2024 Transfer Portal

So you don't believe that success on the court should lead to success in recruiting?
It doesn't matter what I "believe". It matters what the reality is. The facts suggest that we shouldn't expect to be launched into another recruiting stratosphere after 2 good-to-great seasons. A lot more goes into recruiting than that.

Since winning the title in 2012, Kentucky has 1 Final Four appearance (and lost). Nova has 3, including 2 titles. UNC has 3, including a title. UConn has 2, including 2 titles. Kansas has 2, including a title. Michigan State has 2. Gonzaga has 2. UVA has 1, including a title, and a number of other great years that ended in the 2nd weekend.

All of those programs have had significantly more on-the-court success than UK over the past 10 years, yet none of them even approaches UK in terms of recruiting. (Only Duke does.) None of those programs received any sort of huge recruiting boost because of their on-the-court success.

We had 2 good-to-great years, preceded by 3 years of absolute garbage and decades of irrelevance (with Sweet 16 appearances sprinkled in here or there). We haven't produced an NBA star since Rick Barry. None of the guys on last year's team or this year's team will be among the 60 first rounders taken over the past 2 drafts. And qualitatively, L doesn't seem like that super-hungry, relentless talent-stacker that some other coaches are (e.g. Calipari, Scheyer, Hardaway, Musselman); he's more in the Roy Williams or Tom Izzo mold.

I do think, long-term, if we don't regress back to our pre-2022 ways, recruiting will start to trend up. But it's not reasonable to expect us to suddenly take a major step up in recruiting.
 
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It doesn't matter what I "believe". It matters what the reality is. The facts suggest that we shouldn't expect to be launched into another recruiting stratosphere after 2 good-to-great seasons. A lot more goes into recruiting than that.

Since winning the title in 2012, Kentucky has 1 Final Four appearance (and lost). Nova has 3, including 2 titles. UNC has 3, including a title. UConn has 2, including 2 titles. Kansas has 2, including a title. Michigan State has 2. Gonzaga has 2. UVA has 1, including a title, and a number of other great years that ended in the 2nd weekend.

All of those programs have had significantly more on-the-court success than UK over the past 10 years, yet none of them even approaches UK in terms of recruiting. (Only Duke does.) None of those programs received any sort of huge recruiting boost because of their on-the-court success.

We had 2 good-to-great years, preceded by 3 years of absolute garbage and decades of irrelevance (with Sweet 16 appearances sprinkled in here or there). We haven't produced an NBA star since Rick Barry. None of the guys on last year's team or this year's team will be among the 60 first rounders taken over the past 2 drafts. And qualitatively, L doesn't seem like that super-hungry, relentless talent-stacker that some other coaches are (e.g. Calipari, Scheyer, Hardaway, Musselman); he's more in the Roy Williams or Tom Izzo mold.

I do think, long-term, if we don't regress back to our pre-2022 ways, recruiting will start to trend up. But it's not reasonable to expect us to suddenly take a major step up in recruiting.
I don't doubt Coach L's ability to out coach the blue blood teams. But your program mocves forward with talent infusions once coaching is in place.

There's precedence with Coach L. He was the NIT runner in 2015 up and then he made the sweet 16 in 2016 and he went from Anthony Lawrence Jr, Ebuka Izundu and Abdoulaye Harouna to Bruce Brown, Dewan Huell and Rodney Miller. It was quite a big jump in recruiting and it didn't take 3 years of success. The next year we got Lonnie Walker and Chris Lykes so the jump was real.

Maybe concerned is the wrong word, maybe its disappointed that we haven't made a bigger splash up to this point.

The program is in a better place than it has ever been. So maybe the fans are being a little selfish and enjoying the expectations of being a very good team.

How do you rate the recruiting effort up to this point?


We would not have made the Final 4 without Omier and Pack. The Portal is an important part of our success.
 
It doesn't matter what I "believe". It matters what the reality is. The facts suggest that we shouldn't expect to be launched into another recruiting stratosphere after 2 good-to-great seasons. A lot more goes into recruiting than that.

Since winning the title in 2012, Kentucky has 1 Final Four appearance (and lost). Nova has 3, including 2 titles. UNC has 3, including a title. UConn has 2, including 2 titles. Kansas has 2, including a title. Michigan State has 2. Gonzaga has 2. UVA has 1, including a title, and a number of other great years that ended in the 2nd weekend.

All of those programs have had significantly more on-the-court success than UK over the past 10 years, yet none of them even approaches UK in terms of recruiting. (Only Duke does.) None of those programs received any sort of huge recruiting boost because of their on-the-court success.

We had 2 good-to-great years, preceded by 3 years of absolute garbage and decades of irrelevance (with Sweet 16 appearances sprinkled in here or there). We haven't produced an NBA star since Rick Barry. None of the guys on last year's team or this year's team will be among the 60 first rounders taken over the past 2 drafts. And qualitatively, L doesn't seem like that super-hungry, relentless talent-stacker that some other coaches are (e.g. Calipari, Scheyer, Hardaway, Musselman); he's more in the Roy Williams or Tom Izzo mold.

I do think, long-term, if we don't regress back to our pre-2022 ways, recruiting will start to trend up. But it's not reasonable to expect us to suddenly take a major step up in recruiting.
Like what you said with the exception of characterizing the last two seasons as "good to great." Forget the "good." Those seasons (Elite Eight and Final Four) were great for a program like ours. ****, for any program.
 
Like what you said with the exception of characterizing the last two seasons as "good to great." Forget the "good." Those seasons (Elite Eight and Final Four) were great for a program like ours. ****, for any program.

2023 was great for any program, agreed.

A blue blood wouldn't consider 2022 "great". We finished 4th in the conference and were a 10 seed. We beat a #2 seed, which was great, but got a favorable draw in the Sweet 16 before getting pummeled in the Elite 8. If Duke had a season like that, their fans would say it's a good year but not a great year.

For this program, of course that's a great year.
 
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I don't doubt Coach L's ability to out coach the blue blood teams. But your program mocves forward with talent infusions once coaching is in place.

There's precedence with Coach L. He was the NIT runner in 2015 up and then he made the sweet 16 in 2016 and he went from Anthony Lawrence Jr, Ebuka Izundu and Abdoulaye Harouna to Bruce Brown, Dewan Huell and Rodney Miller. It was quite a big jump in recruiting and it didn't take 3 years of success. The next year we got Lonnie Walker and Chris Lykes so the jump was real.

Maybe concerned is the wrong word, maybe its disappointed that we haven't made a bigger splash up to this point.

The program is in a better place than it has ever been. So maybe the fans are being a little selfish and enjoying the expectations of being a very good team.

How do you rate the recruiting effort up to this point?


We would not have made the Final 4 without Omier and Pack. The Portal is an important part of our success.

And those 5 stars won 0 tournament games here. Yes, Omier and Pack were huge additions last year, but the 2022 team won 26 games and got to the Elite 8 without any big fish in the portal.

I don't want to go back to getting 1 and done's. UNC, Nova, UVA have all had sustained runs of success, including national titles, without recruiting as well as Duke or Kentucky.

It's premature to grade our offseason. Of course I would love to land a top transfer or two, but if we don't, I think we'll still have a top 25 team next season.
 
Stop being so sensitive and in your feelings. This is the most benign criticism in the history of any board ever and your panties are in bunch? Nobody said fire the guy, nobody said we're gonna suck next year, nobody said Coach L sucks, many just respectfully said they were concerned.

No, its you guys who are the ones bringing in the bad juju from the football board by not allowing people to very politely express their views because they don't jibe with yours. Thats how this **** starts.

Everybody knows he's not done yet. Its not breaking news.
It's being in your feelings to point out the absurdity of "Oh no, we didn't get this guy, blah, blah blah" when in reality, there's a ton of time left, AND a lot of Miam's targets haven't even decided? Yep, makes sense.

Just because someone has an opinion, doesn't mean it's valid, or worth listening to. Unfortunately, we have a lot of fans that think their poorly reasoned nonsense should be taken seriously. Some of us are tired of wading through pages of horsecrap, just to get to the stuff worth a ****. This is the downside of the program finding success, it was a lot more pleasant, back when it was basketball nerds bouncing ideas off of each other.
 
And those 5 stars won 0 tournament games here. Yes, Omier and Pack were huge additions last year, but the 2022 team won 26 games and got to the Elite 8 without any big fish in the portal.

I don't want to go back to getting 1 and done's. UNC, Nova, UVA have all had sustained runs of success, including national titles, without recruiting as well as Duke or Kentucky.

It's premature to grade our offseason. Of course I would love to land a top transfer or two, but if we don't, I think we'll still have a top 25 team next season.
This team will be fine, it's extremely likely Omier and Pack return. With Wooga, you have three potential ALL-ACC guys right there. With L's track record of developing guys, don't be shocked if Watson or someone else becomes a legit contributor in year two, and I am higher on the incoming big than I've been with previous guys L has landed in the frontcourt.

Miami will land some portal guys, whether they are depth, or legit starter quality remains to be seen, but this is still going to be a solid Top 25 team, with the potential to go on a run. Keep in mind, The University of Miami basketball program has only gone to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments ONCE in school history. ONCE. Merely being the bracket would be historic, going on another deep run would be nuts.
 
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And those 5 stars won 0 tournament games here. Yes, Omier and Pack were huge additions last year, but the 2022 team won 26 games and got to the Elite 8 without any big fish in the portal.

I don't want to go back to getting 1 and done's. UNC, Nova, UVA have all had sustained runs of success, including national titles, without recruiting as well as Duke or Kentucky.

It's premature to grade our offseason. Of course I would love to land a top transfer or two, but if we don't, I think we'll still have a top 25 team next season.
Is your argument that recruiting 5 stars doesn't matter and we should not endeavor to recruit them? I'm not sure what your angle is. I respond that Coach L has not needed multiple years to upgrade his recruits ranking level and you respond by telling me that bruce Brown and Lonnie didn't win? So we shouldn't have recruited them?
 
It's being in your feelings to point out the absurdity of "Oh no, we didn't get this guy, blah, blah blah" when in reality, there's a ton of time left, AND a lot of Miam's targets haven't even decided? Yep, makes sense.

Just because someone has an opinion, doesn't mean it's valid, or worth listening to. Unfortunately, we have a lot of fans that think their poorly reasoned nonsense should be taken seriously. Some of us are tired of wading through pages of horsecrap, just to get to the stuff worth a ****. This is the downside of the program finding success, it was a lot more pleasant, back when it was basketball nerds bouncing ideas off of each other.
Well i was here when it was just basketball nerds we still had our spats but this whole calling groups of people "moronic" who disagree with you has the stink of the football board. Nobody wants that crap here. Hopefully we'll learn from that board and have a better culture here. You're a vet of both boards you should be leading the way to the better culture.

You do realize that we all wade through horsecrap to get to the good stuff. Some us have just learned its better to ignore horse crap than to turn an entire thread toxic which btw still won't change anybody's mind.
 
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I think Miami fans just want to see up capitalize on this window. We made 2 back to back deep runs, and it looks like we can return 3 really good All-ACC caliber players. Coach L is old, and we don't know how much longer he can or will coach. After Omier, Pack, and Wooga leave(which realistically could be after the 2023-2024 season we could take a big step back.

If we can add a really good portal player to that BIG 3, we could make another deep run. That is all. With the 2 freshman coming in, you just never know. A good portal grab or 2, could really push this team up.

Then you see other tournament teams that didn't have as good a season as Miami, signing some really good top tier portal talents.
 
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I think Miami fans just want to see up capitalize on this window. We made 2 back to back deep runs, and it looks like we can return 3 really good All-ACC caliber players. Coach L is old, and we don't know how much longer he can or will coach. After Omier, Pack, and Wooga leave(which realistically could be after the 2023-2024 season we could take a big step back.

If we can add a really good portal player to that BIG 3, we could make another deep run. That is all. With the 2 freshman coming in, you just never know. A good portal grab or 2, could really push this team up.

Then you see other tournament teams that didn't have as good a season as Miami, signing some really good top tier portal talents.
It's sometimes easier to sign new players to teams who aren't coming off a great season. The perception to players you're trying to recruit can be that they're gonna be no better than a third or fourth option on offense or, God forbid, have to compete for a little PT.
 
Coach L deserves the benefit of the doubt. The team with Omier, Pack & Wooga is definitely a tournament team.

But a solid rotation player from the portal would solidify everything for sure.
We're losing 33 points a game from just the departure of Wong and Miller. Getting near to replacing that number won't be easy.
 
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Is your argument that recruiting 5 stars doesn't matter and we should not endeavor to recruit them? I'm not sure what your angle is. I respond that Coach L has not needed multiple years to upgrade his recruits ranking level and you respond by telling me that bruce Brown and Lonnie didn't win? So we shouldn't have recruited them?

Oh yeah, I forgot about our incredible recruiting classes following 2013...

It took a few years for L to improve our recruiting. And I don't think 2022's 10 seed that made a Cinderella run is as impressive to recruits as we think it is; 2023 is a different story.

But no, my point is we don't NEED those type of players to win, or even to win big. Adding 1 every couple of years would be nice, but we already do that.

My original point is that the notion that we should get a boost in recruiting by our recent Marches is wishful thinking and not corroborated by the evidence. That just doesn't happen. We need extended success and to crank out some NBA players before our recruiting will take another step.
 
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