All Things 2026 Transfer Portal Thread

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GophersInIowa said:
Sorry if this was already posted somewhere. Not surprising but now officially official.

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Guy has played 5 games in the last 3 years. We took him late in the process and he always felt like a gamble. I wonder if he had a new injury here, never healed up, or had some kind of behavior problem since it sounds like he left the team early in the season.

It piqued my interest that as a freshman at Loyola Marymount he attempted 131 3PT to only 12 2PT shots....and all 12 of his shots at Maryland were 3PT.

Good luck to him and his new team, if he finds one.
 













Per Toni Liebert, Chansey Willis is entering the portal. Sorry to see him go. Was hoping he would be part of next year's team. We are now down to 4 returnees (plus possibly Shinholster). Gonna need lots of portal help
 





Indiana Gopher said:
Per Toni Liebert, Chansey Willis is entering the portal. Sorry to see him go. Was hoping he would be part of next year's team. We are now down to 4 returnees (plus possibly Shinholster). Gonna need lots of portal help
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Obviously, Medved had regrets about some of the players he recruited last season. I assumed that Turner, Omot, and Stephens would be gone but Willis and Vaihola would remain. I can't say that it breaks my heart to lose any of them because the team played better without Willis and Vaihola in the lineup. It is going to take more time to assemble a team than I figured it would though.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
Obviously, Medved had regrets about some of the players he recruited last season. I assumed that Turner, Omot, and Stephens would be gone but Willis and Vaihola would remain. I can't say that it breaks my heart to lose any of them because the team played better without Willis and Vaihola in the lineup. It is going to take more time to assemble a team than I figured it would though.
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I’m not with your argument on the team being better when they were out of the lineup. They were still learning the system and the sample size is much too small to make a fair assessment of their value to the team. They were better, yes, but I’m not sure the correlation equals the causation here. I can count at least three losses that could have the other way if they had enough capable bodies. Those two would have provided that at least.

The argument that they can’t trust their health is more tenable a reason to let them go.
 

60's Guy said:
Every team has 12 to 15 guys...that ain't depth. We do not have a point guard on the roster. We don't have any perimeter defenders. Our front court is our deepest category. Let's take Iowa...new coach last year like Niko.
They finished 9th, we finished 11th.
We have 4 guys returning who played a lot...they have 5 guys returning who played in 37 games...a 6th waiting on a waiver ruling to play another year who also played 37 games. They have a RS freshman Trey Thompson in the program who has the ability to earn 37 game playing time with the same Koch, Sage, 40% shooting ability from 3. We got Durkin.

They lost Stirtz and Folgueiras, we lost Tyson and Reynolds...points per game are a wash.
So, Iowa has potentially 5 or 6 guys back who played in 37 games. The RS Fr with a year in the system. A 6-11 guy who played in 17 games. That's 7 or 8...we have 4...if we are talking depth.

None of our four guys would start for Iowa. Iowa finished 9th in the conference. We finished 11th on the backs of two guys who graduated. 6 other guys left the program.

To move up in the standings we have to join the 8 teams who finish top 10 in the standings pretty much every year....Michigan, Michigan St, Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin, UCLA, Ohio St, Indiana...USC, Oregon, Maryland traditionally are in the mix as is Iowa. These are not willing dropping in the standings so we can move up. They are used to being there. Nebraska was this year...do they stay?
Our tradition is the bottom the last 25 years. Niko is good but to get past 11th place we need at least 4 players better than the 4 we got to have a chance. Then we have depth.
Iowa will be better than 10th place next year. Niko is excellent BUT, we gotta have better players.
Iowa is just one team with returning players who will get better too. The starting line for the Gophers is behind the majority of Big Ten teams...Niko or no Niko.
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Take a gummy 🤠
 
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60's Guy said:
You gotta translate that for me....consensus says you evidently disagree but that's all i got....?
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Take a gummy 🤠 bro.

I don’t want to have to list the portal as one of your co-morbidities
 

Holy Man said:
I’m not with your argument on the team being better when they were out of the lineup. They were still learning the system and the sample size is much too small to make a fair assessment of their value to the team. They were better, yes, but I’m not sure the correlation equals the causation here. I can count at least three losses that could have the other way if they had enough capable bodies. Those two would have provided that at least.

The argument that they can’t trust their health is more tenable a reason to let them go.
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I agree with your last sentence and I agree the lack of depth hurt us. I didn't say those two players "caused" us to play poorly. I just said the team played better after their injuries. Maybe that's just a a result of team dynamics, increased familiarity with a smaller set of players, and players whose styles meshed well together.

It's quite possible that Niko didn't trust their health and he didn't want to live with that uncertainty after last season. But, maybe Niko saw something with that 7 (or 6) man lineup that he didn't quite see before and those two players didn't quite fit as well as before.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Take a gummy 🤠 bro.

I don’t want to have to list the portal as one of your co-morbidities
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After the last 25 years, I'd just like to see us finish Top 4 in the conference somewhat consistently.
It's an important time on the calendar and for a team that needs 6 or 7 new guys....what we waiting for? All the higher rated guys to choose somebody else to play for?
A lotta teams had at least their top guy lined up at least a month ago. Iowa State wins...they probably got less money than we do...they got 5,6 guys signed. Xavier has 3 very good players signed. Two examples doing it differently. That's all...just don't agree with our approach.
 

60's Guy said:
After the last 25 years, I'd just like to see us finish Top 4 in the conference somewhat consistently.
It's an important time on the calendar and for a team that needs 6 or 7 new guys....what we waiting for? All the higher rated guys to choose somebody else to play for?
A lotta teams had at least their top guy lined up at least a month ago. Iowa State wins...they probably got less money than we do...they got 5,6 guys signed. Xavier has 3 very good players signed. Two examples doing it differently. That's all...just don't agree with our approach.
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Nothing you said is incorrect in my opinion and neither is the fact that neither of us has any control over over the outcome.
 
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beavergopher said:
What's the reason he didn't sign with us?
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I don't remember the whole story, but I think he had played some AAU ball with someone who ended up committing to Louisville and he wanted to go play with him. He was already signed with us so we let him out of his NLI.
 
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(Bear with my football comments before getting to the funding) Actually, I don't think Indiana did us any favors, because I don't know if most alumni who have the money take the time to really look at the details of what it took for Indiana football to pull off what it did. If you just look at their high school football recruiting over the last several years, they are still behind Minn. However, their talent evaluation and commitment to the portal has been amazing. But do must alumni get all that? I say this because what the football team's efforts seem to have done is raise the boat for all at IU, as all of a sudden it seems like their basketball teams have money to spend.

Looking at the alumni numbers, we have 641,000 living U of M alumni, with 62% of those alumni living in Minnesota. In fiscal year 2024, alumni gave more than $218 million to the University, representing 40% of all donors and 56% of all giving. So, there's money, but evidently not much for the sports programs. It just seems like one of the programs needs to pull something spectacular off to pull the Alumni base out of its apathy for the sports programs. (There's a reason we have 2 new hockey coaches in a sport we should always be highly competitive in) Unfortunately, this money problem is kind of like a chicken or the egg issue. For a reference, Iowa State has 233,000 living alumni and seems to get stuff done with 1/3 of our numbers.
 



Ski-U-Ham said:
I don't remember the whole story, but I think he had played some AAU ball with someone who ended up committing to Louisville and he wanted to go play with him. He was already signed with us so we let him out of his NLI.
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Let's not forget good ol' Kool aid
 

60's Guy said:
Iowa will be better than 10th place next year.
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60's Guy said:
Iowa is just one team with returning players who will get better too.
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Will they? It absolutely depends on who they get to take the place of Bennett Stirtz.

I think you underestimate how much they will miss Bennett Stirtz. He was a first-team all-Big Ten player and a likely first round NBA pick. With Bennett Stirtz Iowa in 2026 was a very good version of the 2025 Drake Bulldogs. Without Bennett Stirtz, they will be a very, very mediocre or worse 2025 Drake Bulldogs if they don't replace him properly. Most of Iowa's returners are mid-major type guys. You have to remember Iowa was a come-from-behind win over Maryland in the Big Ten Tournament away from probably having a play-in game in Dayton in the NCAA Tourney. They were 3-7 in their last 10 games going into the tourney with a couple of bad losses. Not really a team overflowing with talented players. Good, well-coached team with a superstar PG, but not brimming with talent elsewhere.

Obviously, they are well-coached, but as you mentioned with Minnesota, Iowa will also need a big-time guy or two to be better in 2027 than they were in 2026.

They can pay someone to take Stirtz's spot because he was not cheap last year, but will that player really fill the void he leaves? It'll be tough.

I think it will be be harder for Iowa to fill the void left by Stirtz than the gap Tyson is leaving to fill at Minnesota. And, as you mentioned, Minnesota is starting a little further behind the starting line.
 
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tjgopher said:
Will they? It absolutely depends on who they get to take the place of Bennett Stirtz.

I think you underestimate how much they will miss Bennett Stirtz. He was a first-team all-Big Ten player and a likely first round NBA pick. With Bennett Stirtz Iowa in 2026 was a very good version of the 2025 Drake Bulldogs. Without Bennett Stirtz, they will be a very, very mediocre or worse 2025 Drake Bulldogs if they don't replace him properly. Most of Iowa's returners are mid-major type guys. You have to remember Iowa was a come-from-behind win over Maryland in the Big Ten Tournament away from probably having a play-in game in Dayton in the NCAA Tourney. They were 3-7 in their last 10 games going into the tourney with a couple of bad losses. Not really a team overflowing with talented players. Good, well-coached team with a superstar PG, but not brimming with talent elsewhere.

Obviously, they are well-coached, but as you mentioned with Minnesota, Iowa will also need a big-time guy or two to be better in 2027 than they were in 2026.

They can pay someone to take Stirtz's spot because he was not cheap last year, but will that player really fill the void he leaves? It'll be tough.

I think it will be be harder for Iowa to fill the void left by Stirtz than the gap Tyson is leaving to fill at Minnesota. And, as you mentioned, Minnesota is starting a little further behind the starting line.
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Iowa will be worse; regardless MN beat them head to head last year. They don’t have Michigan NIL. Acting like Minnesota can’t compete with Iowa basketball NIL is head scratching to say the least.
 

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