College Basketball Transfer Portal 2024-2025

[IM4X]

Patients and fandom don’t seem to go over that well. Even after the portal closes, we won’t know about the impact these new transfers will bring until the beginning of next season. I keep telling myself it can’t be worse than last year so I am excited to see who we get from the ports. I actually think Foster is a good piece coming into the program after looking at his stats and watching some tape on him. However, no one knows how he will transition from a mid major to BiG East competition.

Losing Free and Hunter sucked and hurt our season but Miller didn’t not replace Nunge with a starting 5 last offseason. Abou wasn’t the answer as a starter and Free isn’t a 5. No idea why Miller didn’t bring in a starting 5 last season. Miller seems to do wonders bringing in guards but struggles to bring in impactful front court players. Is it his system because it’s a head scratcher for sure.

I will say I was a bit perplexed when Sean wasn’t able to bring in a proven true center - someone 6’ 10” or bigger - that looksd capable of defending talented BE post opponents. I remember posting my concerns about it long before we knew about Free and Hunter being out.

I can’t remember the timing of when Nunge announced he wasn’t returning and I have no clue if that decision may delayed Sean and staff from going after bigs. I‘ve wonder if Sean and his staff lost out to other schools because they just didn’t know who they had coming back. When X finally land Abou (we still didn’t know the status of Free and Hunter) it did feel like we could be somewhat solid inside between Free, Hunter and Ousmane.. Still, there was always that feeling that Ousmane was not going to be big enough to step in and handle the center position in the BE.

Steele may be a tin man when it comes to coaching, but the recruiting side of him (at least at X) was a bit closer to titanium. Travis brought in Hankins, Nunge, Jones, Kunkel and Claude when he was the HC at X. Which of us can dare say any of those players were not great additions to X?

We can criticize Steele for not knowing how to properly assemble the good pieces he finds, but we have to give him credit for his ability to find good pieces and bring them in to be played with. Sean put those pieces together better and then added a perfect find and fit in Boum. Olivari and McNight are two more great finds - Now Sean knows he has to step it up and find a few legit bigs (and at least one gifted 3 point shooter) to complement what we have and allow us to play like a beast in the BE again.

[IM4X]

I don’t see how we would have had 5 guys averaging 12-20 points with Free and Hunter. I don’t think either of them could start at the 5, because they would get murdered defensively. We would have been better, but just chalking up wins against Houston and UConn? Ok.

I also genuinely have no outlook for Hunter. He was cleared to play from the heart issue, but then he tore his Achilles, right? Isn’t that close to a year to recover from? He did that in what, January? Are we just assuming he will be available and playing like his old self? I seriously have no information either way, but wondering if people’s expectations are taking these facts into consideration

Whether Freemantle and Hunter start together or not does not matter in terms of their individual scoring production. They would both be on the floor often and they’d probably play together quite a bit too.

Here is why X could have had 5 players scoring 12+ point players wirh a healthy Free and Hunter playing.

Zach was averaging over 15 points before his injury in the 2022-2023 season (and that was with Nunge in the line up averaging 14+ points). Zach’s numbers would likely have gone up this season as he would be a year more mature and there is no Nunge to eat up 14 points.

For the 18 games that Hunter was on the floor 20 or more minutes (during his last season), he averaged slightly over 11 points per game. Considering his continued growth and development (and again without Nunge in the lineup), it is likely Jerome would play more than 20 minutes each game and it is very plausible he would increase his scoring (if only a point or two). He would then be averaging over 12 points a game.

Olicari, Claude and McKnight already averaged more than 12 points per game this season. It’s reasonable to believe Quincy and Claude might end up with a few less points each due to Freemantle and Hunter making more buckets in the paint, it is still extremely plausible that they both (and McKnight) could remain averaging more than 12 points a game. Now it would be a little less likely that any of the players score 19 (like Olivari averaged this year), but 12+ per game for each of those 5 players on a team that didn’t have much other firepower seems quite possible.

Last season, 4 players averaged 14 or more points per game (Boum, Freemantle, Colby, and Numge). Their six leading scorer (Kunkel) averaged over 10 points per game.

Had Free and Hunter been in the lineup this year, I believe the scoring would have looked something close to the following

Olivari 15.7 (instead of 19.1)
Freemantle 15.5
Claude 13.7 (instead of 16.6)
Hunter 12.9
McKnight 12 (instead of 12.5)
Ousmane 4.5

All others 3 or less points per game.


I am not sure the prognosis of Hunter for this coming season- but I will remain hopeful (as it seemed Sean had hinted that they were going to be able to able to go next year.

As for the Houston and the UCONN (home) game- those games were close without much inside help- it is very reasonable to think both could have gone our way with a little more firepower and toughness inside from Zach and Jerome.

[Xville]

Newton was a 90, one point above foster and had no guarantee to be a stud. Just more rewriting of history. If you look at who was ranked at 90 in the transfer portal that year, there are some good players, there is also some mediocrity.

Ya know who was an 89 that year? Boum.

The point is xudash is 100% correct. Stats are good as a supplement to tell a story , but there is so
Much more to it. If there wasn’t than we might as well have an ai bot do the recruiting.

[xukeith]

I get the feeling that X is limited in the transfer portal due to NIL $ being less than ideal. Miller finds diamonds in the rough and X has been very fortunate in transfer guards.
X does not pursue the elite talent in the portal b/c X doesn't have the $600-1.2 million to throw at some top 30 portal athlete. Maybe it is being stingy and economical as X gets some good bargains.

[Xuperman]

CJ Wilcher in the portal. St. Johns?

[Xuperman]

Someone on "Madness" floating out a rumor that Des Claude is asking for $500K.

[Xville]

Someone on "Madness" floating out a rumor that Des Claude is asking for $500K.

There definitely is that rumor out there along with des wanting to play the 1 because that’s his ticket to the league. Who knows if true. Just saying though, even after the foster commit, x is still going after guards. Maybe foster is des replacement just in case and the other recruits are the olivari replacement. All hearsay just talking out loud.

Just saying it wouldn’t surprise me if des enters… he hasn’t said he’s coming back yet, it may be he’s waiting on a nil number from x who knows.

[XUGRAD80]

Hey y’all want to know who else is a transfer from a lower level school? How about Tyler Koleck! Transferred from George Mason, where he was A10 rookie of the year and average an outstanding 10pts per game. Wow! His sophomore year at Marquette that average actually Dropped to under 7ppg. What!? He was the Rhode Island player of the year his junior year in HS and that garnered offers from such big time programs as Elon, Holy Cross, and Vermont. Guess he was destined to be the Big East player of the year and an all-American as a junior in college.

“There are lies. There are damn lies. And then there are statistics.”

NONE of us that see any of these players in person, let alone watch as much film as the coaches do. And we certainly don’t get to meet and talk with the players and their coaches directly. The coaches don’t rely on rankings because they aren’t reliable. They don’t just watch film because film doesn’t tell all. And they certainly don’t look at just the stats.

[xuphan]

Someone on "Madness" floating out a rumor that Des Claude is asking for $500K.

Maybe someone can tweet or X Kenny Frease to see if this is accurate. If true, I have mixed feelings about it to be honest. He is the best player on the team by a wide margin so I get that side but putting himself first over the team rubs me the wrong way. Would hate to put all the money into one player and not be able to bring in other impact players from the portal. Maybe we have the NIL funds to do it. I don’t know but it’s a tricky situation for the program to be in.

[Xville]

Maybe someone can tweet or X Kenny Frease to see if this is accurate. If true, I have mixed feelings about it to be honest. He is the best player on the team by a wide margin so I get that side but putting himself first over the team rubs me the wrong way. Would hate to put all the money into one player and not be able to bring in other impact players from the portal. Maybe we have the NIL funds to do it. I don’t know but it’s a tricky situation for the program to be in.

I don't think Kenny knows anything more than we do.