All things B1G players declaring for NBA and/or key players transfer thread

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row19gopher said:
One of the things I heard in Atlanta this past weekend is that McGary has academic issues, which may give him another reason to leave early... We can only hope he leaves early for whatever reason.
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Not surprising. Purdue recruited McGary pretty hard and was in good position until his grades started going downhill. That's why he went the prep school route. Purdue backed off and Michigan took on the risk - and it paid off for them.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
@BTNTomDienhart: Sandi Marcius has requested and been granted a release from his scholarship, Purdue head coach Matt Painter announced Thursday. Tough loss.
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Sandi Marcius (Mar-chooch) was almost talked into staying but decided to move on. He's graduating and can take advantage of the 5th year transfer rule. With A.J. Hammons getting the bulk of the minutes at the 5 - Marcius decided to move on to a program for more playing time. He's Croatian so he wants to showcase himself more for potential Euro contracts.

Jacob Lawson is also leaving Purdue. Not terribly surprising. His minutes were slashed big time with Hammons and Marcius playing well at the end of the season. With RS-Frosh Jay Simpson added to the mix next year he was the odd man out. Painter took a flyer on him to begin with because of his athleticism but Lawson tore his achilles at the end of his HS career and has never really been the same player.

Edit: Anthony Johnson is also leaving the Purdue program. This was a rumor earlier today but has now been confirmed.
 

Surprising how many transfers Purdue has among guys that actually played for them this year. I guess I can see Marcius wanting out to do his own thing since he can be eligible right away. But I don't really get the Johnson transfer, or Lawson leaving on the heels of the knowledge that Marcius is gone. Going to be tougher to turn things around next year in W. Laf than had been expected a month ago.
 

@BTNTomDienhart

#Purdue G Anthony Johnson has requested and been granted a release from his scholarship, the school announced. No shock.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Combes, I saw somewhere that Illinois was in on Josh Davis' (Tulane 5th-year PF). Is that accurate?
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I think so but not the favorite right now. If Illinois gets a visit, they could move up quickly. The thing I like about Groce is that he is a closer. Davis would change expectations at Illinois in a hurry. Imo
 


OSUfan said:
Surprising how many transfers Purdue has among guys that actually played for them this year. I guess I can see Marcius wanting out to do his own thing since he can be eligible right away. But I don't really get the Johnson transfer, or Lawson leaving on the heels of the knowledge that Marcius is gone. Going to be tougher to turn things around next year in W. Laf than had been expected a month ago.
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None of these 3 transfers is really a surprise. Rumors had been circulating for months that some players were unhappy or didn't fit the Matt Painter "mold". The guys who run the Purdue Rivals Premium site all but said (without mentioning names) these 3 were gone several weeks ago. The biggest loss of the 3 is Johnson due to his ability to score a little it. Lawson didn't contribute much and aside from a few decent games towards the end of the season - Marcius was little more than a warm body with 5 fouls to give down low. Painter lobbied with Marcius to stay but after he skipped the team banquet last week - it was pretty clear he was gone.

Purdue should still be OK and I think an NCAA Tournament team next year. They return a solid nucleus of Hammons, Terone Johnson, Ronnie Johnson, Raphy Davis, and RS-Frosh Jay Simpson. Like Pitino, Painter has some schollies to use on the free agent market so they could very well add a significant transfer or 2. Throw in a very nice in-coming recruiting class (3 top 150 players) and they should definitely be a top 6 Big Ten team given what everyone else is losing. Heck they were a top 7 team last year while rebuilding in a loaded conference.
 

Marquette's Vander Blue heading to NBA

In one of the more baffling, head-scratching decisions of the offseason, Marquette junior guard Vander Blue has opted to leave early for the NBA.

The 6-foot-4 wing had a terrific season for Buzz Williams and the Golden Eagles. There's no debating that. He averaged 14.8 points and helped lead Marquette to the Elite Eight. However, he'll likely be taken somewhere in the second round in June's NBA Draft -- or he might even fail to hear his name called altogether on June 27.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...2083950/marquettes-vander-blue-heading-to-nba

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Marquette's Vander Blue heading to NBA

In one of the more baffling, head-scratching decisions of the offseason, Marquette junior guard Vander Blue has opted to leave early for the NBA.

The 6-foot-4 wing had a terrific season for Buzz Williams and the Golden Eagles. There's no debating that. He averaged 14.8 points and helped lead Marquette to the Elite Eight. However, he'll likely be taken somewhere in the second round in June's NBA Draft -- or he might even fail to hear his name called altogether on June 27.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...2083950/marquettes-vander-blue-heading-to-nba

Go Gophers!!
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I don't really get what's so baffling about his decision. It says in the article he had a great season. Considering next year's draft is supposed to be better and the fact that it's tough to improve your stock dramatically when you're already a junior, I can't fault Blue for getting his career started.
 






Adreian Payne's decision is the single biggest one remaining among Big 10 players. If Payne stays, MSU is the clear Big Ten favorite and a legitimate national title contender. If he leaves, a crippling blow for Izzo. State would still be State, but can't see them as a national title threat wothout Payne. Sparty nowhere near the same without Payne's inside/outside presence. Would simply be too many unknowns in the frontcourt (Costello, Gauna, Kaminski, Schilling).
 

McGary and GRIII both returning per Jeff Goodman. Michigan will still be dangerous.
 




A lot can change in 10 days. I think on the 29th we'll know for sure who is coming back.. until then, just never know for sure.

Michigan adds some very good freshmen... can't imagine them (or anyone.. sheesh) performing as well as Beilein's 2012 class, but it's another good group.
 

Gopher Warrior said:
A lot can change in 10 days. I think on the 29th we'll know for sure who is coming back.. until then, just never know for sure.
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28th is the true deadline to declare or drop out (if no agent), correct? Yep, certainly some of these guys could still change their mind.
 

SelectionSunday said:
28th is the true deadline to declare or drop out (if no agent), correct? Yep, certainly some of these guys could still change their mind.
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Deadline to drop out has passed, but guys can jump in now up through late PM on the 28th... probably won't be much activity, but you never know.
 

I don't think MSU would be a true NC contender next year even if Payne stayed. UK has a lot more talent. UL is the defending champs, and if they bring Russ Smith back they are definitely ahead of MSU as well. I would also put Oklahoma State a notch ahead of MSU. I'd say most optimistically if Smith comes back MSU is a distant #3. They may make a deep tourney run, but you can make a deep run without being capable of winning it all.
 

OSUfan said:
I don't think MSU would be a true NC contender next year even if Payne stayed. UK has a lot more talent. UL is the defending champs, and if they bring Russ Smith back they are definitely ahead of MSU as well. I would also put Oklahoma State a notch ahead of MSU. I'd say most optimistically if Smith comes back MSU is a distant #3. They may make a deep tourney run, but you can make a deep run without being capable of winning it all.
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So basically what you're saying is there are only 2 leigitmate national title contenders next season, and only 1 if Russ Smith doesn't come back? Wow, that's pretty tough criteria you're using. Congratulations Coach Calipari on your second championship.
 

SelectionSunday said:
So basically what you're saying is there are only 2 leigitmate national title contenders next season, and only 1 if Russ Smith doesn't come back? Wow, that's pretty tough criteria you're using. Congratulations Coach Calipari on your second championship.
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Yeah, only two real serious contenders with an outside shot of 3 (OK St being the other potential challenger) that I can see at this point. But every year pretty much you see another team that in the preseason wasn't expected to contend to emerge to be a stiff challenger (at least) like Wichita St this year. Hard to say who that will be next year obviously but it's more likely than not that someone who was unranked in the preseason or barely ranked will rise up and be a lot better than expected by the end of the year.

This MSU team was a solid team but what did they really accomplish? They didn't win the B1G. They made the Sweet 16 - congrats, so did 15 other teams including La Salle, Oregon, and FGCU. Sparty wasn't really that close against a Duke team that was a good team but got dominated by Louisville. And they just lost their key big man Nix due to exhaustion of eligibility. MSU also got handled by Louisville in 2012, and that was when they had a better team than what they had in 2013. I think Derrick Nix was a big piece to the puzzle this year, one of their 3 or 4 best players no question, and I don't think they have a similarly talented replacement in the pipeline.

I don't think Izzo's recruiting has been very good lately as far as the supporting cast - you know he loves to play his bench and on some of his past great teams he's had a very deep and talented bench loaded with 4-star recruits. He doesn't have that at this point. The talent level on the bench at MSU has been fairly low over the past couple of seasons. And make no mistake, MSU is a team that needs to rely on its bench for production due to the physical style that they play and the fact that in the tourney games the refs tend to call a lot more tick tack fouls that aren't called in the regular season in the B1G. I've seen a lot of weak foul calls in the tourney, this past year a lot more than I expected, so if you're MSU and love to play physical basketball you will need a very good bench to withstand that and be a legit NC contender. And this is particularly true when you're a team like MSU that doesn't have a bunch of future NBA players in the starting lineup. I hope some of their players play a lot better and they surprise me and be an F4 team again, but I'm really not expecting it.
 


OSU, I think Selection's point was that any "distant #3" has to be a legitimate NC contender. If you only allow for one, then you're not really talking about "contending".
 

Well, I'm saying #3 is the most optimistic view on MSU, I'm not saying they're definitely going to be there in the end. Sometimes there is a team that just separates itself from everyone else like UNC in 2009 or UK in 2012, and there really isn't another legitimate contender. Not saying for sure that will be the case, but I just feel MSU doesn't have what it takes by a wide margin.
 




http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...nas-maurice-creek-will-graduate-then-transfer

Maurice Creek transferring out of Indiana. Graduating and will be eligible immediately. Buckyville saying it's a product of what they call "housecreaning." Indiana has an incoming class of 6 players, graduated 3 seniors (Hulls, Watford, Elston), and had 2 guys declare for the draft (Zeller, Oladipo), leaving them with only 5 scholarships for 6 incoming players, which I suppose would imply that Creek was forced out, I think something similar happened to Matt Roth.
 



OSUfan said:
Well, I'm saying #3 is the most optimistic view on MSU, I'm not saying they're definitely going to be there in the end. Sometimes there is a team that just separates itself from everyone else like UNC in 2009 or UK in 2012, and there really isn't another legitimate contender. Not saying for sure that will be the case, but I just feel MSU doesn't have what it takes by a wide margin.
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For a team that suffered a lot of injuries last year, Harris and Trice were injured. Dawson could not work on his game over the summer for rehabbing an ACL injury. Dawson lacked explosiveness the entire season. Appling was worn down by season's end and had tendinitis is his knees playing 39 to 40 minutes a game while Trice was injured. Payne, Harris and Appling were second team all B1G. They are all sure to move up to first team all B1G since nobody is returning that was first team last year. Last time I checked a team full of freshmen has not won a championship. As much talent as UK had last year, Jones, Lamb and Miller's senior leadership were the difference in that team. Izzo will have 2 seniors that have not gone to a F4. The last time that happened in 2009, Travis Walton willed that team to the F4 because he did not want to be the first 4 year player under Izzo to not go to a F4. I have a feeling Payne and Appling will be equally motivated.
 

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