Sean Miller: The Thread

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Originally Posted by D-West & PO-Z

FAU and SD State bought their way into relevance? Nice try.

Also FAU had all homegrown players last year unlike Hett's assertion otherwise about the teams adapting quickly. They also lost NONE of those guys in the portal this past offseason despite many offers I am sure and how Hett would have you believe it would have gone.

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Maybe the concept was a bit advanced for you. Stay in the kiddie pool.

When NIL became OK to funnel dollars to players, did they also do away with the ban on a player having an agent while in college?

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Originally Posted by xubrew

Does everyone pretty much agree that a lot of smaller programs from smaller leagues are somehow getting better players than they ever have before?? Regardless of how they're doing it or what the reasons are, can people pretty much agree on that??

Shahada Wells was at TCU last year and went to McNeese this year, and the fact that Will Wade is coaching at McNeese is a sure fire sign that NIL may have had SOMETHING to do with it

Mikael Brown-Jones is one of the top offensive players in the nation, yet he transferred to UNC Greensboro when he could have gone pretty much anywhere

Achor Achor is at Samford, and granted he had a previous relationship with the current coach, but still. He's a guy that would start for most teams in the top 25, and yet he's currently at Samford

Dillon Jones is at Weber State

Noah Reynolds is at Green Bay for some reason

Tyon Grant-Foster, who while he didn't start at Kansas was highly recruited and likely would have had he stayed, is now at Grand Canyon

I kind of want to leave the Ivy out of it because I know it's a different animal, but there are at least three or four guys that would pretty much start for the vast majority of P5 programs right now

And then you've got someone like Tristan Enaurna, who I think was averaging over 30 minutes a game at Iowa State, who up and transfers to CLEVELAND STATE!!! Who really isn't even all that good by small conference standards!!!

And on, and on, and on, and on!! These are P5 caliber players. These are guys that would start for most of the teams in the top 25 right now.

So, yes!! There is more parity. And, maybe Cleveland State all these other just figured out the new paradigm because they have all this brain power that none of the other programs have, or maybe there is just something different now. Coaches and programs can get access to players that they couldn't get access to before, and NIL sort of opened some of those doors.

I mean, there have always been a few examples a year of high caliber players landing at smaller programs, but it was just that. A COUPLE of examples. It wasn't DOZENS.

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I dont follow closely enough for any of these names to ring a bell. But good players at small schools is not some new phenomenon. Once upon a time Xavier had David West and St. Joes had Jameer Nelson. Kyle Korver at Creighton. Lillard at Weber, Camby at Umass. Ja at Murray State. There are good players that choose these schools sometimes. And there are guys that are left having to choose from these schools and then it turns out they were actually studs. There is nothing new about this.

What is new is that a sophomore kid that makes first team all conference in a small conference just decides he's moving up to the Big 6. Thats just not sustainable for the small conferences.

I've long stood by the idea that an incoming freshman should actually come in at a level where they know they will play well and then just leave for NIL money after their freshman year. I doubt there is much NIL money for kids that havent proven it. Worst case scenario would be to be highly touted and not get any PT as a freshman.

I can envision the schools with less NIL money relying more on incoming freshmen, and then the schools with alot of NIL money relying more on transfers from those low money NIL schools. I see the big money NIL schools getting "older" while the no money schools get "younger." I also personally think you might see a slighly deeper rotation of players as coaches make a more obvious attempt to keep kids happy since they can just leave with no sitting out.

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Originally Posted by MHettel

I dont follow closely enough for any of these names to ring a bell. But good players at small schools is not some new phenomenon. Once upon a time Xavier had David West and St. Joes had Jameer Nelson. Kyle Korver at Creighton. Lillard at Weber, Camby at Umass. Ja at Murray State. There are good players that choose these schools sometimes. And there are guys that are left having to choose from these schools and then it turns out they were actually studs. There is nothing new about this.

What is new is that a sophomore kid that makes first team all conference in a small conference just decides he's moving up to the Big 6. Thats just not sustainable for the small conferences.

I've long stood by the idea that an incoming freshman should actually come in at a level where they know they will play well and then just leave for NIL money after their freshman year. I doubt there is much NIL money for kids that havent proven it. Worst case scenario would be to be highly touted and not get any PT as a freshman.

I can envision the schools with less NIL money relying more on incoming freshmen, and then the schools with alot of NIL money relying more on transfers from those low money NIL schools. I see the big money NIL schools getting "older" while the no money schools get "younger." I also personally think you might see a slighly deeper rotation of players as coaches make a more obvious attempt to keep kids happy since they can just leave with no sitting out.

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Yes, there is.

The big difference between the examples I gave and the ones you gave is that most of the guys you listed sort of fell through the cracks. None of mine were guys that were not highly recruited and then ended up exceeding expectations. They were all highly recruited, all had big offers, and they all either chose to go to their current schools anyway, or did go to a big program and decided to transfer to their currents schools despite having been key players at big programs. Do you have very many examples of that happening in the years prior to the NIL??

And UMass and Saint Joe's?? Come on!! Neither of those programs were really blue bloods when they landed those players, but neither of them were exactly Horizon League or Big Sky caliber programs either. Speaking of that UMass team...

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Originally Posted by MHettel

sorry, rejected.

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Interesting. One of your examples of a past lower level program landing a high caliber player was Marcus Camby at UMass. I guess you're not familiar with that whole story, but it's well documented if you want to look it up!

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Originally Posted by xubrew

Yes, there is.

The big difference between the examples I gave and the ones you gave is that most of the guys you listed sort of fell through the cracks. None of mine were guys that were not highly recruited and then ended up exceeding expectations. They were all highly recruited, all had big offers, and they all either chose to go to their current schools anyway, or did go to a big program and decided to transfer to their currents schools despite having been key players at big programs. Do you have very many examples of that happening in the years prior to the NIL??

And UMass and Saint Joe's?? Come on!! Neither of those programs were really blue bloods when they landed those players, but neither of them were exactly Horizon League or Big Sky caliber programs either. Speaking of that UMass team...



Interesting. One of your examples of a past lower level program landing a high caliber player was Marcus Camby at UMass. I guess you're not familiar with that whole story, but it's well documented if you want to look it up!

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you going back 25 years to make your point? You might want to rethink your claim that 1/3rd of players have been getting "impermissable benefits"

I suppose your claim of impermissable benefits could technically be a free gatorade after practice. Or maybe a ride to the airport. or heck, even the notorious hundred-dollar-handshake.....

...but nothing was occuring even remotely to the extent or magnitude of what kind of cash is being tossed around in the name of NIL. Some clown from Miami paid teh football walkons 5k each.

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Originally Posted by MHettel

you going back 25 years to make your point? You might want to rethink your claim that 1/3rd of players have been getting "impermissable benefits"

I suppose your claim of impermissable benefits could technically be a free gatorade after practice. Or maybe a ride to the airport. or heck, even the notorious hundred-dollar-handshake.....

...but nothing was occuring even remotely to the extent or magnitude of what kind of cash is being tossed around in the name of NIL. Some clown from Miami paid teh football walkons 5k each.

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I was simply following up on the example you gave. Why did YOU go back that far when you were trying to make your point?? I just thought it was funny that not only did you go back 25 years when listing examples of big time players at smaller programs, but you gave an example of one of the most well known cases of impermissible benefits that's ever existed.

And, I've thougth about it. 1/3rd of D1 players seems about right to me. I'd say the percentage at just power conference programs was probably a lot higher. Although, to clarify, I don't think most of them were receiving benefits all throughout college. But, I guess I can think about it some more.

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Originally Posted by xubrew

I was simply following up on the example you gave. Why did YOU go back that far when you were trying to make your point?? I just thought it was funny that not only did you go back 25 years when listing examples of big time players at smaller programs, but you gave an example of one of the most well known cases of impermissible benefits that's ever existed.

And, I've thougth about it. 1/3rd of D1 players seems about right to me. I'd say the percentage at just power conference programs was probably a lot higher. Although, to clarify, I don't think most of them were receiving benefits all throughout college. But, I guess I can think about it some more.

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So 5000 active basketball players in any given season. And 1/3 of them makes about 1,667.

And they all just keep their mouth shut. Ok.

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Originally Posted by MHettel

So 5000 active basketball players in any given season. And 1/3 of them makes about 1,667.

And they all just keep their mouth shut. Ok.

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Many didn't keep their mouths shut. I mean the FBI investigation wouldn't have become what it did had it not been for so many people not keeping their mouths shut. Also, believe it or not (and you probably don't), many people other than myself would actually estimate that before the infamous FBI raid took place that it was actually more than 1/3rd. I don't agree, but there's no way to really tell for sure. I don't think all of the players were receiving benefits for the whole time they were in college, and I don't think that what everyone was getting was on par with what a lot of high end NIL deals are paying now...but I do believe that a few of them probably were.

So here is how you get to that number. According to the NCAA's own data, which I believe, roughly 53% of all D1 players sign a contract to play professionally somewhere in the world. The percentage of players from a P5 conference that sign a contract to play somewhere in the world is just over 80%. And when the season ends, and you see that some guy that was key role player has hired an agent from a firm that's notorious for tampering, and within days has a fully negotiated contract and apparel deal, people with common sense would reasonably look at that and think "My God! They're not even trying to hide it!"

Remember Nevin Shapiro, and all the money gifts he was claiming to give to Miami's football and basketball players?? What's kind of funny about that is that Miami's basketball teams were kind of good while that was going on, but they weren't THAT good! I mean...can you imagine how much he would have had to pay if he wanted them to be even better??

And, this was all pre-NIL, which is kind of my point. Now that NIL is here, this whole orbit of agents, to apparel companies, to assistant coaches and AAU coaches, is no longer an orbit programs have to be in or choose to be in to get high caliber players. NIL sort of quashed a lot of that. I think that's a BIG reason as to why there is more parity now. It's not the only reason, but it is certainly one of the big reasons.

Anyway, I still don't think Ohio State will be targeting Sean Miller.

BIG GAME TONIGHT AGAINST PROVIDENCE!!!

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Originally Posted by MHettel

So 5000 active basketball players in any given season. And 1/3 of them makes about 1,667.

And they all just keep their mouth shut. Ok.

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Apparently, as did all the coaches, players, trainers, administrators, staff, students, faculty, and media that came in/out of the universities/programs. Oh, not to mention the IRS, which, for the first time never, opted not to pursue systematic, pervasive, and decades-long tax fraud. Meanwhile, a recent landmark FBi investigation uncovered a complex money-laundering scheme that landed people in prison, with the shocking revelation that a few thousand buks had been funneled to a handful of players.