Again, you are missing the forest from the trees. You are assuming that if Steele had recruited players for scholarships 12 and 13, then those guys would end being our 2 worst players. Recruiting is a crap shoot. Maybe those 2 guys end up being our 2 best players, either now or in the future. Give me the 2 extra bites at the apple.
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I’m very excited as well, especially after reading Jive’s rose-colored summary of the scrimmage and listening to Steele’s media tour. But I’m also skeptical based on Steele’s track record and 20+ years as a beaten down Miami sports fan.
I’m really not. You’re just not making a compelling case for why we need “scholarship level players” in the 12th and 13th spots this season.
You might not agree with what Steele thinks on this hawkattack but the reason he only wants 11 guys expecting playing time and the reason he only recruits transfer he knows is for culture
He thinks guys not playing or not vetted could ruin the culture
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Tyler Dierkers was player #13 his freshman year. Ended up being a pretty good player for us. Jackson Kotecki was player #12 or 13 last year and he’s expected to contribute someday.
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I obviously don’t agree with him and am not going to take his word as gospel no matter how confident he sounds.
I’d rather have 13 recruited guys competing for playing time than 11 recruited guys. I don’t care about the hurt feelings of the 12th and 13th guys who don’t play. Those guys can either transfer down or get better. I’d rather have a culture of the toughest possible internal competition rather than a culture of everyone being happy with their playing time.
Also, it’s possible that guys he doesn’t know could still fit the culture. Do some due diligence for god’s sake.
They’re bringing in at least 4 freshman next year. @Nickskin has shown the scholarship chart in another thread. Currently projected for 14. So again, this is a one-year thing where obviously the staff didn’t feel bringing in additional one-year portal options was a good idea, and would rather allocate future scholarships to the incoming freshman next season than an additional multi-year portal option this offseason.
So again, I ask, why are you so fired up about the most marginal of minutes for this year? Do you think the staff chose not to bring in a top-8 rotation piece because they wanted to give scholarships to Eli and Blake? Really?!
Current scholarship projections are about as reliable as DoDo’s promises for a new arena 15 years ago.
If Steele has 13 scholarship (recruited) players going forward, then I will apologize.
Well the limit next year goes to 15, so you can keep complaining about the leftover minutes if you want.
My mistake, we’re at 15 allocated for next year
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To be clear, I’m not complaining about leftover minutes. You put that on me. I’m complaining about not fielding the most competitive roster we possibly can, both for this year and future years.
And you’re implying you know better than this staff what a competitive roster is. Sorry, my money’s not on you.
Edit: any opinion on next year’s projected roster?
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I didn’t mean to imply that I know better. Every single college coach in every sport is going to whiff on recruits from time to time. No doubt there are a few whiffs on this year’s team. We don’t know who they are yet. But I’d rather have 13 guys with 3 whiffs (10 studs) than 11 guys with 2 whiffs (9 studs).
If this year’s sophomores are all studs and all stick around, then we should be pretty damn good next year and the year after. At that point, I will be Steele’s biggest stan and everyone can laugh at how stupid I am.
The bigger point is the coaches see tons of players in a given year. Their network is vast. Add in the number of high school coaches they know and it gets bigger.
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Scholarship allocation is certainly a point worth considering. With this years roster, I wouldn’t mind another “big.” Potter, Kotecki, and Woolfork are the three bigs we have in the roster. With Potters injury history, it leaves us pretty thin with interior depth. I know Byers is tall, but from what I’ve heard he’s more of a wing. (Haven’t seen him play - so not sure.)
I’d want another big for practice purposes, depth, and for line-up versatility.
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100% - it’s hard for a player to not be in their network. I don’t believe anyone on the staff was directly familiar with Woolfolk, but Chet Mason coached him and that was enough.
A single player can kill a season and a program. Being selective is the smart choice in the age of the transfer portal. You can just as easily have half the team leave the following season because you brought in poison.
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I have no problem banking scholarships. Especially since there simply aren’t enough minutes to go around. That being said, I agree this team could use another big man, true post. The old 4 or 5. But I am fine banking it.
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16 actually. Blake Anderson is on scholarship now too.