MisterGopher
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Developing players to return to power-conference teams
Here's the idea: Many high-major schools wind up with players that, for whatever reasons, aren't prepared to play at that level when they get there. (Sometimes, the player and the coaching staff only realize this after the fact.) Instead of sticking around for four years to develop, most of these players now leave after one season if things don't go the way they hoped.The self-aware guys who bounce typically transfer down to a level much more suited to their skill sets. And then, sometimes, those same players wind up working their way back to the high-major level at 20, 21 or 22 years old, when they're truly capable of making an impact. What if there was a way to avoid a lot of the uncertainty that comes with transferring and, instead, pragmatically track a potential path back to the high-majors?
That's exactly what Killings is proposing.
He wants down-transfers from bigger programs to come to UAlbany, with special favorable conditions attached for players: He'll develop them, help in their pursuit of a degree, and then after a year or two, send these players back to their initial high-major spot.
"We are speaking to coaches about identifying a player that, if he left the high-major ranks to come to Albany, a place with a recently renovated $16 million arena, to get the opportunity to develop through playing, this could present a partnership that could change college recruiting as we move into the post-House settlement area," Killings told CBS Sports. "The reason why this idea came about is become of my experience in the G League. During my time there, I watched a lot of players develop for the NBA. We're moving to a model like that in modern-day college basketball."
The obvious catch: The player would need to agree to this proposition, as would the power-conference coach, but it's a bold idea amid an unstable transfer ecosystem. Other programs — ones at the Atlantic 10, WCC and Mountain West level — could be fertile proving grounds for this experiment. It's not expected to work every time, but it could work some of the time. To Killings, it's a route worth taking — especially at this point, when solutions are hard to come by.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...-bold-idea-to-adapt-to-transfer-portal-chaos/
