I guess it’s a good thing we don’t play in the SEC. The kid is 6’9. That is size. At our level anyway. As far as why we couldn’t do better, I’d guess money. Top tier centers are getting 4-5 million. That trickles down to our level. Even decent mid-major big guys are jumping up to high majors. After Michigan, everyone in college basketball wants “size.”
He’s developmental for sure, but if High Point was on him that says something to me and obviously his list of offers out of high school is impressive. The way I would frame this is if he played for us last year as a freshmen, put up these numbers, and we retained him, we’d be excited for his future and bummed if he left.
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I’m not exactly impressed, but I’m not going to be dramatic. Steele clearly prefers roster building through high school recruiting and retention, if he thinks the returning players plus recruits plus select transfers can get the job done then I’ll give him some deference. Especially when returning Skaljac, Kirby, Ipsaro, and Atlason probably required a lot of cash when basically all other MAC programs were losing players of the same caliber.
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Elam looks like a guy that will thrive in Travis’s offense. A good shooter that can put it on floor if necessary. If he can pick up some of the back cut reads, he’s going to be very tough to guard.
I’ll just quote myself from January 2nd:
I thought it was pretty nice that the in-laws got me a Patagonia pullover for Christmas. I never thought to ask for a point guard.
(N.B.: Skins has asked Santa for an “athletic big man” every year since 1997.)
It seems as if Miami has more NIL than in prior years, but overall spending is also going through the roof. If you’re spending more on transfers than retained players, that undercuts the culture you want to build and the backbone for sustaining success at the mid-major level. The upshot seems to be that you make your best offers to your best guys and hope most of them stay. Then you take the budget that’s left and try to find some hidden gems or players whom you think can be more successful in your system than the one they’re leaving. On those grounds, it looks like Miami is putting together a pretty good roster for next year.
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For what it’s worth, the Ball State fans seem genuinely pissed to lose him. They also seem to be indicating he was asking for a decent chunk of money to stay.
Also, I know Steel said we’re done, but I would like to see us add one more player. Not even position specific (guard/wing/big/whatever), just another scoring piece, because we did lose an awful lot of that.
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DG is correct. Miami does have more NIL…but not enough to overhaul an entire roster. TS’s current model is to recruit talented kids and develop them. Last year’s team was mostly all TS’s guys with only Woolfolk (2 years on team) Suder (2 years on team) and Atlason (1st year on team) as transfers. NIL still has to pay for current roster and we have good players on the roster.
There has been more institutional commitment from Miami than ever before. It has to grow and hopefully it will
BTW…we have Robbins, Waltz, Stowers who barely played last year. (Stowers not at all) and I believe in TS and his staff at recognizing talent and developing them.
As far as talent goes, Gabe Cupps got a ton of money to go to Indiana and Ohio State. TS said Skaljac was his #1 guy in the class and he’s a LOT more talented than Cupps. Ipsaro came in unheralded but has developed into an all-league guard. I trust in TS and the staff
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I was probably harsh in my immediate reaction. Copeland does have all the makings of a great ceiling for a MAC sophomore. Same with Elam.
I guess I was just hoping we’d be bringing in a Senior or Graduate Transfer or two and make a real push to win now and try to blow the ceiling off. Probably unrealistic to think we could bring in immediate first team all MAC type transfers but I had stars in my eyes. The current NIL/transfer landscape just has me a bit gun shy about bringing in a couple sophomores who could just be single year rentals looking to move up, but I have no visibility into the transfer portal market and maybe this is just where we are at. Its not like I see Akron or Kent doing things that blow my socks off either.
As I said, Steele has earned my trust so I’ll be just as excited come November. I probably won’t predict we could be the last undefeated team in the country again though.
I posted this elsewhere-there has been a 65% increase in what these kids are now getting over last year. So a player paid 1 million last year is now requesting and getting 1.65 million.
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Agree . . . worth repeating: Steele has shown a great aptitude for indentifying and developing talent. I am not worried.
I think given the realties of the situation, Steele and staff have done a fine job with these 2 adds. I gave the Elam add an A, and I give Copeland a B to B+. I would still like to see us add one more, if we can, perhaps Colin White, who might not be too expensive, but if we roll with 12, we roll with 12. Glenn Box did that this year with the women and he got his team to the NCAA Tournament.
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What I would also say is if Copeland and Elam have good enough years to warrant transferring up, than mission accomplished.
If the staff prioritizes the off season drills to strengthen Robbins footwork and offensive confidence, the rest of the pieces I think are there to make another at-large run. Hopeful Horton comes in more advanced to help out in the paint as well!
Per this article, we appear to be done. Steele in the article said in addition to Elam we were adding one more. So we are rolling with 12.
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We have 4 guys who are in the rotation (Luke, Ipsaro, Kirby, & Almar)…the 8 others are fighting for minutes. The competition starts now.
I’m happy we didn’t add anyone with 1 year of eligibility left, I think that’s more likely to create a distraction than add any value.
Not blown away by our offseason so far, but retaining Steele and 4 of 9 rotation players is a huge win compared to the rest of the MAC. Since we lost 3 players to the portal, I’d like to see us bring in 3 players. But sounds like we could be done. Either way, I trust Steele and the staff to be the top 1-2 teams in the MAC next year.
=>NIL moneyball.
You only have so much cash. The more players you bring in, the more you have to pay.
Rotations tend to be 7 to 9 players on most teams.
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Assuming we’re done I’d imagine the rotation is something like this. I’m not predicting starters because who knows, and also we don’t know yet what Ipsaro/Skally’s status will be to start the season.
Skaljac - PG
Ipsaro - PG
Kirby - Wing
Elam - Wing
Waltz - Wing
Atlason - F
Copeland - Center
Robbins - Center
That’s an eight-man rotation.
Unknowns are Stowers, Horton and Fresh. At least one true freshman has been part of the rotation every year Steele has been here, but it’s anyone’s guess which one - if either - it will be.