can be Loyola 2025.

If players leave the team and destroy your culture, you're where we are now.

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