In 2023-24 Miami’s 12th leading minute earner played 31 minutes total (Eli Yofan). Kent State’s 12th leading minute earner played 126 minutes total (Delrecco Gillespie). Miami was 9-9 in the MAC, Kent St 8-10.
What’s got you fired up in late October about the most marginal of minutes?
No idea and that’s not really the point. But if I was a betting man, I would say that Kent’s 12th and 13th guys have more upside than Eli and our other walk on who got the 13th scholarship.
Here’s an analogy that might help. Let’s say you are a 13 handicap playing a match against your buddy who is scratch. You walk to the first tee and say “I’m really confident in my game today so I’m only going to take 11 strokes.” Sure you could play really well and still win the match, but it’s not an optimal strategy.
Your analogy doesn’t fit. 12th and 13th guys are playing very marginal minutes. You want to treat them as you would any player 1 through 11, when that’s simply not reality.
If you want to use the golf handicap analogy, it’s like you receive pops on 17 and 18 but the match ends after 16. They don’t really matter.
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.
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
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
