What’s more important? NIT or Transfer Portal

What should be Ben’s priority?

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Otis

Otis

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Should Ben be concentrating on NIT success or recruiting his ass off to build up his roster?

Personally, I don’t give a damn about the NIT, unless some success there may bring us a chance at some transfers like the center who just left Oklahoma State.

We need bigs and wings, go get them Ben!
 


howeda7 said:
It's such a false choice. They will spend what, 2 hours practicing today. Another 3-4 hours preparing/playing a game tomorrow. Nothing precludes recruiting during the rest of that time.
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Gotta take care of the players you have too
 

Could it be that most guys are returning and there won't be extra scholarships available? Not saying that it won't happen.....but as far as I know.....all scholarships for next year are spoken for.

Also.....when teams turn down NIT bids.....I'm guessing that (most) coaches get input from the players. Johnson and Coyle have the final say.....but I'd guess that if the guys on the team weren't interested......they wouldn't be playing.
 

howeda7 said:
It's such a false choice. They will spend what, 2 hours practicing today. Another 3-4 hours preparing/playing a game tomorrow. Nothing precludes recruiting during the rest of that time.
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I don’t think you realize how much time coaches put into each game, watching film, strategizing, game planning.

I assume Ben doesn’t just roll the ball out there as you seem to feel.
 


Otis said:
I don’t think you realize how much time coaches put into each game, watching film, strategizing, game planning.

I assume Ben doesn’t just roll the ball out there as you seem to feel.
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It's one game and will be played within 48 hours. Are we really going to miss out on a portal recruit because Ben sent him one less text? This is not a criticism of Ben, but rather how pathetic schools like Indiana and Oklahoma are for ducking out to "focus" on recruiting. Half the teams in the NIT will be done with it by Wednesday night. It's pretty ridiculous the NCAA doesn't just push back the portal date until after the season.
 

howeda7 said:
It's one game and will be played within 48 hours. Are we really going to miss out on a portal recruit because Ben sent him one less text?
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Maybe, being first to offer is one of the few things we have to offer. It definitely makes a difference sometimes.

And there will be available scholarships!
 

Otis said:
Maybe, being first to offer is one of the few things we have to offer. It definitely makes a difference sometimes.

And there will be available scholarships!
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Do you think he's not making offers? If true, that's still on him. It's not like there's 1,000 kids he has to stay in contact with. And I seriously doubt someone's going to choose Oklahoma over MN because Porter Moser texted him 12 hours before Ben Johnson did. It will be about $$ and playing time.
 




Otis said:
Should Ben be concentrating on NIT success or recruiting his ass off to build up his roster?

Personally, I don’t give a damn about the NIT, unless some success there may bring us a chance at some transfers like the center who just left Oklahoma State.

We need bigs and wings, go get them Ben!
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This isn't really an either/or thing. If it was a one person show it would be but this is why you have assistant coaches and graduate assistants and other support staff members.

Takes delegating and time management but you can do both. Plus, there are a lot of players that won't even enter the portal until after the post season tournaments are done.

But to specifically answer your question on which is more important. The Portal and doing whatever possible to make the roster as strong as possible for the 24-25 season is far and away the most important thing this off season. Winning the NIT would be nice but that won't really move the needle much one way or the other.
 

howeda7 said:
Do you think he's not making offers? If true, that's still on him. It's not like there's 1,000 kids he has to stay in contact with. And I seriously doubt someone's going to choose Oklahoma over MN because Porter Moser texted him 12 hours before Ben Johnson did. It will be about $$ and playing time.
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I’m fairly certain in that case they wouldn’t take Ben’s call! Lol

I’m sure some staff member is paying attention to the portal flood.

And yeah, delaying the portal till the Elite Eight would seem like a good idea.
 

Pfft. The top players in the portal will be lining up irregardless of the NIT after the comments Izzo made last week.
 

Otis said:
Should Ben be concentrating on NIT success or recruiting his ass off to build up his roster?

Personally, I don’t give a damn about the NIT, unless some success there may bring us a chance at some transfers like the center who just left Oklahoma State.

We need bigs and wings, go get them Ben!
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It's not an either/or - you can do both of these well. Also, a lot easier to recruit the kids when you have a demonstrated step forward. And, your team wants to keep playing, and they'll be a lot better recruiters if you compete rather than shut them down.
 



stocker08 said:
Could it be that most guys are returning and there won't be extra scholarships available? Not saying that it won't happen.....but as far as I know.....all scholarships for next year are spoken for.
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I hope that's not the case. First of all, my guess is that Fox doesn't return next season because of comments he's made in recent interviews (didn't know if his knees could take it; he's feeling "schooled out" after all these years) so that would give one open scholarship if he decides not to return. I'm not going to name names but there are at least a couple of non-starters that I would trade for open scholarships.

In the last five games, while this team visibly was running out of gas, Johnson played bench players not named Fox or Carrington a grand total of 5 minutes and in at least one of those games Carrington wasn't available. Maybe JOJ's situation is health related. I've been supportive of the coach for this entire season but I'm getting really sick of seeing the lack of productivity from the bench year after year and that goes back to Pitino too.
 


I can't remember our roster grid, but do we technically have any scholarships to offer a transfer at this point? Wilson is out, we only used 12 last year, and we have 2 freshman coming in?

That said, I'm pretty convinced Fox at least will be gone, which is unfortunate but I get it.
 


Ski-U-Ham said:
I can't remember our roster grid, but do we technically have any scholarships to offer a transfer at this point? Wilson is out, we only used 12 last year, and we have 2 freshman coming in?

That said, I'm pretty convinced Fox at least will be gone, which is unfortunate but I get it.
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Technically we're full. But I'll be surprised if there are less than 4 of the 11 transferring/leaving early. Even if the starters all return you have Fox, JOJ, Ihnen, Betts and Keinys who are all ~50/50 or less to return IMO.
 

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